Tuesday, 20 December 2016

Daily Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 19 December 2016

:: National ::

Single, permanent Tribunal to adjudicate all inter-State river water disputes

The Centre has decided to set up a single, permanent Tribunal to adjudicate all inter-State river water disputes, a step which is aimed at resolving grievances of States in a speedy manner.
This body will subsume-existing tribunals. Besides the tribunal, the government has also pro-posed to float some Benches by amending the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956 to look into disputes as and when required.
Unlike the tribunal, the Benches will cease to exist once the disputes are resolved. A decision to approve an amendment to the Act was taken at the Union Cabinet earlier this week.
Along with the tribunal, the amendment proposes to set up Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC). The DRC, comprising experts and policy-makers, is pro-posed to handle disputes prior to the tribunal.

Govt stuck with conventions in RAW, IB nominations

Though government overlooked the seniority criterion while appoint-ing the Army Chief, it stuck to the convention while appointing the heads of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).
Rajiv Jain, a 1980-batch IPS officer of the Jharkhand cadre, now heads the security desk in the IB. Mr. Jain will take over as the IB chief on January 1, a day after the present chief, Dineshwar Sharma, retires.
Mr. Jain has been appointed for a fixed tenure of two years. He was the senior-most in the IB hierarchy and the appointment comes months before he was to superannuate in March 2017.
Mr. Jain has also served at a subsidiary unit of the IB in Ahmedabad from 2004 to 2008. During his present stint as Special Director, Mr. Jain had the primary role of monitoring and strengthening cybersecurity.
He had served in Jammu in the 1990s when militancy was at its peak.
The appointment of Anil Dhasmana as the next RAW chief has generated much interest in Pakistan as he is an expert on the Baloch issue, a subject close to the heart of the present dispensation.
He succeeds Rajinder Khanna, who completes his tenure on December 31. Mr. Dhasmana has close ties with the Nepal station of RAW , one of the most critical desks in the region.

EC asked govt to ban anonymous contributions over 2000

Seeking to stop financing of election campaigns using black money, the Election Commission has urged the government to amend laws to ban anonymous contributions of Rs. 2,000 and above made to political parties.
There is no constitutional or statutory prohibition on receipt of anonymous donations by political parties.
But there is an “indirect partial ban” on anonymous donations through the requirement of declaration of donations under Section 29C of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
But, such declarations are mandated only for contributions above Rs. 20,000. As per the amendment proposal, sent by the com-mission to the government, and made part of its compendium on proposed electoral reforms.
All reports on the alleged privilege to political parties are false & misleading. Political parties have not been granted any exemption or privilege, post demonetisation & introduction of Taxation Amendment Act, 2016.
Post-demonetisation, no political party can accept donations in Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes since they were rendered illegal tenders.
The poll panel has also proposed that exemption of income tax should be extended only to political parties that contest elections and win seats in Lok Sabha or Assembly polls.
Section 13A of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 confers tax ex-emption to political parties for income from house property, voluntary contributions, capital gains and other sources.
Only income under the head ‘salaries and income from business or profession' are chargeable to tax in the hands of political parties in India.
In yet another recommendation to check black-money, the EC has asked the Law Ministry to ensure that political parties are made to register details of donors for coupons of all amounts on the basis of a Supreme Court order of 1996.
Coupons are one of the ways devised by the political parties for collecting donations and hence are printed by the party itself. There is no limit as to how many coupons can be printed or its total quantum.

:: International ::

Protests, looting lead to delay of demonetisation in Venezuela

With protests rock-ing his unpopular government, embattled President Nicolas Maduro delayed until January 2 taking Venezuela's highest denomination bill out of circulation.
The 100-bolivar bills would temporarily remain legal tender, Mr. Maduro said, but the borders with Colombia and Brazil will remain closed to hit what he claims are “mafias” hoarding Venezuelan cash abroad in a U.S.-backed plot to destabilise the country.
The bill is worth about 15 U.S. cents at the highest official rate, and until recently ac-counted for 77 per cent of the cash in circulation in Venezuela.
Venezuela has the world's highest inflation rate, set to hit 475 per cent this year ac-cording to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The government is trying to introduce new bills in denominations up to 200 times higher than the old ones, but the plan derailed when Mr. Maduro banned the 100-bolivar note before the new bills arrived.
Four airplanes with the new currency set to arrive from abroad were delayed by international sabotage, Mr. Maduro said. He did not say where the money was coming from, or what type of sabotage.
Rioting and angry protests erupted in several Venezuelan cities as the chaotic reform left people without cash to buy food or Christmas presents.

:: Business and Economy ::

Dedicated fund of Rs 10000 crore for infrastructure development

The country's infrastructure sector, requiring investments of more than $1.5 trillion in the coming ten years, is set to get a boost with a dedicated fund of Rs.10,000 crore to provide credit enhancement for commercially viable projects.
The fund — through ‘un-conditional and irrevocable partial credit guarantee' — will help enhance the credit rating of bonds issued by infrastructure firms so that they, in turn, can attract long-term investments especially from global insurance, pen-sion and sovereign wealth funds.
Prior to the setting up of the dedicated fund, the RBI is expected to bring out a comprehensive regulatory framework for credit enhancement to infrastructure projects and Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFC) keen on the business.
The central bank's norms for credit enhancement products will include capital requirement and bad loans or asset classification.
The dedicated fund will be in the form of a Special Pur-pose Vehicle (SPV) and will be categorised an NBFC-Infrastructure Finance Company.
Its promoters are likely to include LIC, General Insurance Corporation of India, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Power Finance Corporation, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency and India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL).
The government is keen on roping in international financial institutions such as Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank, Inter-national Finance Corporation, and talks are on in this regard.
Also, other Indian public sector insurance companies, large state-owned banks and the National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) are expected to contribute to the fund that will have an authorised capital of Rs.10,000 crore.
The initial minimum paid-up capital will be Rs.500 crore, which will be quickly scaled up with regular capital infusion to Rs.10,000 crore.

Point of sale terminals

The government wants banks to install three lakh Point of Sale terminals in the next three months.
Following the withdrawal of high-value currency notes, activity at PoS terminals saw exponential growth, even as the number of new such ma-chines installed has also gone up.
A point-of-sale (POS) terminal is a computerised re-placement for a cash register which can process credit and debit cards. A customer needs to enter a card PIN to complete the transaction us-ing the PoS terminal.
If you are a merchant, then you can request the bank where you have an account to install PoS machines at your establishment.
The end-customer does not have to pay any charges for swiping his or debit/ credit cards at the PoS terminals. However, the merchant has to pay the issuer bank what is known as merchant discount rate (MDR).
The issuer bank is the one which installs the machines at the merchant establishment.
In theory, though customers don't have to pay, in practice, merchants increase the cost of the product and ser-vices sold, in a move to pass on the charge incurred by them to the customer.
MDR is capped for debit cards but not for credit cards. Effective July 1, 2012, RBI capped the MDR for debit cards at 0.75 per cent of the transaction amount for value up to Rs.2,000 and 1 per cent for a transaction amount for value above Rs.2,000.
For credit cards, the MDR varies between 1.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Following the withdrawal of legal tender status to the old Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 currency notes, RBI had asked banks to waive of the MDR till the end of December.
Last week, RBI also lowered the MDR cap for debit cards efective between January 1 to March 31, 2017.
In this period, MDR is capped at 0.25 per cent for debit card transactions up to Rs.1,000 and 0.5 per cent for transactions above Rs.1,000 up to Rs.2,000.
The accounts are settled at the end of the day when the merchant opts for it. The bank credits the amount to the merchant's account, after deducting charges, the next day.
The MDR that the mer-chant pays is divided among three entities, the issuer bank (which issues the debit card), the acquirer bank (which installs the PoS), and the payment gateway. The is-suer bank gets the maximum share of the MDR.

Sunday, 18 December 2016

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 17 December 2016

:: National ::

NITI Aayog says by Jan 2017 cash situation will come back to normal

The cash crunch being faced by people due to the demonetisation of high-value currency notes could be resolved by the middle or end of January 2017, with about Rs. 12 lakh crore in cash returning to the system by then, NITI Aayog CEO.
Mr. Kant also mooted an eventual move by the govt to a transaction ecosystem where there is no cost associated with digital transactions and cash holdings could attract a cess.
Digital payments by debit or credit cards, for instance, attract a Merchant Discount Rate of 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent that has been waived as a temporary reprieve for cash-starved citizens.
Around Rs. 3.5 trillion of the Rs. 17 trillion in circulation before demonetisation was pure black money and the increase in digital trans-actions will reduce the needfor cash by about Rs. 2 trillion.
So the economy needs Rs. 11-12 trillion in cash to finance normal transactions. This will be back in the system by mid-January or maybe the end of January.
Separately, the government is working towards linking more and more bank accounts to Aadhaar as it looks to push UID-based payment systems.

Centre reduced its role in environmental clearances

Buildings and real estate projects, between 20,000 and 300,000 sq. metres, will no longer need to be assessed for their environmental impact, by the Centre.
From now on, States can integrate the clearance process of such projects into their building by-laws to streamline environmental clearance to a significant chunk of building projects.
While areas less than 20,000 sq metres only need a self-declaration, those between 5,000 to 20,000 sq. metres need to follow environmental norms during construction and maintenance phase.
A new category of consultants, called Qualified Building Environment Auditorsand empanelled by the Union environment ministry, would assess and certify building projects.
Local authorities would now have to compulsorily constitute an Environmental Cell to support appraisal, compliance and monitoring of building projects.
Projects would be evaluated on their energy use, especially renewable energy sources, waste water management, waste segregation and tree plantation and maintenance.

Both Houses passed disabilities bill

The Lok Sabha, passed the Disabilities Bill stipulating a jail term of up to two years and a maximum fine of Rs. 5 lakh for discriminating against differently-abled persons.
Despite the logjam in the Parliament, the bill was passed within two hours after a brief debate on the last day of the winter session.
A scheme of ' a universal identity card for the dis-abled' is on the anvil and an agency has already been finalised to issue them. The proposed card would also be linked to the Aadhar card to help the disabled all over the country in a seamless fashion.
The government has joined hands with German and British firms for making available state-of-the-art limbs for the disabled wherever possible.
Members from both sides supported the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2016 but suggested certain changes to improve the measure.
The bill, which aims at se-curing and enhancing the rights and entitlements of disabled persons, also gives effect to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and related matters.
It provides for imprisonment of at least six months up to two years, along with a fine ranging between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 5 lakh for discriminating against differently-abled persons.
The bill has in-creased the number of categories of disabled persons to 21. In the bill, disability has been defined based on an evolving and dynamic concept and the types of dis-abilities have been increased from existing seven to 21.
The Centre will have the power to add more types of disabilities to the list. The types of disabilities now include mental illness, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, chronic neurological conditions.

Aadhaar enabled payment system to be promoted by Govt

Govt said 99 per cent of the adult population had Aadhaar numbers at present, and moves were afoot to connect the rest of the bank ac-counts with the Aadhaar numbers.
The Minister said AEPS was required becausearound 30 crore people still did not have mobile/smart-phones and could not do on-line transactions or use mobile wallets or e-wallets at any point in time.
India had the digitisation infrastructure required to leverage the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said.
He stressed that if the country was to aspire to grow to a $10 trillion economy, it would have to be prepared for disruption.
In the next 6-7 months, every smartphone user will be able to make Aadhaar-based payments and even will allow each phone to act as an ATM using a device that can attach to the phone and scan finger-prints.

:: International ::

Chinese warship seized underwater US drone

A Chinese warship has seized an underwater drone deployed by a U.S. oceanographic vessel in the South China Sea, triggering a formal diplomatic protest and a demand for its return.
The incident, the first of its kind in recent memory, took place on December 15 about 50 nautical miles northwest of Subic Bay of the Philip-pines just as the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic survey ship, was about to retrieve the unmanned, under water vehicle (UUV).
The Pentagon later con-firmed the incident at a news briefing. It said the drone used commercially available technology and sold for about $1,50,000. Still, the Pentagon viewed China's seizure seriously since it had effectively takenU.S. military property.
A U.S. think tank this week said new satellite imagery indicated China has installed weapons, including anti-air-craft and anti-missile systems, on all seven artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea.
The drone was part of an unclassified program to collect oceanographic data including salinity, temperature and clarity of the water.

Trump hopes to improve relations with India

The incoming administration of Donald Trump hopes to break new ground in selling advanced weapons systems to India, news that would likely be “music to the ears” of the government in Delhi.
Along with a sharp focus on increasing the quantity and quality of weapons procurement from the U.S. by India, Washington would also hope to lift bilateral trade from a little over $100 billion to at least $300 billion during Mr. Trump's first term and even up to $1 trillion by the end of his second term.
Mr. Kumar added: “ As soon as we could manage to get [new] legislation through Congress, which is controlled by Republicans, it should be no problem at all. We should have that legislation in a pretty short time.”

:: India and World ::

China raises objections over Dalai Lama invite

China has slammed India for inviting the Dalai Lama for a function in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and urged New Delhi to respect China's “core interest” in order to avoid “any disturbance” in ties between the two nations.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “Recently in disregard of China's solemn representation and strong opposition, the Indian side insisted on arranging for the 14th Dalai Lama's visit to the Indian presidential palace.
The spokesman asserted that Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to that.
The Dalai Lama was present in the opening session of the “Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit”, organised by Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi’s Children's Foundation on December 10.
“We urge the Indian side to see through the anti-China separatist nature of the Dalai Lama clique, fully respect China's core interest and major concerns, take effective means to remove the negative impact caused by the incident so as to avoid any disturbance to China-India relationship,” he said.
The Government of India sought to play down the comments, saying the event the Dalai Lama had attended was not a “political” one.
India has always resisted Chinese criticism of the Dalai Lama's movements, and maintains that he does not undertake any political activity in India. This is the fifth time that China has expressed its annoyance in the past fewmonths.
Earlier, Chinese government spokespersons objected to the Dalai Lama's visits to Arunachal Pradesh, Mongolia and the U.S., as well as the government's permission to the Karmapa Lama to travel to Arunachal as well.
China's strong objections towards the perceived promotion of Tibetan separatism coincide with remarks by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump questioning Washington’s unqualified endorsement of Beijing's sovereignty over Taiwan.
Mongolia's crisis followed its reception of the Dalai Lama last month, apparently triggering a slew of economic measures by Beijing against Ulan Bator.

:: Business and Economy ::

Centre came up with new amnesty scheme

The Pradhan MantriGarib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), a last-resort tax amnesty scheme that comes into effect from December 17, will allow assesses to dis-close previously unaccounted and undeclared income under its ambit till March 31, 2017.
The PMGKY permits voluntary declarations of previously undisclosed income with an effective tax rate of 50 per cent and requires assesses to deposit a further 25 per cent of such wealth into a four-year interest-free deposit.
The Bill aims at plugging the loopholes in the Act. Those availing the PMGKYwill be immune from prosecution and penalty and the de-tails of such accounts will be kept secret.
Govt has carried outsearch and seizure in 291 cases and have given 3,000 notices. Govt has also seized undisclosed income of about Rs.2,600 crore (admitted by the taxpayers).
About Rs.316 crore of this is in cash, of which there were new notes worth Rs.80 crore. Jewellery worth Rs.76 crore has been seized.”
Mr. Adhia clarified that deposits of old Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 banknotes in bank accounts of political parties would not be taxed.

Central bank asks banks to remove IMPS, UPI charges

The RBI has asked banks and prepaid instruments issuers to waive all customer charges for transactions up to Rs.1,000 settled on the Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) and Unified Payment Interface (UPI) systems.
The measures, effective from January 1, will be applicable till March 31, RBI said. It also lowered the cap on merchant discount rate (MDR) for debit cards from January 1 to March 31.
For transactions up to Rs.1,000, MDR is capped at 0.25% of the transaction value. and for transactions above Rs.1,000 and up to Rs.2000, MDR is capped at 0.5%

Friday, 16 December 2016

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 16 December

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 16 December 2016

:: National ::

Govt announces benefits for digital payment

Fifteen lakh citizens opting to make cash-less payments for transactions between Rs. 50 and Rs. 3,000 through RuPay cards, UPI, the Aadhaar-enabled payment systems and USSD will get Rs. 1,000 in a cash-back incentive under a lucky draw scheme.
Calling the Lucky Grahak Y ojana a Christmas gift for citizens, NITI Aayog CEOsaid the scheme, to be launched on December 25, would cover all transactions made from November 8.
As money comes back into the system, we don't want to give rise to a new parallel economy with black money, so these schemes are meant to incentivise con-sumers to move away from cash.
Grand prize winners will get Rs. 1 crore, Rs. 50 lakh and Rs. 25 lakh at the end of of the programme's first phase, while there will be weekly prizes of Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 5,000.
Transactions made through private banks' credit cards and e-wallets such as Paytm would not be eligible.

Apex court banned liquor shops on state and national highways

The SC banned States and Union Territories from granting licences for the sale of liquor along National and State highways across the country, noting that drunken driving was the main culprit behind a large number of road accidents in the country.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao said the licences of liquor shops across the highways will not be renewed after March 31, 2017.
The judgment ordered that the prohibition on sale of liquor alongside highways would extend to stretches of such highways that fall within limits of municipal corporations, city towns and local authorities.
The court prohibited signages and advertising of availability of liquor on high-ways and ordered the existing ones to be removed forth-with from both national and State highways.
It ordered that no shop for sale of liquor should be visible from the National and State highways.
Neither should they be directly accessible from the highways nor should they be situated within a distance of 500 metres from the outer edge of the highways or ser-vice lanes.
The judgment is a result of the deep concern the court had expressed recently on the 1.5 lakh fatalities annually in road accidents. It had blamed the Centre and the States for not doing enough as lives were lost on the roads.

India says, India and Pakistan can solve problems through peaceful means

Signalling a step back from tensions in the past month over the Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan, India said there was “no reason” the two countries could not sort out their differences as they have in the past.
India's statement comes after the World Bank ac-ceded to its wishes and halted the two processes for mediation and arbitration that it had put into place over Pakistan's objections to ‘design features' in the Kishanganga and Ratlehydroelectric power projects in Jammu and Kashmir.
The strong language of the statement appeared to have weighed with the World Bank, and on December 12, the day its President Jim Yong Kim was due to announce the names chosen for the arbitration panel and as mediator, he instead said he was suspending the entire process at least till the end of January 2017.

Centre says figure given by RBI could be inflated due to double counting

The Finance Ministry said the Rs. 12.44 lakh crore figure reported by the Reserve Bank of India as the amount having been deposited in banks since the November 8 demonetisation announcement could be inflated due to double-counting.
RBI had infused three times the annual figure of low-de-nomination notes in the five weeks since demonetisation, adding that the supply of Rs. 100 notes had been increased by 50 per cent in that period.
To take the example of Rs. 100 notes, about Rs. 1.6 lakh crore were in circulation on November 8. Between November 8 and now, more than Rs. 80,000 crore in value has been supplied to the market. Similarly for Rs. 10, Rs. 20 and Rs. 50 notes.”
Roughly about 50 per cent of the notes that became demonetised would be back in supply by the month-end. While more than Rs. 15 lakh crore of notes were de-monetised, so far more than Rs. 5 lakh crore had been put back in circulation.
Recalibration of ATMs He said two lakh ATMs had been recalibrated, and rubbished reports that a much smaller number were functional.
Crop loans Emphasis was on supply-ing cash to district cooperat-ive banks so that crop loans could be given, adding that the Rabi sowing this year was almost at par with that seen last year.
Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 notes and their security features were entirely designed in India.
Government and the RBI had earlier decided to focus on the release of Rs. 2,000 notes so that the value of the currency that had been removed from the system could be quickly matched, the emphasis had now shifted to Rs. 500 notes.

:: International ::

After ceasefire evacuation started in Aleppo

An operation to evacuate thousands of civilians and fighters from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo was under way, part of a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said the evacuation of around 200 wounded people had star-ted. Russia, a major ally of Assad, said 5,000 Syrian rebels and family members were being brought out of eastern Aleppo.
The convoy of 10 ambulances and at least 17 green buses with nearly 1,000 aboard drove from the Ramousah district next to the rebel-held area of Aleppo, which was besieged for months by Syrian government forces.
Rebel officials have said that civilians who wish to leave will also be able to do so as part of the ceasefire and evacuation deal. Footage of the buses appeared to show that most ofthose inside were young men.
Columns of black smoke could be seen rising from the rebel-held area, where residents hoping to departwere burning personal be-longings they do not want to leave for government forces to loot.
Syria had guaranteed the safety of rebels and their families, who would be taken towards Idlib, a city in north-western Syria which is out-side government control.
The evacuation agreement would include the safe passage of wounded from the Shia villages of Foua and Kefraya near Idlib that are besieged by rebels, accord-ing to a military media unit run by Hezbollah, a group al-lied to Mr. Assad.

:: Business and Economy ::

Trade deficit increased on import jump

The country's trade deficit ballooned to $13 billion in November — the highest since $13.08 billion in July 2015, and sharply wider than the $10.41 billion gap in October — as imports, including purchases of gold, outpaced exports of goods.
The trade deficit in November 2015 was $10.47 billion. For the third consecutive month, exports recorded a positive growth of 2.29 per cent year-on-year to $20 billion.
However, goods imports grew at a faster pace of 10.4 percent to $33.02 billion, ac-cording to the data released by the Commerce Ministry.
Gold imports jumped 23.2 per cent in November to $4.36 billion. The previous highest in value terms was $4.96 billion in August 2015. In October 2016, imports of the yellow metal had more than doubled to $3.5 billion.
In the wake of the withdrawal of high-denomination banknotes last month, there had been intense speculation that the government might impose curbs on imports and domestic holdings of gold.
Oil imports rose 5.9 per cent in November to $6.8 billion, while non-oil imports grew 11.7 per cent to $26.2 billion.
Exports experienced a protracted contraction be-tween December 2014 and May 2016 amid persistent weak external demand, be-fore recording 1.97 per cent growth in June.
However, the overseas shipment of goods again slipped back into negative growth territory in July and August before re-entering the positive growth zone in September with a 4.8 per cent increase.
However, overseas sales of gems & jewellery contracted in the month by 12.8 per cent to $2.5 billion, while exports of ready-made garments shrank 2.93 per cent to $1.1 billion.
India's goods exports during the full fiscal year would be about $270-$280 billion.

Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rates

The rupee weakened against the U.S. dollar after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate, in a widely anticipated move, by 25 basis points. The Indian currency slid 40 paise to close at 67.83 per dollar.
Economists said the rupee was likely to fare marginally better than its emerging mar-ket peers in the coming months as the Fed pursues its policy normalisation by gradually increasing interest rates.
ICRA expects the rupee to trade in a range of 67-70 against the dollar in the remaining period of the cur-rent fiscal year.
The benchmark Sensex slid 83.77 points, or 0.31 per cent, to close at 26,519.07. Among the Sensex pack, 18 stocks lost ground though counters including TCS, Axis Bank, ONGC, Bajaj Auto, State Bank of India and Wipro managed to buck the overall negative trend.
A total of 1,317 stocks lost ground on the BSE, as against 1,280 gainers. The broader Nifty lost 28.85 points, or 0.35 per cent, to close at 8,153.60.

Chief Economic Advisor wants real estate sales under GST

The sale of land and real estate should be included in the Goods and Ser-vices Tax structure, Chief Economic Adviser said, adding that rates should be lower rather than higher as this would help the fight against black money.
The CEA, however, did not reply to questions regarding the government's decision to demonetise high-value currency notes, only saying that the issue of how to manage the situation over the next few weeks and months would be challenging.
The sale of land and real estate needs to be part of GST. That way the input tax credits can enter the system.
The CEA also highlighted two challenges the Indian economy would have to face domestically.
Dr. Subramanian said that the Indian economy was very stable, with both retail and wholesale price inflation having fallen from double-digit levels, the current ac-count deficit being low and fiscal deficit consistently reducing.

Golden Rules of Question Tags in English Grammar (SSC & Other Competitive Exams)

Rules of Question Tag in English Grammar

SSC Aspirants must have come across many questions to complete the question tags. This may be easy for some of you while difficult for others. So, let us make it easy for all of you through these Rules of Question Tag in English Grammar which will make these questions very easy for you to answer. We hope the post will be helpful for the upcoming SSC & other Competitive Exams

Golden Rules of Question Tags in English Grammar

The sentence and the question tag must be in the same tense.
For negative question tag, use the Contracted form of 'helping verb' and 'not' .E.g didn't, hadn't, won't etc
If the Sentence is positive, the question tag must be negative and vice versa.
Always use pronoun in the question tag.

Rule-1: Some words are negative in meaning . For e.g. hardly, seldom, scarcely, rarely, barely etc. Hence they will take positive question tag after them.

E.g.- He hardly does any work, does he?
He found barely anything to eat , did he?
He is seldom absent, is he?

Rule-2:If a sentence starts with "There", the question tag will have "there" in the place of pronoun.

E.g- There is no water , is there?
There were no good schools in the town, were there?

Rule-3: Question tag is always made in accordance with the main part of the sentence.

E.g- I think, he is right, isn't he? (Here 'I think' is not important and hence it is not the main part of the sentence".

Rule- 4 : There is no contracted form of 'am not' but 'aren't' is used in question tag.

Eg- I am fine, aren't I?

Rule-5 : Each, every, everyone, everybody, no one, nobody, none are singular and hence will take singular verb/ singular pronoun/ singular adjective with them but their question tag will take plural verb and plural pronoun.

E.g- Everyone has come, hasn't he ( Incorrect)
Everyone has come, haven't they (correct)
None of your friends like her, do they
Everyone can speak English, can't they?

Rule-6: If the sentence starts with "let us/ let's ", " shall we" is used in the question.

E.g.- Let us go to party tonight, shall we?

Rule-7: In Imperative sentences, question tag 'won't you' is used.

E.g- come in, won't you?

Rule-8: Collective noun takes singular verb and singular pronoun in question tag.

E.g.- The jury has taken its decision, hasn't it?

Rule-9: If we talk about the individual members of the collective noun or if there is a difference in opinion among the members of the collective noun, plural verb and plural pronoun are used.

E.g.- The comm are divided in their opinion, aren't they?
The audience have taken their seats, haven't they?

Rule-10: If in a imperative sentence, somebody is being offered anything, or if someone is being asked to do something, "will you/ would you" is used in the question tag.

E.g- Open the door, would you?
Have some more tea, would you?

We hope that the post would have cleared all your doubts related to the topic.