Re: Does salt, in any way, affect the rising of bread dough?

Yes it does.  My experience here is as a person who has often made bread 
using yeast and salt with wheat flour, but not baking powder.

If you add too much salt it stops the yeast from growing as it should, and 
that means the raw dough will not rise.  Too little salt and it will rise 
OK but the bread will then taste less good.  I can't give you exact 
quantities because they vary with flour humidity, and which particular 
variety/varieties of wheat the flour was made from.
Also, if you accidentally use brewer's yeast instead of live baker's yeast 
the result will be a disaster.  I made that mistake once, and the 
resulting bread could have substituted for concrete  :(