Indian Economy - Current Affairs for January, 2015

These changes follow a revision in the base for calculating national accounts to 2011-12 from 2004-05.

The base year was last revised in January 2010. Earlier, year 2004-05 was the base year for computing the economic growth rate. India Ratings (Ind-Ra), a leading rating agency of the county, on 28th Jan’15 said that the revision in base year of India’s national accounts will increase the size of the economy to Rs. 111.7 trillion in the financial year 2014-15.

HDFC Bank would raise the fund through issuing of equity shares to non-resident Indians (NRIs) or foreign institutional investors (FIIs) or foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) subject to aggregate foreign shareholding not exceeding 74 per cent of the post issue paid up capital.

As per the report, Per capita income in Himachal Pradesh is the second highest in the country – an impressive achievement given that more than 90 percent of its residents live in rural areas.

The decision will help the government to raise revenue of 24,000 crore rupees at the current market price. Currently, the government holds 89.65 per cent stake in CIL. As per the minimum shareholding norms for listed companies, the government needs to lower its stake in the state-run behemoth to 75 percent.

RBI issued a circular eased the restriction on export and import of bank notes of 1,000 and 500 denominations for Nepal and Bhutan that it had imposed since May, 2000. The Indian central bank, however, has put a limit of carrying such notes at Rs 25,000 per person.

Under these MOUs, the U.S. would assist India in developing three smart cities Allahabad, Ajmer and Visakhapatnam.

India's foreign exchange reserves touched an all time high of 322.135 billion US Dollars for the week ended 16thJanuary’15. Strong FII inflows and reduction in import burden due to a record fall in oil prices have led to accumulation of the record forex reserves.

Since 2010-11, the Central Government has been bringing out an annual Status Paper on Government Debt giving detailed analysis of the government’s debt position.

The road will connect Ayodhya with Janakpur in Nepal, to which Sita, the wife of Lord Rama in the epic 'Ramayana', belonged.

In 2014, India's growth rate was 5.8 per cent against China's 7.4 per cent, said the World Economic Report update released by the International Monetary Fund. India's growth rate in 2013 was five per cent as against China's 7.8 per cent.

India-China trade increased all time high of 73.9 billion US dollars in 2011 but declined to 66.57 billion US dollars in 2012 and 65.49 billion US dollars in 2013.

Cash Reserve Ratio by Reserve bank of India keeps remains unchanged at 4%.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut the reverse repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.75%. The move comes at a time when inflation is steadily coming down and cries for a rate cut were growing loud.

These four states contributed 62% of total health insurance premium; the rest 32 States/UTs contributed only 38% of total premium.