Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam - 20 July, 2014

Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

The Narendra Modi Government is unlikely to rescind the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for multi-brand retail that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government had notified.
The decision to continue with the UPA Government’s policy has been taken as the Centre does not want to deny the freedom of choice that the notified FDI rules gives to States for choosing whether or not to let foreign retailers set up shop.
The Modi Government also decided to carry on with the UPA Government’s initiative of Aadhaar card for targetted schemesbut new Government will issue Aadhaar numbers to Indian citizens only.
Pipeline to Pakistan may revive stalled mega projects
India’s decision to pipe natural gas and other petroleum products to Pakistan is being seen as a first step that could lead to the revival of two stalled mega undertakings involving Islamabad — the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project.
Instability in Pakistan’s Baluchistan, through which the proposed IPI would pass, coupled with the policy of the United States so far to seek Iran’s political and economic isolation, have impeded the project.
But the IPI could revive, should a breakthrough be achieved in the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the six global powers.

The Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) has picked holes in the way the Public Private Partnership (PPP) was handled in two vital infrastructure sectors.
The Mumbai airport and three of the Railways projects mostly faulted on procedural grounds.
In case of the Mumbai airport, the CAG has asked the government to review the operator’s performance because when project cost had doubled, the gap was filled by asking passengers to shell out a development cess.
On the other hand, the revenue share of another consortium member — the public sector Airports Authority of India (AAI) — was “set to decline with the outsourcing of activities as noticed in the case of domestic and international cargo activities and the Airport Hotel project.”
Railway projects include a railway line to a port, something that new Railway Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda hopes to promote in a big way to solve the ‘last mile problem’.
A CAG report on the Railways , said it had violated rules while selecting private players. Also, the Railways did not formulate any model agreement for execution of the projects within the time frame nor did it adopt the model prescribed by the Planning Commission for PPP projects.

Iran and six world powers failed on Saturday to meet their target date for cutting a nuclear deal but agreed to extend the talks until Nov. 24.
There are still differences over the size and capacity of activities by Tehran that could be used to make nuclear arms.
Months of exhausting negotiations were meant to culminate in an agreement by Sunday that would limit programs Iran says it needs to produce energy and for other peaceful purposes but which can also be used to make nuclear arms.
Both the U.S. and Tehran facing pressure from powerful skeptics at home, the extra time means that both will increasingly be negotiating not only with each other but also those at home.
The main dispute remains over uranium enrichment , Iran, pushed to be allowed to expand its enrichment program over the next eight years to a level that would need about 190,000 current model centrifuges. It now has about 20,000 centrifuges, with half of them operating. But U.S. said that even 10,000 are too many. Diplomats say Washington wants no more than 2,000.
Iran has received more than $6 billion of sanctions relief since late last year under an interim nuclear deal and the U.S. officials said that Tehran would get access to an additional $2.8 billion of frozen assets during the extended talks.

The Department of IT and BT is working towards a ‘Start-up Policy’, which would be the first such legislation for start-ups in the country.
While the Start-up Act is in a draft stage, the Karnataka IT ITeS Innovation Incentives (i4) Policy already declares the enablers for start-up ecosystem.
The challenges before the sector are many: a weak mentor network, poor angel and institutional funding and a lack of access to end-markets.
Innovation is critical for India, a country that so many persistent problems like poverty, disease etc.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said recapitalisation to the tune of Rs 2.4 lakh crore in public sector banks to meet Basel III norms is a ‘high priority’ item for the government.
The UPA Government’s Interim Budget had allocated Rs 11,200 crore for the current fiscal towards this.
The Government owns 58.60 per cent stake in SBI right now. For SBI to raise capital for meeting the Basel III norms, the Government could need to lower its shareholding.
He said the capital would be raised by the banks without diluting public sector characteristics in them. So, the government stake in the banks would remain over 51 per cent.
This programme has to be rapidly expanded so that the remaining 42 per cent of financially excluded population is brought into the banking system.