Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 04 DECEMBER 2019

::NATIONAL::

Minister for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan today said the Government has begun implementing nation-wide portability of the benefits under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013.
He was speaking during the Question Hour in the LokSabhatoday.MrPaswan said eligible households or beneficiaries covered under NFSA would be able to lift their entitled food grains from any Fair Price Shop, FPS, in the country.
This would be possible by using the same ration card after biometric or Aadhaar authentication on Electronic Point of Sale, EPoS, device at an FPS of Destination/Sale State through ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ Plan.
The Minister reiterated that the facility of inter-State portability under this initiative would be available only through FPSs, having fully online ePoS devices.

Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar today said that to intensify the use of buckwheat, ICAR-All India Co-ordinated Research Network on potential crops has developed nutritionally rich five varieties.
He said they are promoted by ICAR and respective State Agricultural Universities (SAUs) through front line demonstrations, trainings and kisanmelas.

The Government today clarified that it is not contemplating to stop the circulation of two thousand rupee notes.
In a written reply in the RajyaSabha today, Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur said there is no such proposal under consideration. He also said that a declining trend is visible in the seizure of unaccounted cash in the denomination of two thousand rupee notes.
The Minister said in the year 2017-18, around 68 per cent of unaccounted cash was seized in the denomination of two thousand rupees, while in the year 2018-19, it was around 66 per cent.
In the current financial year, over 43 per cent of unaccounted cash was seized in the denomination of two thousand rupees.
The Minister said as on March this year, over 31 per cent of total notes in circulation are of two thousand rupees.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has revamped mobile number portability (MNP) rules, making the entire process faster and simpler. The TRAI has prescribed three working days timeline for port out requests within a service area.
Similarly, timeline of five working days has been prescribed for requests for port out from one circle to another. The new rules will come into effect from December 16.
Validity of the Unique Porting Code (UPC) has also been brought down to four days instead of a fortnight earlier. It will be applicable to all circles except Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and North East, where the validity of the said code remains unchanged to 30 days.

The leaders of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, will meet today to mark the 70th birthday of the organization in London.
Scotland Yard said road closures will be in place in central London during the meet. The two-day summit includes receptions at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street plus a working session at a golf resort in outer London. United States President Donald Trump landed in Britain ahead of the summit yesterday.
NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, the alliance needs to address the challenges and opportunities posed by an increasingly powerful China, but added that the alliance does not want to make an enemy out of Beijing.
The twenty-nine member alliance is the world's biggest military alliance.

The United Nations has said that Zimbabwe is going through a vicious cycle of skyrocketing malnutrition that's hitting women and children hardest.
About half of the country's population faces severe hunger amid a devastating drought and economic collapse. World Food Programme's executive director David Beasley said in a statement that with poor rains expected before the harvest in April, the scale of hunger will worsen.
According to the UN expert, HilalElver, Inflation is skyrocketing to over 490 per cent. This is the second-highest rate in the world after Venezuela.

India today successfully test-fired its indigenously developed surface-to-surface nuclear-capable Prithvi-II missile off Odisha coast. The Strategic Forces Command of the Indian Army conducted the user trial of the 350 km range missile from a mobile launcher from launch complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur at around 7.50 p.m.
Defence sources said the missile weighs about 4,600 kg, is capable of carrying 500 to one thousand kilograms of warheads and is thrust by liquid propulsion twin engines. It also said all parameters within the stipulated time period were achieved.
AIR correspondent reports, inducted into the 333-missile regiment of the Indian Army in 2003, the nine-meter-tall, single-stage liquid-fuelled Prithvi-II is the first missile to have been developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme.

Indian women's football team got its South Asian Games 2019 campaign off to a winning start as it sealed a thumping 5-0 win over the Maldives yesterday.
Bala Devi struck a brace, while Dangmei Grace, Manisha and JabamaniTudu scored a goal apiece to hand the team three points at the Pokhara Stadium in Nepal.