Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 27 February 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Survey calls for reforms and welfare schemes

Shunning last year’s “over-optimism”, Economic Survey 2015-16 projects that the real GDP growth for the current financial year and for 2016-17 will be in the range of 7-7.75 per cent.
The Central Statistics office estimates that growth this year will be 7.6 per cent, lower than the 8.1- 8.5 per cent projected in the last Survey.
There is anxiety that the economy is not realising its full growth potential, which in the long run is still around 8-10 per cent, says the survey.
Improved investments in education and health, where India fares the worst among BRICS nations, the survey says, and adequate attentionto agriculture could realise the potential.
The medium-term potential can be realised over the next two to five years, if the “retrievable setbacks” andthe “unfinished agenda” are undertaken.
In the unfinished agenda, he listed the Goods and Services Tax, strategic disinvestment, de-stressing of the balance sheet of both banks and private companies, and the rationalisation of subsidies.
Stretched corporateand bank balance sheets are affecting prospects for reviving private investments, and so the underlying stressed assets must be sold or rehabilitated.
The survey makes a case for unpopular reforms, such as bringing agricultural incomes in the tax net, rationalisation of fertiliser subsidies estimated at Rs. 75,000 crore (excluding arrears) and the withdrawal of tax benefits which, he argued, benefit mainly the rich.

President called for revision of Indian penal code

President Pranab Mukherjee has called for a “thorough revision” of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for meet- ing the “changing needs of the 21st century.”
Mr. Mukherjee pointed out that “the IPC has undergone very few changes in the last 155 years. Very few crimes have been added to the initial list and declared punishable.”
Even now, here are offences in the code which were en- acted by the British to meet their colonial needs.
Mr. Mukeherjee said the century “witnessed the proliferation of technology in wider spaces of human interaction and transaction.
It has resulted in greater conveniences but, at the same time, has led to the occurrences of newer types of offences.”

Survey says private sector help necessary to tackle climate change

The Economic Survey finds that India will find it hard to meet its variety of obligations to tackle climate change without substantial help from the private sector.
Successful implementation of the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ambitious targets set out in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) will require huge financial resources which cannot be met through budgetary sources alone.
Leveraging private finance along with public fi- nance, both international and national, will be critical.
The SDGs set by the United Nations last September lay the onus on countries to make significant progress on a wide range of goals including end- ing poverty and hunger and combating climate change.
The INDCs are plans by governments communicated to the United Nations climate change council regarding the steps they will take to address climate change domestically.
As part of its domestic climate commitments, India has said it would source nearly 60,000MW of its energy by wind- power and 1,00,000 MW mega- watts via solar power by 2022.
The latter is extremely ambitious considering that as of to- day only 5% of this proposed solar capacity has been in- stalled.
The Survey also notes that a mission on Climate Change and Health — mooted since early 2015 — is being developed and a National Expert Group on Climate Change and Health has been constituted.

Supreme Court asks centre to ban Child porn

An anguished Supreme Court told the Centre to take steps and frame rules to stop access to websites featuring child pornography, classifying them as “obscene” and a threat to social morality.
The court said technical glitches and jurisdictional niggles were not excuses forthe Centre’s inaction in this regard.
Innocent children can’t be made prey to this kind of situations and a nation cannot afford to carry on any kind of experiment with its children in the name of liberty.
The court directed the Centre to file an affidavit on ways and means to curb free access to child pornography on the Internet and asked the government to reply whether there could be a ban on watching porn “of any form” in pub- lic places.

:: International ::

First election in Iran after lifting of sanctions

Millions of Iranians voted in high-stake elections that could shift the balance of power within the hardline-controlled Islamic elite by ushering in a reformist comeback or help conservatives tighten their grip on power.
The contest is seen by some analysts as a make-or-break moment that could shape the future for the next generation, in a country where nearly 60 per cent of the 80 million population is under 30.
At stake is control of the 290-seat Parliament and the 88-member Assembly of Ex- perts, the body that has thepower to appoint and dismiss the supreme leader, Iran’s most powerful figure.
Both are currently in the hands of hardliners. During its next eight-year term it could name the successor to Mr. Khamenei, who is 76 and has been in power since 1989.

New development bank will focus on renewable energy projects

The New Development Bank (NDB) — a multi- lateral lender with a focus on the Global South of the of the (BRICS) grouping — is all set to fund more than a dozen projects this year that will focus on renewable energy.
Lending, which will commence in April, would fund a project each from the five member grouping. But NDB president K.V.Kamath added that 10-15 projects are in the pipeline for the remaining part of the year.
The NDB would include market borrowing to raise capital, but stressed that bonds in local currency, rather than hard currency, would be favoured.
The NDB’s initial capital has been fixed at $50 billion, and the total paid in capital would be $10 billion.
On the eve of its operational launch, the NDB has bagged a AAA institutional rating from domestic credit rating agencies in China, where the China Development Bank and the Bank of China have been appointed as rating advisers.

:: Business and Economy ::

Survey says only 5.5% pay taxes

India is far from being a full tax-paying democracy with about 5.5 per cent of the people who earn paying tax and only 15.5 per cent of the net national income being reported to the tax authorities, according to the Economic Survey tabled in the Parliament.
The survey estimated that just four per cent India’s voters are taxpayers, though it should be closer to 23 per cent, and 85 per cent of the net national income fall outside the tax net.
The tax to GDP ratio at 16.6%, as a result, is well below that of the emerging market economies of 21 per cent and OECD average of 34 per cent.
The survey, however, pointed out that the democracies withhigher ratiostook a long timeto strengthen tax capacity.
On the expenditure side, India’s spending on human capital, education and health, to the GDP ratio is the lowest among BRICS and lower than the OECD and emerging market economies averages.
To widen the tax net and raise revenue for spending on India’s human capital development, the survey called for bringing rich farmers into the tax net, raising property tax rates and phasing out tax exemptions.
If the UPA Government had not raised in the 2012- 13 the threshold level of personal income tax, the survey calculated that an additional 1.65 crore in- come tax payers would have got incorporated.
The tax-GDP ratio would have been 0.32% higher as Rs.31,500 crore additional tax revenue would have been collected.
According to the survey fast growing years in the 2000s were in fact associated with rising inequality at the very top end of the Indian income distribution.

India is getting more and more technological start ups

Within a year, the number of technology start ups in the country has grown by 40 per cent to over 4,200, making India the third largest base of technology start-ups in the world, according to the Economic Survey 2015-16.
This has further helped create about 80,000-85,000 jobs during 2015.
As of January 2016, there were 19,400 technology-enabled start-ups in India, of which 5,000 had been started in 2015 alone.
The survey added no lessthan 2000 of the start-ups have been backed by venture capital/angel investors since 2010, of which 1005 were created in 2015 alone.

Survey looking for faster labour reforms

The economic survey criticised the slow pace of reforms in labour laws, arguing that firms “negotiate” regulatory hurdles imposed to protect employees who get poor quality jobs as a consequence and suggested easier retrenchment norms and low- er statutory deductions from salaries to create ‘good’ jobs.
The slow pace of labour reform has encouraged firms to resort to other strategies to negotiate regulatory cholesterol.
Noting that contract labour hiring grew faster in states with relatively more rigid labour laws.
The Industrial DisputesAct 1947 requires firms with more than 100 workers to seek government’s approval before retrenching workers.
The law has encouraged factories to employ contract workers to stay out of the rule books even though entrepreneurs feel‘contract labour is not the ideal solution’ for them.

:: SPORTS ::

Gianni Infantino becomes FIFA chief

Swiss football executive Gianni Infantino vowed to lead FIFA, the sport’s world governing body, out of years of corruption and scandal after being elected president to succeed Sepp Blatter.
He now inherits a very different job from that inhabited by his compatriot Blatter, who toured the world like a head of state for 17 years.
Before the election, the Congress had overwhelmingly passing a set of reforms intended to make it more transparent, professional and accountable.