Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 19 September 2016

:: National ::

PM and Home Minister terms terrorist attack in Uri as cowardly

Prime Minister Narendra Modi termed terrorist strike on the Army unit in Uri a “cowardly terror attack.”
“I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished,” he tweeted.
Hours after the attack, Home Minister Rajnath Singh blamed Pakistan and called it a “terrorist state” which should be “identified and isolated.”
Mr. Singh, who postponed his Russia and U.S. trips in the wake of the attack, also apprised the PM of the two-hour-long security review meeting at his residence.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said the supreme sacrifice of 17 brave soldiers, who were martyred in the deadly Uri attack will not go in vain as he instructed the Army to take firm action against those responsible.
Mr Parrikar also visited the injured soldiers at the hospital in Srinagar and instructed the authorities to provide best possible treatment.
Defence sources said that 3-5 soldiers have also been airlifted to the Army Research and Referral Hospital.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the attack was aimed at “triggering fresh violence and creating a war-like situation in the region.”

Experts say India has wide range of options against Pakistan

India has a wide range of options for a “measured and effective” response to the attack in Uri, veteran diplomats and experts said.
They said India was left with no option but to retaliate, heightening the possibility of an imminent escalation of violence.
“Pakistan is isolated within SAARC, as three members of the regional group have accused it of sponsoring terrorism.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh and India have accused Islamabad of sponsoring terrorism that ISI continues to generate, irrespective of the condition of the bilateral ties with India.
Such attacks take place irrespective of the ties being temporarily good or continuously bad. A response therefore has to be forcefully enunciated,” said G. Parthasarathy, former High Commissioner of India to Pakistan.
The attack in Uri, close to the Line of Control (LoC), revived memories of the Kaluchak attack of 2002 which claimed at least 31 lives. Mr. Parthasarathy said the government could consider a mix of diplomatic and multilateral response.
Diplomats said a major challenge in crafting a suitable response to Pakistan was its ability to use its nuclear umbrella as a shield for unconventional warfare with India.
Former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal said the Indian defence establishment should introspect about how the militants succeeded in attacking the base eight months after the Pathankot air base attack.
India will, however, have to watch out, Dr. Stobdan said, for the presence of Chinese nationals in PoK who are employed to build the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The attack in Uri has come as Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif left for the annual meeting of the heads of governments at the U.N. General Assembly, where India and Pakistan are likely to counter each other on the terror issue.
During the 33rd session of the UNHRC, India had accused Pakistan of being the “global epicentre of terrorism.”

Niti aayog oppose to the idea of special category status

The Centre was almost prepared to grant the Special Category Status (SCS) to Andhra Pradesh but two factors dissuaded it from going ahead — clamour from nine more States for the same tag and NITI Aayog ruling out the possibility.
Granting SCS to AP would have taken the sting out of Opposition criticism and earned the NDA, including TDP, a lot of goodwill from the people of the State.
The Minister asserted that the class of SCS would cease to exist going by the Commission report.
Quoting from its report, he said it took into account disabilities arising out of constraints unique to each state to arrive at expenditure needs and recommended filling of resource gaps mainly through increased tax devolution.
Where devolution was not able to cover the assessed gap, it had recommended post-devolution grants for revenue deficit and the Centre has agreed to take that responsibility in the case of AP spread over five years.

:: International ::

Islamic State (IS) loses territory in Iraq and Syria

As the Islamic State (IS) loses territory in Iraq and Syria, U.S. and other Western officials say they are bracing for large numbers of battle-tested terrorist fighters to flee the conflict and prepare attacks after returning home.
Even top IS leaders acknowledge the inevitable collapse of their declared caliphate, and they appear to be shifting to a new strategy that threatens Europe on multiple fronts: with cells developed in Europe over the past two years, with returning fighters, and with followers who heed the IS’s call to carry out attacks.
Many of the attacks conducted in Western Europe and the U.S. over the past six months underline the reality that returning fighters would be just one element in the IS’s larger strategy to remain relevant after losing territorial control.
Battles to seize Raqqa and Mosul could be well under way within the next two or three months, flushing out thousands of foreign fighters and forcing them to make hard choices.

:: Business and Economy ::

India's current account moved in to surplus in the April-June quarter

India's current account moved in to surplus in the April-June quarter of the current fiscal year, after a gap of 9 years, a senior Finance Ministry official confirmed.
Slow growth in imports, reflecting the persisting weakness in investment sentiment, tipped the account, he explained. The current account was in surplus last in the January-March quarter in the year 2007.
The official data for the current account position during the April-June quarter is scheduled for release by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) later this month.
A surplus is expected to bolster the rupee, which could render India's already subdued exports less competitive.
Exports to the U.S., India's largest export destination, fell 1.1 per cent in April-July 2016 against the corresponding quarter in the previous year. In the same period, imports from China, the largest exporter to India, fell 7.4 per cent.
The report projected a broadly balanced current account in the July-September quarter. The forecast follows the release of the August trade data.
Remaining almost unchanged in the last three months, India's trade deficit reached $7.7 billion in August, significantly lower than the average monthly trade deficit of $9.9 billion seen in the last fiscal year.
A current account in deficit reflects that the imports of goods, services and investment incomes into the economy outstripped the value of its exports.

The factory inspection system needs a complete overhaul says CII

The factory inspection system needs a complete overhaul to bring India among the top 50 countries in terms of ‘ease of doing business’ in the next two years, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
India is currently placed at 130 out of 189 countries in the ‘ease of doing business’ rankings.
The white paper noted that a manufacturing company in India has to comply with around 70 laws and regulations. Most of the inspections conducted are related to environment or labour law compliances.
Apart from multiple inspections, a company has to file around 100 returns every year, it said.
CII has also observed variations in inspections conducted on small factories across the country.
CII called for an integrated inspection system and highlighted the “need for inculcating a risk-based approach in the inspection system which will rationalise the number of inspections and weed out the redundancy and duplicity.”
It said a portal could be created for automatically updating invoices related to excise, sales tax, customs and the like by SMEs and that this could be used by regulators and inspectors in lieu of physically visiting the factory premises.
It also urged the central government to encourage the states to pursue a process for simplification of labour laws and compliance.