Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams

16 November 2015

:: National ::

Coordinated action by U.S. and Russia on Islamic state

• The terror strikes by the Islamic State — in Paris, Beirut and the downing of the Russian plane in Egypt is likely tobring Russia and the U.S. together in counterterrorism operations.

• U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian ForeignMinister Sergey Lavrov, met at the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) in Vienna and said they expected cooperation to be more effective and broader in the coming days in tackling IS terror.

• The U.S.-led NATO had in April 2014 suspended military and civilian cooperation with Russia in response to its military intervention in Ukraine.

• The U.S. and Russia are working together in the International Syria Support Group to promote a political process to end the civil war in Syria but both are at loggerheads over the question of President Bashar al-Assad's future.

• The U.S. has been accusing Russia of bombing moderate anti-Assad rebels and civilian targets along with its anti-IS raids.

G20 summit looking for coordinated action in fighting terrorism

• Syrian crisis although was already high on the G20 summit's agenda, took centre stage at the talks between world leaders in the Turkish city of Antalya afterthe attacks by it in Paris.

• G20 leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, called for joint efforts to combat terrorism.

• Turkish President RecepTayyipErdogan held a joint news conference with Mr. Obama, ahead of the summit and told that they want “strong statement” on the fight against terrorism.

• U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would soon present to the member-states a comprehensive plan to prevent violent extremism.

• Traditionally, the forum has primarily discussed global economic issues.

• Earlier, at a meeting of the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — nations hosted by Mr. Putin, Mr. Modi demanded that the G20 push for stronger, coordinated global action for putting an end to finance, supplies and communication channels of terrorists and an early adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

• He also sought a special international legal regime to take on terrorist activities and cooperation for the prevention of the use of cyber networks by terrorist groups.

Proposed H-1B visa changes may not hit Indian software engineers

• Prospective soft-ware engineers seeking jobs in the United States need not be perturbed by the recent changes proposed by the U.S. senators on the H-1B visa norms as the changes may not come through in the proposed form.

• This is the overwhelming view of the software industry that sends large number of young software professionals to work on projects in the United States.

• Recently, two U.S. Senators introduced the legislation against the “abuse” of the H-1B visa hitting employment opportunities of the U.S. nationals, and sought reforms to en-sure that Americans don't lose out to foreign employees on jobs and pay packages.

• Indians created 4,50,000 jobs in the U.S., paid $ 2 billion as tax-es and contributed another $ 6 billion to social security. It's only a perception that we are taking away jobs meant for the U.S. nationals.

• Americans argue that the H-1B visa was meant for highly specialised areas of employment but foreign companies were dumping lesser skilled workers willing to work at lower wages. Some U.S. Senators have been arguing that the visa was highly misused by companies to make huge profits.

CBI seeks statutory powers under PMLA

• The Central Bureau of Investigation has sought statutory powers under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to con-duct probe into proceeds of crime, attach tainted proper-ties and prosecute accused persons.

• However, highly placed sources in the government say it is not desirable. While the CBI hopes to get government notifications to this effect issued, it is learnt that that the Enforcement Di-rectorate (ED) has opposed the move and pointed out a series of problems that such an arrangement would create.

• As per new amendment to the PMLA, closure of police case has no bearing on investigations into money launder-ing charges and prosecution on the same set of allegations. It means that even though a CBI case gets closed, ED can still pursue the financial angle and file a separate charge-sheet.

:: India And World ::

Modi for solid result at Paris talks

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India looked forward to a concrete outcome at the Paris climate talks within the framework of the U.N. Convention on Climate Change that should have an appropriate balance of collective action: equity and common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities.

• India has “ambitious” plans like an additional 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022 and cuts in subsidies for fossil fuel, besides a tax on coal.

• India also has the proposed $3-billion National Clean Energy Fund aimed at promoting clean technologies.

• He also urged the leaders to ensure that the target of $100 billion climate finance per year by 2020 was met.

• The New Development Bank, the Currency ReserveArrangement and the Strategy for BRICS Economic Cooperation were evidence of the BRICS' vision and resolve.

India, Australia seal N-deal procedures

• India announced on Sunday that the procedures for a civil nuclear agreement with Australia for supply of uranium from it had been completed following a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull.

• External AffairsMinistry toldthat the two Prime Ministers had announced the completion of the procedures. No official statement from Australia was immediately available.

• Last month, speaking to press persons in Delhi, Australian Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb said the Australian Parliament was expected to ratify the nuclear cooperation agreement that the two countries had signed in September 2014.

• Australia has about a third of world's recoverable uranium resources and exports nearly 7,000 tonnes of it a year.

• Following the conclusion of the agreement, India will be the first country to buy Australian uranium without being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

:: Business And Economy ::

Ministry seeks more than Rs. 25,000-cr for urea subsidy bills

• The Fertiliser Ministry has sought more than Rs.25,000 crore from the Fi-nance Ministry for making subsidy payments to domes-tic urea manufacturers, as it is facing liquidity crunch.

• In this year's budget, the government had allocated Rs.72,968.56 crore for fertiliser subsidy, out of which Rs.38,200 crore was ear-marked for domestic urea.

• The Fertiliser Ministry isfacing shortage of funds for making payments to domestic urea manufacturers as there were more than Rs.30,000 crore subsidy arrears from the previous years.

• The Department of Fertiliser has sought more than Rs.25,000 crore from the Fi-nance Ministry for making subsidy payments to the domestic urea manufacturers as there has been shortage of funds for making subsidy payments.

• The Department of Fertilisers has issued revised energy norms under the new urea policy for existing 25 gas based urea plants in the country, a move that is expected to save about Rs.800 crore in fertiliser subsidy.

• Urea is provided to farmers at a fixed subsidised MRP of Rs.5,360 per tonne. The difference between the cost of production and MRP of urea is provided as subsidy to manufacturers.

Difficulties for the new gold schemes

• The government has launched three new schemes to monetise gold in the country — the gold monetisation scheme, the sovereign gold bond and gold coin.

• Households in India hold a large amount of their savings as physical assets — gold, silver and other precious metals and real estate.

• With very little of the precious metal now being mined in the country, the seemingly insatiable domestic demand is being met by gold imports.

• Hence a two-pronged strategy is needed to provide an instrument that would target would-be gold investors and second, to draw out gold lying idle in private hands.

• The amount of gold with households is a mind boggling 20,000 tonnes. Even if 5 per cent can be mopped up through innovative financial instruments based on gold, the domestic demand — estimated at between 850 and 900 tonnes annually — can be met.

• The gold monetisation scheme (GMS) appears to be central to the three schemes.Under the new scheme, as small as 30 gms of gold can be accepted.

• The tenure can go up to 15 years and the scheme pays higher interest rates to depositors – 2.25 to 2.5 against one per cent before.

• The gold bond scheme is for those investors who buy gold as an investment.

• The gold monetisation scheme is no doubt an improvement over earlier scheme. However, gold held as jewellery will be very difficult to be monetised.

• The point has been made several times before that there would be a sentimental objection to parting with jewellery, which in many households are passed on from one generation to another.

• In fact, no gold monetisation scheme can overcome the inhibitions of all would-be investors. People buy gold with different motivations. Pledging gold to meet seasonal requirements is very common.

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