Current Affairs May 14-15, 2015

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Current Affairs May 15, 2015

1. RBI Clears decks for “tap&pay”. SBI,ICICI and Axis bank have launched contactless cards in the country, which will help make transactions faster. RBI permits banks by using the NFC (Near Field Communication) technology thro’ radio transmission, transactions below Rs. 2000/-, without a PIN, by contactless cards. Bankers say over 60 per cent of transactions on cards currently are below the threshold limit of Rs.2,000.
2. FM sticks to April 2016 dead line for GST(Goods and services tax). Finance Minister stuck to the April deadline for rolling out goods and services tax(GST). Legacy issues are mostly over, some carry –over effect of tax issues remains. FDI has grown 40% to Rs.1.76 lakh crore in 2014-15.
3. RBI : IT subsidiary on the anvil. The RBI is considering an IT subsidiary to keep tabs on cyber security and IT issues related to banks. Rajan said, “We have to worry about cyber supervision. The board suggested that we should focus on perhaps an IT subsidiary”.
4. Exports down 14% in April, 5th straight monthly fall. Imports for the month $33.04 bn, 7.5 % lower than $35.7 bn in April 2014. A sharp fall in petroleum and other commodity prices led to a 14% annual fall in India’s merchandise exports in April 2015.
5. RBI’s Govt bond auction devolves partially. The RBI’s govt bond auction bond worth Rs. 16,000 crore devolved partially on primary dealers due to lack of participation in the auction by insurance companies.

Current Affairs May 14, 2015

1. PM will push China to cut trade deficit. FDI likely to improve in the current fiscal. PM points out specific areas-ranging from pharmaceuticals to information technology and bovine meat- where China has not invested in the past. China, which is India’s largest trade partner, had proposed to invest around $20 billion in industrial parks over next five years.
2. Indian companies may face an attrition of 15-20% for quarter ending June. 2015. Attrition is likely to be more in the tech sector due to the e-commerce boom. A report says 59% of Indian employees are looking to change their jobs in 2015.
3. PM’S Social net plan gets 6.5cr on board. The Government appears to be on course to replicate the success of the Jan Dhan scheme with the social security having got nearly 6.5 crore subscriptions for the 3 schemes launched by the government. A Report says the response has been encouraging as people have subscribed to the Rs 2 lakhs accident cover, pension plan and life insurance cover.
4. Industrial growth slows down to 2.1%. Retail inflation eased to a four-month low in April on the back of cooling food prices and industrial out-put growth.
5. Adidas bets on India for turnaround. Mr. Roland Auschel, Head of Global sales, Adidas says that India and China are our two biggest growth markets. A large chunk of 1.5-billion-euro marketing investment may flow into India. India will be one of the top five market for them by 2020.