Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

16 July, 2014

China’s Xi invites Modi to visit, calls for ‘early’ border settlement

• In Fortaleza to attend the BRICS Summit, Mr. Modi and Mr. Xi met for 80 minutes – extending beyond the scheduled 40 minutes.

• China’s President Xi Jinping on Tuesday invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit China in November and called for a “negotiated resolution” to the boundary dispute “at an early date”.

• China had invited Mr. Modi to attend the APEC leaders’ meeting in Beijing in November. However, with scheduled SAARC and G20 meetings that same month, the visit may take place at a later date.

• Mr. Xi called for a “negotiated solution to the border issues at an early date”

• Prime Minister Modi said that maintaining peace and tranquility on the border was essential for resolving the issue and India is willing to peacefully settle the boundary issue through exisiting mechanisms and friendly negotiations.

• The Prime Minister also referred to India and China’s common civilisational heritage, and links through Buddhism, and called for both countries to do more together to tackle their common challenge of fighting terrorism.

• The Chinese President said he wanted both countries to launch “a batch of exemplary projects” in infrastructure, such as railway construction, to enable more balanced and sustainable trade. The rising trade deficit in China’s favour, reaching $ 29 billion last year, was raised by Mr. Modi.

• Mr. Xi also said China welcomed India to join its initiative to set up a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a founding member, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Environmentalist Chandi Prasad gets Gandhi Peace Prize

• Environmentalist and social activist Chandi Prasad Bhatt was presented the Gandhi Peace Prize by President Pranab Mukherjee.

• Mr. Bhatt is a dedicated, tireless and invaluable worker for the conservation of the environment, the Chipko movement started by him in 1973 followed the method of peaceful and non-violent Satyagraha for the redressal of the legitimate rights of the hill people to collect wood and fodder and saving them from natural calamities owing to large-scale deforestation.

• A Gandhian and a member of the Sarvodaya movement, Mr. Bhatt organised the Dashauli Gram Swarajya Sangh in 1964. He dedicated himself through the Sangh to improve the lives of villagers, providing employment near their homes in forest-based industries, and fighting against wrong policies through Gandhian non-violent satyagraha.

RBI eases reserve norms for banks issuing infra bonds

• The Reserve Bank of India, in order to encourage infrastructure development and affordable housing, exempted long-term bonds from the mandatory regulatory norms such as the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) and Priority Sector Lending (PSL) if the money raised is used for funding of such projects.

• The objective of these instructions is to mitigate the Asset-Liability Management (ALM) problems faced by banks in extending project loans to infrastructure and core industries sectors, and also to ease the raising of long term resources for project loans to infrastructure and affordable housing sectors

• The RBI said that apart from what is technically defined as infrastructure, affordable housing is another segment of the economy which requires long-term funding.

• India is looking at investing $1 trillion in infrastructure development by 2017, half of which is expected to come from the private sector.

• Finance Minister during budget speech also said that banks will be encouraged to extend long term loans to infrastructure sector with flexible structuring to absorb potential adverse contingencies, sometimes known as the 5/25 structure.

• Under the 5/25 structure, bank may fix longer amortisation period for loans to projects in infrastructure and core industries sectors, say 25 years, with periodic refinancing, say every five years. This ensures that banks Asset and Liability is properly managed.

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