Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 04 June 2016

:: National ::

In a verdict against police excesses, SC says it is against dignity

• Illegal use of state power to rob a person of her liberty is an assault on the citizen’s identity and constitutional right to dignity, the Supreme Court held.

• In a scathing verdict against police excesses, the apex court details the conduct of a Madhya Pradesh police team which went from Bhopal to Pune to arrest a woman lawyer in her seventies and her doctor daughter.

• A Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and S.K. Singh narrated the women’s story, in which they were denied food and water, medical help for the mother, who was made to sleep on the “cold floor” of an unreserved train compartment during their transit from Pune to Bhopal.

• Quashing the criminal case against the women, Justice Misra, who authored the judgment for the Bench, ordered Madhya Pradesh to pay Rs. 5 lakh each as compensation to the mother.

• “We are inclined to think that the dignity of the petitioners, a doctor and a practising advocate has been seriously jeopardised. Dignity is the quintessential quality of a personality for, it is a highly cherished value. It is also clear that liberty of the petitioner was curtailed in violation of law,” the judgment observed.

Draft legislation says citizens have a right to safe water

• The government has for the first time said that citizens had a right to safe water and laid out stringent rules on how corporations and large entities can extract groundwater in two separate pieces of draft legislation.

• The Bills —in a first — also propose fines ranging from Rs.5,000 to Rs. 5,00,000 depending on the level of infraction and who the perpetrators were.

• Groundwater wouldn’t also be a free resource and those who could pay for it ought to be doing so while ensuring that it was equitably available to all. The Bill doesn’t detail a mechanism but lays down broad principles.

• To be sure, previous governments have also tried to enact legislation to ensure that groundwater— a fragile resource and 80% of India’s irrigation supply— is used judiciously.

• However, these didn’t account for the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution vesting powers to panchayats and municipalities in the management of water that includes groundwater and was rarely adopted by States.

• The draft bills — the National Water Framework Bill and the Model Bill for the Conservation, Protection, Regulation and Management of Groundwater will be open for public comment until the month end.

• Bill aim to decentralise water management and give more power to panchayats and gram sabhas to decide how water can be better used.

• The most fundamental reform that the Bill sought to make was to do away with the “British Common Law” concept — as Mr. Shah described it — that he who owned the land could extract unlimited groundwater.

• According to the provisions of the proposed Bill, corporations and industries extracting groundwater now had to submit plans to ensure that water was used responsibly and that any possible contamination was remedied.

• The Bills also say that the top priority in the use of groundwater ought to be in meeting drinking, sanitation, food security, sustenance agriculture, the needs of women and only after that for industry.

ISRO looks for satellite system vendors

• National space agency ISRO has called a meeting of suppliers later this month to raise the levels of their contribution to the country’s satellite programme.

• The June 23 conference of spacecraft industry suppliers is aimed at helping them to evolve from suppliers of small components to providers of bigger and whole sub-systems and systems.

• ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) estimates a demand for 71 satellites in the next five years, including the exploratory ones to study Moon and Sun.

• The launch vehicle industry contributes in a much larger way, may be to around 90 percent. The conference will check the pulse of the industry and come out with some solutions.

• Currently 30-odd Indian spacecraft are in orbit. They belong to communication, Earth observation and navigation genres orbit in space and supporting uses such as broadcasting, communication, Internet, mapping, estimation of natural resources, search and rescue, crop and weather forecasting and location-based services.

• ISRO hopes to get entire systems supplied in areas such as telemetry, power systems and satellite control systems; currently vendors supply smaller components of each of these systems.

:: International ::

Nepali soldiers kicked off efforts to partially drain glacial lake

• Nepali soldiers have kicked off efforts to partially drain a giant glacial lake near Mount Everest, fearing possible flooding that could threaten the lives of thousands.

• Scientists say climate change is causing Himalayan glaciers to melt at an alarming rate, creating huge glacial lakes which could burst their banks and devastate mountain communities.

• ImjaTsho, located at an altitude of 16,437 feet, just 10 km south of the world’s highest peak, is the fastest-growing glacial lake in Nepal.

• The surface area covered by the lake expanded from 0.4 to 1.01 square km between 1984 and 2009, triggering concerns that it may breach its banks and flood villages downstream.

• The work began in April and the army expects to complete the project by the end of the year.

• A flood would have a catastrophic impact on the lives of more than 56,000 people living in villages located as far away as Nepal's densely populated Terai plains.

• Dozens of villages located nearby and in the downstream Terai districts up to 50 kilometres away from the lake are vulnerable.

Committee on constitutional supports autonomousunits for Muslims and Tamils

• An official committee on constitutional reforms has supported the idea of forming “internal autonomous units” for Muslims in the East and hill-country Tamils in the Central Province.

• Though three out of 20 members in the panel have proposed the idea, the panel has chosen to make this as one of its recommendations in the chapter dealing with devolution.

• The panel, which gave an account of the plight of the hill-country (Malayaha) Tamils, felt the proposed unit needed to be empowered to address economic, social, cultural and religious issues concerning the community.

• Autonomous units should enjoy legislative and executive powers over defined matters, having an impact on the lives of the community.

• While summarising the problems of the community whose members are living in 14 districts, the committee said the present system of local governments did not fully incorporate human settlements in the plantation sector.

• Considering the importance of the Muslims and the hill-country Tamils in the overall Sri Lankan society, the panel, in its suggestion on the proposed Constitution’s preamble, stated that the two be recognised as constituent parts.

• Also, it recommended that members of the two communities be included in the proposed National Land Commission.

:: Science and Technology ::

Using satellite based method NASAcame up with new pollution source

• Using a new satellite-based method, NASA scientists have located 39 unreported and major human-made sources of toxic sulphur dioxide emissions.

• The unreported emission sources, found in the analysis of satellite data from 2005 to 2014, are clusters of coal-burning power plants, smelters, oil and gas operations – found notably in West Asia, but also in Mexico and parts of Russia.

• In addition, reported emissions from known sources in these regions were, in some cases, two to three times lower than satellite-based estimates.

• Altogether, unreported and under-reported sources account for about 12 per cent of all human-made emissions of sulphur dioxide — a discrepancy that can have a large impact on regional air quality.

• Sulphur dioxide is a known health hazard and cause of acid rain. Currently, sulphur dioxide-monitoring activities include the use of emission inventories that are derived from ground-based measurements and factors, such as fuel usage.

:: India and World ::

India and Singapore held the inaugural Singapore-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue

• Taking forward the Prime Minister’s commitment in Singapore for furthering defence cooperation during his visit to Singapore last year, India and Singapore held the inaugural Singapore-India Defence Ministers’ Dialogue (DMD).

• Mr. Parrikar and Dr. Ng commended the long-standing defence ties between Singapore and India, and noted the DMD would take the relationship to new heights.

• Last month, the two countries convened the first meeting of their Defence Industry Working Group in which both sides agreed to set up industry level working mechanisms to foster cooperation in aerospace, electronics and other areas of mutual interest.

• Both ministers noted that new opportunities for industrial collaboration, including through Joint Ventures, have opened up due to India’s Make in India initiative.

• Both countries significantly scaled up their military to military engagement with bilateral visits and joint exercises.

• India and Singapore signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) in 2003 which was revised in 2015.

• Defence cooperation had been identified as a key sector under the India-Singapore Joint Declaration on Strategic Partnership signed during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Singapore in November 2015.

India looking for port facility in Paira, Bangladesh

• After bagging the strategically important Chabahar Port in Iran, the government is looking eastwards and is in discussions with Bangladesh to develop a similar facility in Paira.

• India Ports Global, the joint venture between the state-run JNPT and Kandla Port for overseas ports, is interested in the expressions of interest which have been invited for construction of Paira/Payra port in Bangladesh.

• A media report said China had evinced keen interest in building the Paira port. In what was taken as a reflection of the growing Indo-Bangladeshi ties,

• Dhaka had cancelled the deal and was about to award it to New Delhi. The Narendra Modi government has been talking about an ‘Act East’ policy, as against the previous regime’s ‘Look East’ policy.

• The moves to build maritime infrastructure in Iran in the West and Bangladesh in the East seem to be part of that approach.

:: Business and Economy ::

National Aviation policy to come soon

• The National Civil Aviation Policy is ready and will be taken up by the Cabinet for approval after the Prime Minister’s return from his five-nation foreign tour.

• Through the past week, and after seven months of consultations, the Civil Aviation Ministry had been giving its final touches to the policy, which seeks to boost regional connectivity and ease norms for new airlines to fly on international routes.

• However, since the policy wasn’t in final shape it couldn’t be taken up for consideration at the Cabinet meeting this week.

• The ministry had considered seeking the prime minister's permission to announce the policy and seek an ex-post-facto approval from the Cabinet later this month.

Govt gets in-principle approval for Farzad-B gas project of Iran

• A tentative deadline of October for the completion of talks with Iran regarding the development of that country’s Farzad-B gas project by a consortium of Indian companies has been announced by Govt.

• “Iran has given an in-principle approval for the deal,” Govt said.

• The price is yet to be settled. While they need a viable royalty amount, our companies also need a suitable economic incentive. We are trying to complete the talks by October.”

• The Farzad-B field, discovered in 2012, is estimated to have 21.68 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves.

• The deal with Iran would see development of the field by a consortium of Indian companies led by ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

• A license to sell fuel in India is subject to a company investing Rs 2,000 crore in oil and gas infrastructure, whether it is in refineries, exploration and production, pipelines or terminals.

• The Minister also unveiled the unified guidelines for the awarding of LPG distributorship.

• Under the new system, there will be four broad types of distributorships with varying refill ceiling limits – Sheheri (Urban), Rurban (a combination of rural and urban), Gramin (rural) and Durgam Vitrak (for hilly and difficult to reach locations).

• The new guidelines also provide for a 33 per cent reservation of the licenses for women across all categories.

• The minister highlighted some achievements of his Ministry over the last two years such as the Rs 30,000 crore of LPG subsidies directly transferred to beneficiaries’ accounts between January and May of this year.

• While India currently has an LPG consumption of 19 million metric tonnes, this is set to increase substantially.

Govt to provide 17000 crores for grid connected solar rooftop systems

• The government has lined up almost $2.5 billion (about Rs.16,800 crore) for providing low cost finance to achieve the target of installing 40 GW grid-connected solar rooftop systems.

• The ministry is in negotiation with the KfW Development Bank to secure soft loans of 1 billion euro. They have already provided $100 million funding,” The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Secretary Upendra Tripathy told reporters here.

• The World Bank has committed a loan of $620 million, with the Asian Development Bank and the New Development Bank pledging $500 million and $250 million, respectively.

• The power generated from solar rooftop plants installed even today is almost at par with the commercial tariff for consumers in many states. The cost of solar power is declining, while that of electricity from fossil fuels is rising.

• Today, it is possible to generate solar power from rooftop systems at about Rs.6.5 per kilo watt hour, which is cheaper than power generated from diesel gensets and also cheaper than the cost at which most discoms make power available to industries and high-end domestic consumers.

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