Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 17 January 2017

:: National ::

GST council arrived at concensus over administrative control over tax payers

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council arrived at a consensus on contentious issues such as administrative control over tax payers in the new indirect tax regime.
It paved the way for GST to be introduced this year, although three months after the Centre’s original rollout deadline of April 1, 2017.
Another area of contention between the Centre and the States was the issue of who would get to collect tax on the economic activities taking place in Indian territorial waters. This issue has also been smoothened out.
The Council will now meet on February 18 and approve the legislations that need to be cleared by Parliament and it is expected that those would be passed and ratified during the Budget session.
As per the formula for dual control of assessees, 90 per cent of those with a GST turnover of Rs. 1.5 crore or less will be assessed for the purposes of scrutiny and audit by the States, and 10 per cent by the admin machinery of the Centre.
“Those above a turnover of Rs. 1.5 crore would be assessed in the ratio of 50:50 between the Centre and the States,” the Finance Minister said.

Environment Ministry tasked a SC-appointed panel for pollution control

Concerned over the deteriorating air quality in Delhi and the NCR, the Environment Ministry has amended laws and formally tasked a Supreme Court-appointed panel with implementing a graded action plan for pollution control.
The comprehensive plan, prepared by the CPCB, focussing on Delhi was submitted to the Supreme Court on December 2. The court had accepted the plan and asked the Centre to notify it.
Once the plan is notified, measures like odd-even car rationing scheme and ban on construction activities will be enforced if level of PM 2.5 breaches 300 micrograms per cubic metre and PM 10 levels stay above 500 micrograms per cubic metre for two consecutive days.

RBI raised the daily cash withdrawal limits from ATMs to Rs. 10,000

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the daily cash withdrawal limits from automated teller machines (ATMs)to Rs. 10,000 from the existing Rs. 4,500, with immediate effect.
However, the weekly cash withdrawal limit remains unchanged at Rs. 24,000. The RBI also hiked the limit on withdrawals from current accounts to Rs. 1,00,000 per week from Rs. 50,000.
This limit is also applicable to overdraft and cash credit accounts.
Following the withdrawal of high-value currency notes that came into effect from November 9, cash withdrawals from ATMs were capped at Rs. 2,000 per day before being increased to Rs. 4,500 from January 1.
There are about two lakh ATMs in the country. Bankers said most of them had been recalibrated to read the new Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 500 notes as these are of different sizes compared to the notes that were withdrawn.

CSIR is in the process of setting up an innovation fund

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is in the process of setting up an innovation fund, worth Rs. 400-500 crore, to invest in early stage startups and prod innovation.
The 75-year-old organisation is India’s largest patentee and publisher of research papers.
It is grappling with a crisis of trying to generate more revenues from its portfolio of inventions as well encourage its staff scientists to become entrepreneurs and start companies of their own.
Issues on how CSIR ought to be fairly compensated and the optimal use of its resources, such as students, lab facilities, were still a work in progress.
In the way the scheme is now envisaged, CSIR will have professionals from outside to manage the funds.
Plans of an innovation fund come even as CSIR has been asked, last year, to aim to self-generate half of its budget.
To that end, the organisation has also identified a suite of technologies that can be brought to market relatively quickly.

:: International ::

Trump says NATO has become absolete

NATO is “obsolete”, Germany’s Angela Merkel made a “catastrophic mistake” on refugees, Brexit will be “great” and the U.S. could cut a deal with Russia: Donald Trump unleashed a volley in interviews with European media.
Five days before his inauguration as the 45th President of the U.S., the billionaire leader let loose a torrent of controversial comments about European allies.
He extended a hand to Russia, which has been hit by a string of sanctions under his predecessor Barack Obama over Moscow’s involvement in Ukraine, the Syrian war and for alleged cyberattacks to influence the U.S. election.
The President-elect suggested a deal in which nuclear arsenals would be reduced and sanctions against Moscow would be eased, but gave no details.
Washington’s European allies imposed sanctions against Russia over Ukraine in 2014. Those measures were renewed on December 19.
In comments set to cause further consternation among eastern European NATO countries nervous about Moscow following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and involvement in Ukraine, Mr. Trump said NATO was “obsolete”.
“Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. Number two, the countries aren’t paying what they’re supposed to pay.”
In other remarks, Mr. Trump said Brexit “is going to end up as a great thing” and said he backed a trade deal with post-EU Britain, which would be “good for both sides”.
“Other countries will leave” the European Union in future, Mr. Trump prophesied, largely due to the pressure the bloc was put under following a significant rise in migrants and refugees arriving.
Mr. Trump also criticised Ms. Merkel for letting Germany admit undocumented migrants enter the country, insinuating that this posed a security risk.
In response to Mr. Trump’s comments, Chancellor Merkel said Europe now had to take responsibility for itself.

:: Business and Economy ::

Inequality in India on te rise

In signs of rising income inequality, India’s richest 1% now hold a huge 58% of the country’s total wealth – higher than the global figure of about 50%, a new study showed.
The study, released by rights group Oxfam showed that just 57 billionaires in India now have same wealth ($216 billion) as that of the bottom 70% population of the country.
Globally, just 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 % of the world population.
84 billionaires in India with a collective wealth of $248 billion, led by Mukesh Ambani ($19.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi ($16.7 billion) and Azim Premji ($15 billion). The total Indian wealth in the country stood at $ 3.1 trillion.
The total global wealth in the year was $ 255.7 trillion of which about $ 6.5 trillion was held by billionaires, led by Bill Gates ($75 billion), Amancio Ortega ($67 billion) and Warren Buffett($60.8 billion).
In the report titled ‘An economy for the 99%,’ Oxfam said it is time to build a human economy that benefits everyone not just the privileged few. It said that since 2015, the richest 1 % has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet.
The richest 10% of the population in China, Indonesia, Laos, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have seen their share of income increase by more than 15%. While, the poorest 10% have seen their share of income fall by more than 15%.
The study said India suffers from huge gender pay gap and has among the worst levels of gender wage disparity – men earning more than women in similar jobs – with the gap exceeding 30%.
In India, women form 60% of the lowest paid wage labour but only 15% of the highest wage–earners.
It means that in India women are not only poorly represented in the top bracket of wage–earners, but also experience wide gender pay gap at the bottom.

CPI is likely to soften to 4.5% in 2017

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is likely to soften to 4.5% in 2017 from 4.9% in 2016, rating agency ICRA said in a report.
Key factors that will dominate retail inflation in 2017 include monsoon dynamics, the impact of the GST on prices, commodity price movements, and the rupee – U.S. dollar exchange rate, said Moody’s Investors Service.
Monetary Policy Committee’s Dec 2016 meeting revealed a renewed emphasis by some members on achieving the mid-point, or 4%, of the inflation target range of 2%-6%.
The room for incremental repo rate cuts will prove limited, at 25 basis points over the next six months.
Moody’s explained that the implementation of the pending GST and other measures aimed at enhancing income declaration and tax collection will help widen India’s tax base and boost revenues.
As a result, the general government deficit will remain sizeable, and any reduction in India’s government debt burden will largely rely on robust nominal Gross Domestic Product(GDP) growth.
Moody’s expected that India’s debt-to-GDP will hover around the current levels (at 68.6 per cent in 2015) before falling gradually, as nominal GDP growth is sustained and revenue-broadening and expenditure efficiency-enhancing measures take effect.
On the fiscal front, Moody’s said that the government would likely remain committed to achieving its fiscal deficit target of 3.5% of GDP for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017.
However, room to reduce the deficit further to the target of 3% of the GDP in the following year will be limited, due to the need for increased infrastructure spending and higher government salaries.

Govt likely to come out with incentives including tax-related ones for start-ups

Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman hinted that the government was likely to come out with incentives including tax-related ones for start-ups in the upcoming Union Budget.
A suggestion to exempt start-ups from the minimum alternate tax had also been forwarded to the Finance Ministry, she said, adding that the government was looking to do away with the legislative hurdles faced by start-ups.
The Centre is also roping in States and local authorities to look into issues relating to local taxes and other problems that trouble start-ups.
DIPP will hold a meeting with the RBI, banks, SIDBI and venture capital funds to discuss the hurdles on start-up funding. DIPP Secretary said while many States were bringing in policies to boost start-ups, they needed to do more.
Several top companies had been asked to use their corporate social responsibility funds to help start-ups. States were looking to ease labour and environment norms for start-ups.

Demonetisation move could dampen India’s growth by 1% says IMF

Demonetisation move could dampen India’s growth by one percentage point in the current fiscal year and 0.4 percentage point the next year, compared with its earlier projections, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said.
The IMF now expects India to record a growth of 6.6% for the current year, and 7.2% next year. Earlier, the IMF had projected 7.6% growth for this year and the next.
According to the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) update, there is marginal upward shift in prospects for the U.S. and China until 2018, but India, Brazil, and Mexico have had their projections revised downwards.
Other Asian countries such as Thailand and Indonesia will also face headwinds in the medium term, while stimulus policies expected and already underway in the U.S. and China will hold the world economy from further slowdown.
The IMF said. “Global growth for 2016 is now estimated at 3.1%, in line with the October 2016 forecast,” according to the report.
According to the IMF, the revised estimate for India’s growth in 2016-17 is 6.6% as against 7.6% in 2015-16. In earlier estimates, IMF had expected India to sustain its 2015-16 growth rate in 2016-17 too.
For next year, the IMF has projected a growth rate of 7.2% as against its previous forecast of 7.6%. In 2018-19, the Indian economy should be growing at 7.7%, as estimated earlier.
For China, the growth forecast for 2017 was revised upwards, to 6.5%, 0.3 percentage point above the October forecast. In 2018, China’s growth rate is projected to be 6% against India’s 7.7%.