Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 30 August 2017

::National::

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay a three-day visit to China

• A day after the resolution of the Doklam standoff, India announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay a three-day visit to China, even as Bhutan welcomed the diplomatic end of the border crisis.
• The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) also announced that Mr. Modi’s visit to China for the BRICS summit will be followed by his visit to Myanmar.
• India declared de-escalation of the two-month-long standoff on the Doklam plateau that had led to dramatic rise in tensions.
• Trip is likely to include a one-on-one meeting between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping on September 4.
• The meeting between the two leaders will be the first since they exchanged courtesies during the July 7-8 G20 summit meeting in Hamburg.

Indian Space Research Organisation has opened the door to domestic entities

• The Indian Space Research Organisation has opened the door to domestic entities that can give it up to 18 spacecraft a year starting mid to late 2018.
• The Bengaluru-based ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), which has so far produced about 90 Indian spacecraft, invited single or combined industries to apply for this opportunity.
• ISAC would sign a three-year contract with the finalists, train, handhold and supervise their teams in making its range of satellites at its facility.
• The Indian Space Research OrganisationScurrently makes four categories of spacecraft — communication, remote sensing, navigation and scientific missions — and in three sizes of 1,000 kg to 4,000 kg.
• The first lot of spacecraft from this exercise was expected in about six months from the signing of the contracts. This is also roughly the normal time taken to assemble a satellite.
• The contract mentions milestone payments, assigning of new spacecraft upon delivery; and a possible renewal of contract after three years.
• Right now, the manpower of ISAC/ISRO is not adequate for meeting both the increased load of making more satellites; and also for the R&D that we need for future satellites.
• In the $ 339-billion global space industry, satellite manufacturing accounts for 8% or $13.9 billion ( data as per the Satellite Industry Association's 2017 report).
• This segment is led by established players from the United States and Europe who supply satellites to their government and commercial users. ISAC’s EoI is seen as a first step towards the making of an Indian space industry.

Marital rape cannot be made a criminal offence says Centre

• Marital rape cannot be made a criminal offence as it could become a phenomenon which may destabilise the institution of marriage and an easy tool for harassing husbands, the government submitted before the Delhi High Court.
• The Centre, in an affidavit filed in response to pleas seeking criminalising marital rape, said the Supreme Court and various High Courts have already observed the growing misuse of Section 498A of the IPC.
• The reply, filed before a Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar, also sought to implead State governments in the matter to know their opinion to avoid any complication at a later stage.
• The government was responding to various petitions seeking declaration of Section 375 (offence of rape) of the IPC as unconstitutional on the ground that it discriminated against married women being sexually assaulted by their husbands.

::International::

Rohingya Muslims fleeing face the growing danger from escalating voilence

• Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh from escalating violence in Myanmar face the growing danger of sickness and attempts by the Bangladesh authorities to send them home, despite a United Nations plea that they be allowed to seek shelter.
• A series of coordinated attacks by Rohingya insurgents on security forces in the north of Myanmar’s Rakhine state on Friday has triggered a fresh exodus to Bangladesh of Muslim villagers trying to escape the violence.
• At least 109 people have been killed in the clashes in Myanmar, according to the government, most of them militants but including members of the security forces and civilians.
• Bangladesh border guards told Reuters they had sent about 550 Rohingya back across the Naf river that separates the two countries, despite an appeal by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for Dhaka to allow Rohingya to seek safety.
• Bangladesh is already host to more than 4,00,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar since the early 1990s.
• Dhaka has asked the U.N. to pressure Myanmar over its treatment of the Muslim minority, insisting it cannot accept any more. Still, more than 8,700 have registered in Bangladesh, the UN said.
• Around another 4,000 people were stranded in the no man's land between the two countries near Taung Bro village, where temporary shelters stretched for several hundred metres on a narrow strip between the Naf river and Myanmar's border fence.

::Business and Economy::

New Industrial policy would aim at making India a manufacturing hub

• Govt said it would announce the new ‘future-ready’ Industrial Policy in October, by suitably incorporating measures to facilitate the use of smart technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for advanced manufacturing.
• The new policy would aim at making India a manufacturing hub by promoting ‘Make in India’, an official statement said, adding that it would subsume the National Manufacturing Policy.
• The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP – the nodal body for the new Policy and part of the Commerce and Industry Ministry) has sought comments, feedback and suggestions from the public, by September 25, on a discussion paper on the policy.
• The ‘illustrative outcomes’ of the policy outlined in the paper include increasing the number of global-Indian firms in the Fortune-500 category in the long-term, and in the medium-term helping attract $100 billion inward FDI annually.
• The other ‘illustrative outcomes’ include developing alternatives to banks and improving access to capital for MSMEs through ‘peer to peer lending’ and ‘crowd funding’, providing a credit rating mechanism for MSMEs.
• Other includes addressing the problem of inverted-duty structure and also balancing it against obligations under multilateral or bilateral trade agreements, studying the impact of automation on jobs and employment, ensuring minimal/zero waste from industrial activities and targeting certain sectors to radically cut emissions.
• Six thematic focus groups: manufacturing and MSME; technology and innovation; ease of doing business; infrastructure, investment, trade and fiscal policy; and skills and employability for the future, would facilitate inputs.

Revenue collections from GST ‘technically exceeded’ the government’s target

• Revenue collections from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) ‘technically exceeded’ the government’s target in its first month, with as much as Rs. 92,283 crore flowing to the exchequer from just 64.4% of taxpayers who were eligible to pay taxes in July.
• The last date for filing the first GST returns for July and paying taxes was August 25, while it was August 28 for those who wanted to avail transitional credits.
• Total revenue received from GST for July is Rs. 92,283 crore, with central GST revenue of Rs. 14,894 crore, State GST receipts of Rs. 22,722 crore and Integrated GST receipts at Rs. 47, 469 crore. Cess receipts, including compensation cess from imports, came to Rs. 7,198 crore.
• As per the Budget’s projections for indirect tax revenue, the Centre’s target for July was about Rs. 48,000 crore and the overall target for States, assuming a 14% annual growth from their 2015-16 revenues, was about Rs. 43,000 crore.
• Together, the revenue target was Rs. 91,000 crore, which has been surpassed. The minister also said cess collections were to be deducted from the Rs. 92,283 crore figure as it was earmarked for compensation to States for loss of revenue.

Code on Wages Bill says wages will differ

• The Code on Wages Bill proposed by the Union government will not fix a single national level minimum wage for the whole country, but will vary across states and geographies.
• It provides for national minimum wage for different geographical areas so as to ensure that no State Government fixes the minimum wage below the national minimum wage, notified for that area by the Central Government.
• Wage levels would vary state-wise and in some cases, may differ based on geographies – coastal, hilly or plains. India is a vast country with cost of living varying across states. We cannot have a single national level minimum wage.
• If the minimum wages fixed by the states are already higher than the ‘national minimum wage’, the states will not be allowed to lower their wage levels, according to the provisions of the Bill.
• The Code on Wages Bill combines four labour laws — Payment of Wages Act, 1936, Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and Equal Remuneratiom Act, 1976.
• The Bill states that the state governments will fix their minimum wages keeping in mind “the skill required, arduousness of the work assigned to the worker, the cost of living of the worker, geographical location of the place of work,” among other factors.
• At present, various states are free to fix their own level of minimum wages as per the local conditions, cost of living and other factors.

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