CURRENT AFFAIRS 10th JULY, 2014

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1. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on 9 July 2014 presented Economic Survey of India 2013-14 in the Lok Sabha.

Highlights of economic survey:

• Economy to grow in the range of 5.4-5.9% for the year 2014-15. Risk factors due external environment, poor investment climate and poor monsoon.

• Reforms needed in the form of low and stable inflation regime, tax and expenditure reform and regulatory framework.

• RBI has identified five sectors -- infrastructure, iron and steel, textiles, aviation and mining as the stressed sectors and banks are exposed to these stressed sectors.

• India’s balance of payments and Foreign reserves improved substantially. World trade showed a recovery from 2.8% in 2012. India is the second fastest growing services sector.

2. Law Commission of India headed by Former Justice A P Shah submitted a report titled ‘Manpower Planning in Judiciary: A Blue Print’ to the Union Government. It recommended recruitment of judges to dispose the backlog, special evening and morning courts and additional courts to ensure timely justice.

3. Supreme Court restrained all State governments from releasing life convicts exercising their remission powers. This ruling comes when the matter relating to the release of life convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case is being taken up for hearing by the court.

4. Finance minister Arun Jaitley announced his plans for the rolling out Goods and Services tax from July 1. GST is a nation-wide tax to reform indirect taxes and bring uniformity in the tax system all over the country.

5. Finance Minister said PSB lenders would require Rs 2.40 lakh crore capital by 2018 to meet global Basel III norms. A large part of this fund would be raised through public offers made to retail customers in a phased manner. Government is also examining the proposal to increase the autonomy of Public sector banks.