Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 January 2017
:: National ::
GDP growth to be lower than expected
India’s gross domestic output is expected to grow at a slower pace of 7.1 per cent in 2016-17 compared to the 7.6 per cent clocked in the previous year, Chief Statistician said.
But this doesn’t factor in the impact of the Centre’s decision to scrap high-value currency notes on November 8.
Stressing that this estimate, which is in sync with the Reserve Bank of India’s economic growth forecast, is largely based on data from the first seven months of the year.
In the absence of data, there are only two options: you can stay with existing structures and forecast them or, as a lot of people have done, make assumptions about what the structures are.
The gross value added (GVA) is estimated to grow 7 per cent in 2016-17 compared with a growth rate of 7.2 per cent in 2015-16.
The agriculture sector saw significant growth with its GVA estimated to grow 4.1 per cent in 2016-17 up from 1.2 per cent in the previous year.
The service sector in aggregate is expected to grow 7.9 per cent in 2016-17, slower than the 8.1 per cent seen in the previous year.
Manufacturing, on the other hand, is expected to witness a slowdown, with the sector’s GVA to grow 7.4 per cent in 2016-17 down from 9.3 per cent in 2015-16.
The projection also factors in a huge jump in Government Final Consumption Expenditure, which is expected to grow 23.8 per cent in 2016-17 compared with 2.2 per cent in 2015-16, part of which could be on account of rise in wage and salary payments.
Aadhaar made mandatory for EPS
The subsidy, equivalent to 1.16 per cent of the employee’s salary up to Rs. 6,500, paid by the Centre towards EPS, will no longer be credited till the Aadhaar number is shared with the authorities.
At present, the minimum pension under EPS is Rs. 1,000 A month and an employee can receive pension only after a minimum 10 years of service.
Till a subscriber gets enrolled for Aadhaar, the government will provide pension subsidy under the scheme only after certain documents are produced, including ID certificate issued by the employer and a copy of the request made for Aadhaar enrolment.
These documents will have to be submitted to the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation or EPFO along with either of the following documents: voter ID card, passport, PAN card, driving licence or a certificate of identity approved by a gazetted officer.
Employees are automatically enrolled under EPS if they are members of the Employees’ Provident Fund scheme.
RBI has agreed to provide Rs. 1 billion in Rs. 100 notes to the Nepal Rastra Bank (Register and Login to read Full News)
:: International ::
British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to visit the U.S.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to visit the U.S. and meet President-elect Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration this spring.
The visit — coming just months after her less-than-successful visit to India — will test the appetite of the world’s largest economies for a post-Brexit Britain.
The enduring partnership between the two countries — famously described many decades ago by Winston Churchill as a “special relationship” — has gone through peaks and troughs.
The Obama administration prioritised relations with other European nations such as Germany, describing Chancellor Angela Merkel last year as his “closest international partner” over the past eight years.
Attempts to forge a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) also reflected the U.S.’s eagerness to broaden its relations with Europe beyond Britain.
However, with the future of TTIP looking decidedly dim even before the U.S. election and the election of Mr. Trump, 2017 will throw up new opportunities — and challenges — for the relationship.
The May administration has been eager to distance itself from the stance of former Prime Minister David Cameron, who was less-than-complimentary about the then-presidential candidate.
Britain has already made a number of concessions to the U.S. when it comes to foreign policy: while Britain supported last year’s UN resolution condemning Israel’s expansion of settlements in occupied territories.
While Britain is eager to position itself as open to building trade relationship outside the EU, Mr. Trump has adopted a protectionist tone on many issues.
:: Science and Technology ::
India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope found black hole
Astronomers, using data from India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), have discovered a supermassive black hole and the collision of giant galaxy clusters about two billion light years from Earth.
The two phenomenon have combined to create a stupendous cosmic particle accelerator.
By combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, GMRT in Pune and other telescopes, researchers found what happens when matter ejected by a giant black hole is swept up in the merger of two enormous galaxy clusters.
This cosmic combination is found in a pair of colliding galaxy clusters called Abell 3411 and Abell 3412 located about two billion light years from Earth.
The two clusters are both very massive, each weighing about a quadrillion — or a million billion — times the mass of the Sun.
The comet-shaped appearance of the X-rays detected by Chandra is produced by hot gas from one cluster ploughing through the hot gas of the other cluster.
First, at least one spinning, supermassive black hole in one of the galaxy clusters produced a rotating, tightly—wound magnetic funnel.
The powerful electromagnetic fields associated with this structure have accelerated some of the inflowing gas away from the vicinity of the black hole in the form of an energetic, high-speed jet.