Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 14 December 2016

:: National ::

Centre to bear the cost of digital payments on PSUs

The Centre has decided to bear the burden imposed on public sector firms on account of the many dis-counts and incentives offered to promote digital payments.
The plan is to create a new expenditure head in the exchequer's accounts that will absorb the costs of such measures. Public sector insurers, oil-marketing firms and others will thus not take a hit on their books for the Centre's cashless push.
The government has offered many discounts on transaction charges and mer-chant discount rates that ac-company payments using cards or online.
Going forward, all government organisations, public sector under-takings and authorities have been advised to support digital payments, adopt payment-related solutions and absorb transaction fees through the ‘Pay Gov India'.
Most important, however, “all geographical areas across the country have been mapped with banks/bank mitras and ‘dark/grey spots' (where there are no banks or even banking cor-respondents) identified.
A non-tax receipt portal, bharakosh.gov.in, has been developed to enable users to make non-tax payments to the government for 237 categories including spectrum charges, RTI application fees, and purchase forms on-line, without going to either a bank or a government office.

All exemptions on old Rs. 500 ends on 14th

With all exemptions ending on 14th Dec, the use of old Rs. 500 banknotes will completely stop now.
They will no longer be accepted at government hospitals, pharmacies, government-run milk booths, crematoria, burial grounds and other places where they have been accepted as a special case.
Similarly, purchases at consumer cooperative stores (up to Rs. 5,000 as one-time payment), and for making payment for seeds from public sector outlets will not be permitted with the old Rs. 500 notes.
Other exemptions that will cease include: payment of government school fees up to Rs. 2,000 a student, fees for government colleges, court fees and pre-paid mobile top-ups up to Rs. 500 per top-up.
Payment for buying entry tickets to any monument maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India and for paying any fees, charges, taxes payable to the government along with utility payments will have to be made with new currency notes.
National highway toll plazas will stop accepting the old Rs. 500 notes for making payments above Rs. 200. The Centre had stopped the use of old Rs. 1,000 notes with effect from November 24.
The government had further discontinued the use of the old Rs. 500 notes at railway ticketing counters, ticket counters of government-run buses, for making payments for railway catering services, and for the purchase of suburban and metro rail tickets from December 10 onwards.
Over-the-counter exchange of old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes at bank and post office counters too have been stopped. Instead, old notes can only be deposited in bank accounts.

Parliamentary Standing committee on finance asked Urjit Patel to appear

The storm over de-monetisation is expected to continue unabated even after the winter session of Parliament, with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance asking RBI Governor Urjit Patel to appear before it on December 22.
The meeting is not likely to be smooth sailing for the Central bank Governor, as it is not only headed by former Union minister M. Veerappa Moily, but also has one of Mr Patel's predecessors in the RBI Governor's job — former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh as a member.
Members said questions to Mr. Patel would focus on the reasons for the decision, data on just how much black money has actually been wiped out of the system, and the maintenance of status quo as far as interest rates were concerned, despite liquidity flowing into the system.
Other members of the committee include former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindhia, Professor Saugato Roy of the Trinamool Con-gress, the Bahujan Samaj Party's Satish Chandra Mishra, and AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh.

:: International ::

Rex Tillerson to be next Secretary of State for U.S.

Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of petroleum multinational ExxonMobil, will be the U.S. Secretary of State under the incoming President Donald Trump.
The selection of Mr. Tiller-son, who has close ties with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, portends a significant deviation from the U.S. foreign policy.
The announcement came close on the heels of a dis-closure by the Central Intelligence Agency that the Russian government authorised cyberattacks on the U.S. in order to facilitate Mr. Trump's election.
Mr. Trump has ridiculed the claim, even as Congressional leaders of both parties called for an investigation.
The latest addition to it could set the Trump administration on a collision course with some Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress and the U.S. strategic policy establishment, all of who consider Russia inimical to the U.S. interests.
The Secretary of State requires confirmation by the Senate. Mr. Tillerson has never held any public office and little is known about his views on international affairs.
But the 64-year-old has developed ties with leaders of many countries in his 40-year career.
Under him, ExxonMobil turned around to accept that climate change is real, and it issued a statement in support of the Paris Climate Agreement. The company also favours a carbon tax now.

:: Business and Economy ::

CPI reached its lowest figures in two-years

Retail inflation eased significantly in November, with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) growing just 3.63 per cent, its slowest rate in two years, due to a sharp slowdown in food inflation.
Slowing since July Growth in the CPI was 4.2 per cent in October, and has been steadily slowing since July, when it was 6 per cent.
This was mostly due to food inflation, which registered its fourth consecutive month of slowdown, coming in at 2.56 per cent in November from eight per cent in July.
The Reserve Bank of India had, in its latest policy re-view, kept interest rates un-changed citing concerns over the possibility of firm-ing oil prices fuelling higher inflation.
However, this did not come to pass, with consumer inflation trending down-wards consistently, and economists predicting a rate cut in the next policy review in February.
While the demonetisation of high-value currency notes has hit consumption expenditure, core inflation has largely remained stable. The main effect of this will be felt over the rest of the quarter, according to economists.
The fall in retail inflation seems to be on the back of a favourable base effect coupled with some down-side due to the move to de-monetise. Core inflation has largely remained stable indicating no immediate impact from demonetisation.
November from seven per cent in October. Inflation in the clothing and footwear category slowed to five per cent in November from 5.24 per cent in October.
The fuel and light category saw inflation slowing marginally, at 2.8 per cent in November compared with 2.9 per cent in October. The housing segment, similarly, saw inflation slowing to 5.04 per cent from 5.15 per cent over the same period.
Overall, the (core inflation) number is likely to re-main below the RBI's threshold of 5 per cent for March 2017 in the coming months and should pave the way for another 25 bps cut in the coming months.

Govt is looking to amend IT act to improve cyber security

The government is mulling a review of the more than 15-year-old Information Technology (IT), Act to strengthen cybersecurity infrastructure, following the push for digital payments post-demonetisation.
The IT Act came out in 2000. Since then, it has by and large served us well. Now, as we move towards a digital economy, we are re-viewing if there is a need to re-look at the IT Act architecture to make it more of a deterrent for cyber criminals.
A “closed group”, under IT Secretary Aruna Sundarajan, has been set up to look into various aspects of the Act in line with the changing times.
The Ministry of Electron-ics and IT (MeitY), which will soon issue advisories to all digital payment agencies including banks and e-wallets providers “to harden security walls”.
It has also set up a separate ‘digital payments' division under Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT -In) — its cyber security arm — to monitor and strengthen cashless transactions.
To strengthen cyber security, the IT ministry had recently approved 26 new posts in CERT–In and five State CERTs. The Minister also met senior representatives of the RBI as well as public and private sector banks, and NPCI.
While asking banks to incentivise digital payments and transactions, Mr. Prasad said, to address concerns of cyber security, the IT ministry would soon con-duct a security drill both for the banks and NPCI.

CEPA and IBSA fund to get priority during IBSA meet

The proposal for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the two separate customs unions– MERCOSUR and SACU – to boost trade and investment ties, is set to get a leg up with New Delhi likely to accord it priority at the forthcoming IBSA Summit.
Also topping the agenda at the sixth IBSA Summit – likely to be held in India in mid-2017 – would be the three IBSA members enhancing contribution to the ‘IBSA Fund' to support more developmental projects across the world.
The summit could also see the three major emerging market economies strengthening trilateral cooperation on renewable energy projects.
On trade, India has a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with MERCOSUR (a trading bloc and customs union of Latin American nations, including Brazil) and both the sides are looking to expand its coverage.
India is also negotiating a PTA with Southern African Customs Union (SACU) that includes South Africa — though only five rounds of negotiations had been held so far, with the fifth round having been held back in October 2010.
A PTA between MERCOSUR and SACU had become operational from April this year.
Intra-IBSA trade (export and import) in 2012 was about $50.5 billion, which was only 3.4 per cent of their total trade with the rest of the world. Though the CEPA proposal was mooted in 2007, talks on it have not yet taken of.
IBSA Fund On the IBSA Fund, the three IBSA member-nations had in March 2005 agreed that each of them will pitch in with an annual contribution of $1 million to the Fund.
Though operational from 2006, the Fund had received contributions of only about $18 million, sources said, adding that the aim was to enhance it soon to $40 mil-lion to assist 25 projects every year, especially in least developed countries.
The Fund, managed by the UN office for South-South cooperation in the UN Development Programme (UNDP), is however sector-and region-agnostic.