Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 04 November 2018

::NATIONAL::

Notwithstanding the restrictions imposed by the Supreme Court, Deepavali might continue to be noisy in the city as fire cracker sales have soared by 30 per cent this week.
With just four days left for the festival of lights to dawn, Dhoolpet traders who expected a fall in sales said the judgment came too late for it to have an effect immediately.
Hyderabad city police have not issued any directions to residential associations to enforce the SC verdict that restricts the use of firecrackers between 8 and 10 pm on Deepavali day. Hyderabad police commissionerate, however, had issued instructions to general public requesting them to follow the SC order.
The traders said most of them had also taken permission from respective police commissionerates to sell crackers. According to the SC judgment only licensed traders should sell fire crackers. “With elections round the corner, Deepavali will be grand affair this year. So our sales have also improved compared to last year,” said DevendraDalal, Joint Secretary of Telangana firecracker sellers’ association which has 120 licensed members.

Kashmir witnessed an early spell of snowfall this year on Saturday, forcing closure of all three major highways connecting the Valley with rest of the country. Air traffic was also stopped.
“Moderate to heavy snowfall of 1.5 feet was reported in Kashmir Valley, with highest snow formation in upper reaches and passes like Zojila. It’s the fourth time in the past two decades that Kashmir witnessed snowfall in November,” said Sonam Lotus, who heads the meteorological department in Srinagar.
The three main highways — Jammu-Srinagar, Poonch-Srinagar and Kargil-Srinagar — were closed, cutting off the valley from the rest of India. The Leh-Manali-Zanskar route was also closed due to the snowfall. Over 100 stranded passengers were rescued from the Mughal Road, connecting the PirPanjal valley with Srinagar.
Air traffic was also suspended after snow accumulated on the runway at the airport in capital Srinagar. Seven Srinagar-bound flights were cancelled.Authorities have set up emergency control rooms across the valley “to meet any eventuality”.

A ‘National Conference on Public Procurement & Competition Law’ is being organised by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in Delhi on 5th November, 2018 with a view to scale up Competition Advocacy and reach out to important stakeholders in public procurement ecosystem.
The National Conference is being organised in association with Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA), a think tank under the aegis of Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
Ahead of the National Conference, CCI Chairperson ShriSudhirMital said that the National Conference is a unique initiative of the Commission which provides a platform to various stakeholders to engage in an active discussion with the policymakers and the industry on various aspects of competition law and public procurement.
He further added that infusing competition and checking anti-competitive conduct in public procurement is a priority for the CCI.
The National Conference will be attended by senior policy makers from Central Government, various State Governments, participants from the public sector enterprises, industry, legal and finance professionals, corporate lawyers, academics, and other relevant stakeholders.

While the intensity of Manipur’s decades-old insurgency has been contained, with security forces ensuring there are no insurgent camps left in the State, militants continue to take advantage of the hilly terrain and porous border with Myanmar to carry out attacks with IEDs and sophisticated weapons, army officials said.
With the forces conducting intelligence based operations that have limited the militants’ operational ability, Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and ambushes have become the insurgents’ mainstay and pose the biggest challenges for the Army and the Assam Rifles.
There have been 17 IED blasts so far this year, compared with 44 explosions in 2017. At the same time, 30 IEDs and 112 weapons were recovered this year, compared with 29 IEDs and 98 weapons in 2017.
Maj. Gen. Mishra said the terrain posed challenges, as it is mostly hilly and thickly forested and added, “Wherever there is insurgency, there are a number of over ground workers and there is also an element of agitation which is engineered.”
Gen. Rawat observed that as part of the government’s Act East policy Manipur assumed greater significance. It becomes a key centre as the “Asian Highway 1 will link India to the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) through Moreh,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested he is open to a new comprehensive deal with Iran, saying that till then the toughest-ever sanctions on the West Asian country that kick off on Monday would continue.
Iran reached an agreement with the six world powers including the U.S. and the EU in 2015, which curtailed its nuclear programme in return for lifting of the international economic sanctions. In May, Mr. Trump announced the U.S.’s withdrawal from what he described as “the horrible, one-sided” nuclear deal.
In his statement, Mr. Trump called on the regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions, change its “destructive behaviour”, respect the rights of its people, and return in good faith to the negotiating table.
“On Monday, November 5, the termination of U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear deal will be complete. The last set of sanctions lifted under the terrible nuclear deal will come back into force, including powerful sanctions on Iran’s energy, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors, and sanctions targeting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran and sanctioned Iranian banks,” the President said.

GSAT-11, the heaviest Indian communication satellite built to date, for faster Internet connectivity, is back once again at the Guiana Space Centre for an early December launch.
It returns to the South American port for the second time in six months after it was taken back to Bengaluru in April for inspections.
K. Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Secretary, Department of Space, confirmed on Wednesday that the 5,700 kg spacecraft was shipped out of Bengaluru last week and has reached the European launch port.
Arianespace, ISRO’s long-time European launch services contractor, has paired GSAT-11 with South Korea’s weather satellite GEO-Kompsat 2A. The two are slated to go to space on the same Ariane 5 launch vehicle, numbered VA246.
Arianespace's CEO Stephane Israel tweeted a pictorial welcome on October 29 local time as the satellite arrived at the port halfway across the globe by a special Russian Antonov cargo flight.