Current Affairs November 2014

Current Affairs 1'st November  2014

1. Devendra Fadnavis sworn in as Chief Minister of Maharashtra

Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis, was sworn-in as the 18th Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He is the first BJP leader from Maharashtra to become CM.Maharashtra Governor C.V. Rao administered the oath of office and secrecy to Mr. Fadnavis.Along with CM Fadnavis, the Cabinet ministers were also sworn.These Cabinet ministers were sworn: Eknath Khadse, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Vinod Tawde and Pankaja Munde, Prakash Mehta, Vishnu Sawra, and Chandrakant Patil. Besides, Dilip Kamble and Vidya Thakur were sworn in as ministers of state.The oath ceremony took place in public function at Wankhede stadium in Mumbai, Maharashtra and was witnessed by over 30000 people.Fadnavis was appointed as CM of the State after he was elected by the elected legislative assembly members of the BJP.

Devendra Fadnavis

Fadnavis is a fourth-term MLA from Nagpur. He has been elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of Maharashtra State, representing Nagpur South West, since 1999.He is the fourth politician from Vidarbha region to become CM.At the age of 44, he is the second youngest person to become CM of Maharashtra.He was the second youngest mayor elected in India, when he served as the Mayor of Nagpur at the age of 27, in 1997.

Maharashtra State Assembly 2014 election results

The State Assembly elections were held in October 2014.In this election, BJP had emerged as the single largest party in the 288-member Maharashtra state assembly by winning 122 seats.But at present BJP has 121 MLA’s as one of its MLA Govind Rathod died.
The Shiv Sena finished second with 63 seats.Nationalist Congress Party (NCP),which emerged victorious in 41 seats, has offered the BJP external support to form the government in the state.

2. New austerity measure by government, announces 10% cut in non-plan expenditure.

Finance Ministry has announced new mandatory austerity measures.Government aims to restrict fiscal deficit to 4.1 per cent of GDP in 2014-15 and hence, have taken up such steps. Thus it will lead to10 per cent cut in the Centre’s non-Plan expenditure for 2014-15.Austerity measures taken up by the ministry are:

The main objective of the fiscal prudence and economy measures was the need to rationalise expenditure and optimise available resources.It bans ministers from holding meetings in five-star hotels and traveling in first class of airlines.Ban on fresh appointments and filling of posts that have been vacant for over a year.Officials have been advised to exercise economy in booking air tickets and have been encouraged to use video-conferencing instead of making trips where ever possible.Officials would also not be permitted to get free companion tickets