Current Affairs 26th Feb., 2015

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1. US government announced that it is amending regulations to allow Spouses of professionals working in the US under non-immigrant business visa H-1B to engage in gainful employment. Indian IT companies are among the largest beneficiaries of H-1B visas.

2. Union Cabinet cleared the establishment of the New Development Bank for funding infrastructure and development projects in the BRICS countries. It also cleared the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) which is meant to provide short-term liquidity support to the members in case of a Balance of Payments Crisis.

3. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has notified that Overdraft facilities extended under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) will qualify as priority sector lending. However, for this, the borrower’s household annual income should not exceed Rs 60,000 in rural areas and Rs 1,20,000 in non-rural areas.

4. Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan went with the majority view of an advisory panel that the policy repo rate should be left unchanged in the sixth bi-monthly monetary policy review. RBI last reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points from 8 per cent to 7.75 per cent on January 15, outside the policy review cycle.

5. The 14th Finance Commission has recommended the creation of an autonomous and independent GST Compensation Fund by the Centre through legislative action. States have been demanding that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation fund must be created constitutionally.