The Daily Brief – 7th January, 2017

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• India’s gross domestic output is expected to grow at a slower pace of 7.1 per cent in 2016-17 compared to the 7.6 per cent clocked in the previous year. However, this decision does not factor in the demonetisation decision. The announcement in this regard was made by Chief Statistician, TCA Anant.

• The Centre has made obtaining an Aadhaar number mandatory for 2.5 crore members of the Employees’ Pension Scheme of 1995, one of the benefits available to Employees’ Provident Fund subscribers. The Labour Ministry said in a notification that those without an Aadhaar number will have to make an application to get enrolled by January 31, 2017. The subsidy, equivalent to 1.16 per cent of the employee’s salary upto Rs. 6,500, paid by the Centre towards the EPS, will no longer be credited till the Aadhaar number is shared with the authorities.

• A solar-panel powered coach, the first of its kind in Jan Shatabdi in Southern Railway, was flagged off yesterday. The 4.8 kW solar PV panels have been mounted on a specially designed metallic structure to withstand wind velocity, vibration and shock of the trains. The solar panels will help the Railways in saving about 1,700 litres of diesel per annum per coach.

• U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama has selected 16-year-old Indian-American Swetha Prabakaran to serve in the inaugural Student Advisory Board of an education campaign which seeks to provide educational opportunities for teenagers in America.

• Astronomers, using data from India’s Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), have discovered two of the most powerful phenomena in the universe — a supermassive black hole and the collision of giant galaxy clusters about two billion light years from Earth. By combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in Pune and other telescopes, researchers found what happens when matter ejected by a giant black hole is swept up in the merger of two enormous galaxy clusters.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has agreed to provide Rs. 1 billion in Rs. 100 notes to the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) to ease the acute shortage of Rs. 100 notes faced by the Himalayan nation.

• During a meeting with the World Bank, India asked the World Bank not to rush in brokering a deal on its dispute with Pakistan over the Ratle and Kishenganga projects coming up in Jammu and Kashmir. India also maintained its position that the designs of the Ratle and Kishenganga projects do not violate the Indo-Pak Indus Water Treaty.

• The 14th edition of Pravasi Bhartiya Divas began in the country’s IT hub Bengaluru, Karnataka. The theme of this edition is “Redefining Engagement with the Indian Diaspora”.

• Eminent jurist C.G. Weeramantry, who was the first Sri Lankan to be appointed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, and acclaimed for his dissenting judgment on nuclear weapons has passed away. Justice Weeramantry began his judicial career in the 1950s, and became Sri Lanka’s youngest Supreme Court judge.

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