Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 21 October, 2015

Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

21 October 2015

:: National ::

Gap widening between rural and urban India

While inflation has been slowing both in rural and urban areas of the country, there is a widening difference between the two as rural inflation is decelerating at a much slower pace.
The resultant gap between rural and urban inflation has more than doubled over the last one year, data analysed by HSBC Global Research show.
Urban inflation momentum, according to the analysis, has slowed to 4.5 per cent, which is lower than the Reserve Bank of India’s target level of 6 per cent.
The trend in price gains in rural India, however, is running at 6.5 per cent.
The ‘excess inflation’ in rural India, HSBC noted, is arising from food, fuel, transportation as well as from core inflation. The difference between rural and urban inflation is most stark for fuel and transportation, followed by core and to a lesser extent food.
Consumption data from the NSSO suggests that rural India’s fuel mix is more geared toward domestically produced firewood, chips and biogas inputs, which are not a part of the global deflation cycle.
On the other hand, fuel products more widely used in urban India, such as LPG, petrol and diesel, have benefited from lower global prices.
Despite two successive years of drought, overall food inflation in India has remained tepid, as low global prices have made it possible to import food products that are in short supply.
Rural Indians, however, do not seem to have benefitted as much from food imports as their urban counterparts, according to the analysis.
Vegetables and oilseeds are seeing more stubborn price trends in rural areas than they are at urban centres possibly because insufficient distribution channels may be hindering imported vegetables and oilseeds reaching rural areas, HSBC said. “While much of India’s food is produced in rural India, rural Indians seem to be facing higher food price pressures, at least for some items.”
Its analysis of the rural-urban output shows that a steeper decline in the potential growth of rural India is likely driving the excess core inflation.
It is possible that insufficient investment, growing bottlenecks and impact of two successive droughts have contributed to lowering rural India’s potential (or trend) growth and the narrow output gap is keeping core inflation from slowing rapidly in rural areas, despite weak growth.

:: International ::

NATO nations to keep presence in Afghanistan, officials say

Germany, Turkey and Italy are set to keep their deployments in Afghanistan at current levels, senior NATO officials said on Monday after the U.S. government decided to prolong its 14-year-old military presence there.
The Taliban's brief takeover of a provincial capital has raised concern about the strength of Afghan state forces and both the United States and its NATO allies now say events, rather than timetables, must dictate gradual troop reductions.
Gen. Philip Breedlove, NATO's top commander in Europe, said he had assurances that NATO countries will continue alongside the nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
While discussions of exact numbers are still continuing, the biggest national deployments are not in doubt, he said..
He declined to give details. But a second senior NATO official said Germany, Turkey and Italy were willing to remain in Afghanistan at their current levels.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said last week that Italy is considering keeping its soldiers in Afghanistan for another year. The official said that "our understanding is that is going to happen."
Germany, as the top NATO-country contributor, has around 850 troops in Afghanistan, followed by Italy with 760 and about 500 for Turkey, according to the latest NATO data.

Iran nuclear deal timetable

United States and the European Union took formal steps to open the way to lifting sanctions against Iran, in what was called "adoption day".
But the procedure is still dependant on Tehran meeting the conditions agreed in a landmark nuclear agreement signed in July. Under the deal signed with six world powers, Iran agreed to limit nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.
This is what the complicated timetable on the deal looks like, in a explainer produced by the BBC's Persian service.

:: Science & Technology ::

Genetically engineered viruses improve efficiency of solar cells

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have used genetically engineered viruses to achieve a significant efficiency boost in a light-harvesting system used in solar cells.
Nature has had billions of years to perfect photosynthesis, which directly or indirectly supports virtually all life on Earth.
In that time, the process has achieved almost 100% efficiency in transporting the energy of sunlight from receptors to reaction centres where it can be harnessed - a performance vastly better than even the best solar cells.
One way plants achieve this efficiency is by making use of the exotic effects of quantum mechanics - effects sometimes known as "quantum weirdness."
These effects, which include the ability of a particle to exist in more than one place at a time, have now been used by engineers at MIT to achieve a significant efficiency boost in a light-harvesting system.
The researchers at MIT and Eni, the Italian energy company, achieved this new approach to solar energy not with high-tech materials or microchips - but by using genetically engineered viruses.
According to MIT professor Seth Lloyd in photosynthesis, a photon hits a receptor called a chromophore, which in turn produces an exciton - a quantum particle of energy.
This exciton jumps from one chromophore to another until it reaches a reaction centre, where that energy is harnessed to build the molecules that support life.

:: India & world ::

India contacts Russia to release secret documents of netaji

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that all files related to freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be declassified on his birthday- January 23, India on Tuesday approached Russia seeking its help over the issue.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has requested her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov's cooperation in declassification of secret files related to Netaji. Lavrov assured Sushma that his country will look into India's request.
Sushma is currently in Moscow on a three-day tour to participate in the 21st session of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had met 35 members of Netaji's family at his 7 Race Course Road residence on October 14. Soon after the meeting, Modi had announced declassification of all files related to the freedom fighter.
Declaring that "there is no need to strangle history", Modi had said, "Nations that forget their history lack the power to create it."
The demands for declassification of secret files have been growing lately, especially after the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal recently declassified 64 files which were in its possession.