Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 22 February 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Govt decided to give other backward class status to Jats

The Jat agitation in Haryana claimed one more life, taking the death toll to 11, as the State remained on edge even as the government decided to bring a Bill to grant other backward class (OBC) status to Jats.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Home Minister, the National Security Adviser, the Army chief and the Delhi Police Commissioner with Jat leaders.
BJP leader, told reporters that the Jat community would get reservation in jobs, and a Billwould be brought in the next session of the Haryana Assembly.
Fresh incidents of violence and arson were reported in the State as the agitation enteredthe ninth day. Rohtak, Bhiwani, Jhajjar, Jind, Hisar, Hansi, Sonipat and Gohana continue to be under curfew.

Integrated Child Health Record will map child’s health records digital

With India’s first ever digital platform, Integrated Child Health Record (ICHR), you can now have your child’s health records made available at the click of a button.
Supported by cloud computing and mobile technology, ICHR offers to map a child’s health and track vaccination.
ICHR is supported by a mobile application to address the pressing concern of parents who are keen to track their child’s growth and vaccination.
The mobile interface will be available for both an- droid and iOS users.
ICHR provides and auto- mates long-term surveillance of a child’s growth.
It also offers benefits including helping in early detection of obesity and malnutrition in urban and rural population respectively.
It also addresses the dire need of maintaining the data centrally for research purposes.

Rurban mission launched by PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that he has successfully brought the government to the people of the country from the corridors of New Delhi.
Launching ‘Rurban Mission’ in Dongargad, a town in Rajnandgaon district, he said: “Previous governments had the habit of doing everything by sitting in Delhi. They would invite 200 to 400 people to the Vigyan Bhavan in Delhi and light some candles [at the launch of pro- grammes]. Some media friends also used to help them. But I have brought the government out of Delhi and among the people.”
His government is for the Dalits, the tribals and the poor, Mr. Modi said.
Praising Kovarbai, a 104- year-old woman from the State, for selling her goats to build a toilet in her home, Mr. Modi called her a “symbol of new development.”

Unemployment rate stable in rural areas

The unemployment rate in urban areas reduced from 4.5 per cent in 2004-05 to 3.4 per cent in 2011-12, new data from the National Sample Survey office show.
In rural areas, the rate has been stable at around 1.7 per cent during this period.
According to the survey, which was conducted in 2011- 12 and released, the unemployment rate across all the religious groups in rural areas was on the lower side than those in urban areas for both males and females.
Un- employment rate is defined as the number of persons unemployed as a proportion of the labour force (persons who are either ‘working’ or ‘seeking or available for work’), not the total population.
Christians have the highest rate of unemployment in both rural (4.5 per cent) and urban (5.9 per cent) areas in 2011-12.
The rate in urban areas for Christians stood at 8.6 per cent in 2004-05 while the rural rate stays constant.
Self-employment is the major source of income for almost half the households, across all religious groups, in rural areas, followed by casual labour.
In urban areas, the proportion of households deriving major income from regular wage or salary earnings is the highest.
Half the Muslim households in urban areas have self-employment as major source of income, the highest among all religions, while regular wage or salary earnings was the highest for Christians with 45.8 per cent households.

:: INTERNATIONAL::

Provisional deal on Syria ceasefire reached

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday said that a “provisional agreement” has been reached on a cease-fire that could begin in the next few days in Syria’s five-year civil war.
Mr. Kerry declined to go into the details of the agreement, saying it “is not yet done.” But he said he hoped President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin would talk soon and that after that, implementation could begin.
Fighting has intensified in Syria during recent weeks and an earlier deadline to cease military activities was not observed.
The United States, Russia and other world powers agreed on Feb 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva.
UN envoy Stafan De Mistura halted the latest Syria talks on February 3, because of major differences between the two sides, exacerbated by increased aerial bombings and a wide military offensiveby Syrian troops and their allies under the cover of Russian air strikes.
The humanitarian situation has only gotten worse, with an estimated 13.5 million Syrians in need of aid, including 6 million children.

Shooting came back to haunt U.S.

A man suspected of randomly opening fire in a Michigan town and shooting dead at least seven people, including a teenager, was arrested.
There were three separate shootings — one outside an apartment complex, another out- side a car dealership, and the third at a chain restaurant.
One of the five people shot at the restaurant was a teenage girl — not a child as initially reported — while a father and son were among the dead at the car dealership.
The suspect was armed when he was arrested at a traffic stop, but surrendered peacefully
The suspect was describedas a white male in his late 50s, who drove a blue station wagon.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

Commerce Ministry is assessing the impact of China

India’s Commerce Ministry is assessing the implications of the likelihood of China being granted “Market Economy Status” (MES) from December this year under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms.
This comes against the backdrop of instances of India's manufacturers in steel, chemicals, electrical and electronics sectors being “severely hurt” by “unfairly low-priced” imports from China, and the extensive usage of anti-dumping duty by India to offset the losses caused to the local manufacturers due to dumping.
Of the 535 cases where anti- dumping duties were imposed by India from 1994- 2014, a maximum of 134 has been on goods from China.
Beijing has cited the 2001 agreement on China joining the WTO to say that WTO- member countries had then decided to deem China as a 'market economy' from December 2016 while adjudicating anti-dumping cases.
As per the 2001 agreement (Protocol on the accession of China to the WTO), in calculating the 'normal value' of the exported goods while adjudicating anti-dumping cases, the WTO member nations could for 15 years ignore selling price and production costs in China.
Once China is granted MES, it will severely limit India's ability to resort to anti- dumping as the authorities (DGAD) will have to accept the production costs and sell- ing price in China as the benchmark, the sources said.
They added that it will in turn mean lesser chances of anti- dumping duties being imposed or lesser anti-dumping duties even if they are imposed.

Adequacy of foreign exchange reserves and currency turmoil

The upbeat mood was pervasive, and even infectious. A radiant smile, expanding into a wide grin was common on the faces of government and RBI officials about 10 years ago when conversations would gravitate towards the topic of foreign exchange reserves.
Successive years of high and increasing positive overall balance of payments, occasioned by large portfolio capital inflows and RBI’s continuous buying of U.S. dollars from the local forex market resulted in a very rapid rise in foreign exchange reserves from about $60 billion in 2002 to a little over $160 billion by mid-2006.
Some were quick to conclude that the reserves then were much in excess of what was needed to ensure an orderly forex market and for external stability and blamed RBI for running a faulty forex market intervention policy.
There were still others who saw in this an opportunity to hive of the ‘excess reserves’ for setting up a sovereign wealth fund, on the lines of China, Russia etc.
A few fortune-seekers offered to leverage their relationships and influence to the benefit of asset managers of the world eager to get a slice of the reserves for fee-based discretionary management and RBI seemed willing to play ball.
A comparison with China here is instructive in many respects. A similar computation leads to a range of $3 – $4.5 trillion. The current level of reserves at $3.23 trillion constitutes about 110 per cent of the lower bound.
But there is a catch here. About one third of China's reserves are believed to be locked in illi- quid assets such as investments in infrastructure.
Even after making allowance for the possibility of overestimation inthis regard, the usable reserves of China likely lie in the range of $2.8 – $3 trillion.
This, coupled with the fact that the re- serves are falling rapidly there explain why both residents and non-residents alike see the yuan much lower.
They are either taking out capital from China at a ferocious pace or betting hard against the yuan at offshore locations.