Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

28 September 2016

:: National ::

India to boycott Islamabad SAARC meet

• Stepping up diplomacy pressure on Pakistan, India said, “In the prevailing circumstances”, the government is unable to participate in the November SAARC summit in Islamabad.

• The decision on cancelling Indian participation was taken even as discussions continued about steps such as reviewing the MFN status for Pakistan following the Uri attack.

• Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan are also likely to stay away from the Islamabad summit.

• The decision is unprecedented as this is the first time that India has cancelled participation in the regional group’s summit meeting because of actions that it blames on Pakistan-based elements.

• The tough step had been under consideration since the Uri attack, the second such cross border strike in nine months after the January 2 Pathankot airbase strike.

• India had earlier accepted Pakistan’s invitation for the summit in March during a ministerial meeting held in Kathmandu.

• Earlier in the day, India summoned Pakistan High Commissioner to “firm up” its case on the Uri attack. The envoy was summoned for the second time since the September 18 attack.

• Mr. Awan also identified one of the slain attackers as one Hafiz Ahmed from Dharbang, Muzaffarabad and disclosed that two handlers for the raid were Mohammed Kabir Awan and Basharat.

• Security forces also apprehended on September 23, opposite Pakistan’s Sialkot sector, one Pakistani national named Abdul Qayoom who confessed that he underwent three weeks of training with the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

• The Prime Minister’s Office has called for a meeting on Thursday on Most Favoured Nation status-related issues.

• The meeting, which is part of the diplomatic measures to target Pakistan for its alleged role in Uri, will be attended by officials from the Ministries of External Affairs and Commerce.

• India had granted the MFN status to Pakistan in 1996 as part of its commitments on joining the World Trade Organisation.

India has still not taken any decision on Indus water treaty

• India has not yet taken a decision to suspend but was in the process of “reviewing” its decision to stay on in the Indus Commission.

• India’s Indus Commissioner P.K. Saxena is in Washington to discuss with World Bank officials India’s position on the Kishenganga hydro-power project, an older dispute going on with Pakistan over building a run-of-the-river project.

• India would pursue in “mission mode” its plans to ramp up hydroelectric power projects and utilise “to the fullest” what was due to it under the water-sharing agreements under the pact.

• This would mean commissioning or completing hydro-power projects and expanding irrigation in Jammu and Kashmir by about 50 per cent.

• Declaring that “blood and water cannot flow together”, Prime Minister Modi on Monday held a meeting of senior officials from the Water Resources and External Affairs Ministries and the PMO to discuss the government’s options on the treaty.

:: International ::

India and Sri Lanka keen to sign Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement

• India will invest $2 billion in Sri Lanka in the next three-four years, Commerce and Industry Minister NirmalaSitharaman said on Tuesday.

• Ms. Sitharaman, who was here for talks on the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA), called on Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe and later met senior Ministers to discuss the terms of the agreement.

• The ETCA initiative follows unfruitful negotiations, spanning nearly a decade, on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the neighbours. India and Sri Lanka already have a Free Trade Agreement since 1998.

• Both New Delhi and Colombo are keen on signing the ETCA, though there is considerable opposition to it within Sri Lanka, coming both from a section of medical and IT professionals, and from trade unions.

• The second round of negotiations on the ETCA is scheduled to take place in New Delhi on September 29 and 30.

:: Science and Technology ::

Green house gases have to come down for planet to cool down

• Our planet may grow intolerably hot even if greenhouse gases in the atmosphere remain at current levels, according to the first two-million-year reconstruction of surface temperatures.

• “Stabilisation at today’s greenhouse gas levels may already commit Earth to an eventual total warming of five degrees Celsius over the next few millennia," said a study in the journal Nature .

• This was the middle of a predicted warming range of 3 C (5.4 F) to 7 C (12.6). Even 3 C would, in the long-run, unleash a maelstrom of climate change impacts, it said.

• The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said current atmospheric concentrations of the main greenhouse gas CO2 — over 400 parts per million (ppm) — would, over the next century, push average global temperatures 2 to 2.4 C above the pre-industrial era benchmark.

:: Business and Economy ::

India has risen rapidly among all countries in the global competitive stakes

• India has risen rapidly among all countries in the global competitive stakes by climbing 16 notches to the 39th position during the past year in the WEF’s Global Competitiveness Index.

• According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report this marks the biggest scale of improvement in competitiveness among all countries and is the second year in a row India has gone up 16 ranks in the WEF index.

• It suggests that improvements in institutions and infrastructure have increased overall competitiveness along with recent reforms such as opening the economy to foreign investors and increasing transparency in the financial system.

• India’s competitiveness has improved, particularly in goods market efficiency, business sophistication and innovation, while lower oil prices and improved monetary and fiscal policies have made the economy not only stable,

• According to executives polled for the report, India’s tax regulations, corruption, tax rates and poor public health are the most problematic factors for doing business.

• The report added that the labour market rigidities and the presence of large, public enterprises especially in the utilities and financial sector make the economy less efficient.

• While India is the only South Asian economy in the top half of the rankings, Sri Lanka surprisingly ranks ahead of it in ‘technological readiness’ — one of twelve pillars on which countries are rated.

India’s unemployment rate at five-year high

• Jobless economic growth continues to haunt India's youth, with the country’s unemployment rate rising to a five-year high of five per cent in 2015-16, according to the latest annual household survey on employment conducted by Labour Bureau.

• India’s economy grew 7.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2015-16, slowing from 7.9 per cent a year earlier.

• The country’s unemployment rate, as measured by the Bureau, stood at 4.9 per cent in 2013-14, 4.7 per cent in 2012-13 and 3.8 per cent in 2011-12.

• Female job seekers were the worst hit as the pace of unemployment rose sharply to 8.7 per cent in 2015-16 compared to 7.7 per cent in 2013-14, data from the Fifth Annual Employment-Unemployment Survey showed.

• While unemployment rate in rural areas rose to 5.1 per cent in 2015-16 from 4.7 per cent in 2013-14, it declined to 4.9 per cent from 5.5 per cent in urban areas during the same period.

• The annual survey also showed that 47.8 per cent of the surveyed population was reported to be employed in 2015-16 compared with 49.9 % two years earlier when the previous survey was conducted by the Labour Bureau.

• Fewer households benefited from various employment schemes of the government in 2015-16, the survey showed.

• For instance, the benefits of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme were availed by 21.9 per cent households compared to 24.1 per cent households in 2013-14.

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