Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 05 October 2017

::NATIONAL::

Online harassment on a rise

• Eight out of 10 people in India have experienced some form of online harassment, with 41% of women having faced sexual harassment on the web, according to a new survey commissioned by cybersecurity solutions firm, Norton by Symantec.
• The online survey was conducted in the summer of 2017 with a sample size of 1,035 respondents drawn mainly from Tier 1 cities, with the objective of understanding Indian exposure to online harassment.
• The most common forms of online harassment were found to be abuse and insults, which was reported by 63% of respondents. This was followed by malicious gossip and rumours (59%), malicious comments/threats on a social media site (54%), trolling (50%), and attacks/abuse from a coordinated group (49%).
• The study also found that of the four countries from the AsiaPacific region which were surveyed (India, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan), India recorded the highest level of online harassment, with 45% of the respondents having experienced cyberstalking.
• With Indians spending more time on social media platforms and mobile applications, it is important that online users take basic precautions to protect their safety and security to avoid unwanted contact.
• As per the study, in 42% of the cyberbullying cases and in nearly half of all instances of cyberstalking where the victim was a woman, the perpetrator was a stranger.
• While the survey revealed that men and women reported similar experiences of online harrassment, people with disabilities and poor mental health were more susceptible to some of the more serious threats.
• Seventyone per cent of people with disabilities or poor mental health reported receiving threats of physical violence, while 67% people were cyberbullied.
• Threats of physical violence experienced by the respondents was highest in Mumbai (51%), followed by Delhi (47%), and Hyderabad (46%).
• Similarly, online sexual harrassment was reported to be highest in Delhi and Mumbai (43%), followed by Kolkata (37%) and Bengaluru (36%).

Rajnish Kumar to succeed Arundhati Bhattacharya

• The government has appointed Rajnish Kumar as chairman of the State Bank of India (SBI), with effect from October 7. He will succeed Arundhati Bhattacharya whose term ends on October 6.
• In a notification, the government said Mr. Kumar will have a threeyear term.
• Now he is of the four managing directors of the SBI, looking after the domestic banking sector as head of the National Banking Group.

Panel to suggest on better utilization of water resources in northeast

• The ViceChairman of the NITI Aayog will be heading a committee to study and offer suggestions on how to better utilise the water resources in the Northeastern region.
• A statement of the Ministry for Development of North East Region (DoNER) said the Committee would submit its report by June 2018.
• “The committee would facilitate optimising benefits of appropriate water management in the form of hydroelectric power, agriculture, biodiversity conservation, reduced flood damage erosion, inland water transport, forestry, fishery and ecotourism,” said the Ministry.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the decision on August 1 when he visited Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to survey the floodhit areas.
• Apart from an interim relief package of Rs. 2,000 crore, he had suggested a holistic approach to tackle the problems of floods and harness the water resources.

Some key issues before Constitution Benches

• Five Constitution Benches of the Supreme Court will start hearing five key issues from October 10, including whether it is within the fundamental rights of person to opt for euthanasia.
• One of the Benches will be hearing a series of appeals filed by the Delhi government for laying down the law on whether the Lieutenant Governor can unilaterally administer the National Capital without being bound by the “aid and advice” of the elected government.
• The court had in 2014 referred to a Constitution Bench a petition by an NGO, seeking to declare right to die with dignity as a fundamental right within the fold of right to live with dignity guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.\
• The other Benches would deal with pivotal questions like whether a parliamentary committee report can be relied upon during judicial proceedings, how to add income for future prospects of victims in motor accident claims and whether the top court can entertain a plea for making an arbitration award a rule of the court.

Turtle sanctuary in Allahabad

• The marquee National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) will establish a turtle sanctuary in Allahabad, as part of efforts to protect the rich aquatic biodiversity of river Ganga from “escalating anthropogenic pressures.
• The project at an estimated cost Rs. 1.34 crore would contribute to the sustenance of more than 2,000 aquatic species, including threatened gharials, dolphins and turtles in the Ganga.
• The Ganga and Yamuna at Allahabad are home to some of the most endangered fauna like turtles ( Batagurkachuga, Batagurdhongoka, Nilssoniagangetica, Chitra indica, Hardellathurjii etc.), the National Aquatic Animal — Gangetic dolphin ( Platanistagangetica ), the Gharial ( Gavialisgangeticus ) and numerous migratory and resident birds.
• The government had planned such a sanctuary in Varanasi in 1989 under the Ganga Action PlanI.
• However, its future hangs in the balance as the Uttar Pradesh government and the Union Environment Ministry are considering denotifying it over construction activities along the bank.

Zameen Samadhi Satyagraha

• In an unusual gesture to draw attention to their plight, more than 50 farmers dug pits and buried themselves neckdeep in the mud for three days at Nindar village, in protest against acquisition of their land by the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) for a housing project.
• The farmers began the “ Zameen Samadhi Satyagraha ” on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, after their 17daylong agitation failed to make an impact on the authorities.
• Women and children also joined the protest and accused the State government of forcibly acquiring their farmland and providing inadequate compensation.
• The JDA acquired 1,350 bigha land in Nindar village in 2010 for a housing project and deposited Rs.60 crore in the court when some land owners challenged the acquisition. Farmers, who refused to part with 400 bigha land and accept the compensation, contend that market rates have spiralled in the last seven years.
• The Samiti delegation had placed the demand for appointment of a committee, with farmers’ representation, on the issue and a fresh survey of the land which the government had marked for acquisition.

INDIA AND WORLD

India Bangladesh

• Bangladesh signed a $4.5billion loan deal with India for developing its infrastructure, health and education.
• The agreement was signed here in the presence of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his Bangladesh counterpart, A.M.A. Muhith, by Bangladeshi Economic Relations Division Secretary Kazi ShofiqulAzam and Managing Director of the ExportImport Bank of India David Rasquinha.
• Mr. Jaitley said 17 development projects had been identified under the deal. Of the total amount, about $500 million will be used for setting up new economic zones for Indian and other investors, said officials of the Finance Ministry and the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority.
• Bangladesh will use the funds for 17 priority infrastructure projects, which include electricity, railways, roads, shipping and ports.
• As with previous line of credit (LoC) agreements, Bangladesh will pay an interest rate of 1% a year. It will have 20 years to pay back the loans, with a grace period of five years.

Chinese beefed up their presence near Doklam

• A conclave of Army Commanders next week is set to discuss military preparedness along the China border, amid indications that the Chinese may have beefed up their presence near the Doklam standoff site since the disengagement more than a month ago.
• According to sources in the Indian security establishment, the Chinese have 1,500 to 1,700 troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stationed a few hundred metres afrom the standoff site on their side.
• In the locality, Indian surveillance has also detected new bunkers. The sources said road construction stores that were moved to the area during the Doklam standoff also remain in the area, and some road relaying has been done on the Chinese side not very far from the standoff point.
• At least a couple of official sources admitted that they were uncomfortable about the Chinese presence and activities on the plateau. “It is not status quo ante,” an official said. “Ideally, they should withdraw the troops and equipment,” he said.
• The nearest PLA base is at Yatung which has a battalion headquarters with at least 600 soldiers, and is 1213 km away.
  Meanwhile, Army sources confirmed that the biannual Army Commanders conference, scheduled to be held from October 9 to 14, would be discussing the Chinese posturing and military preparedness along the border.
• The Indian Army has carried out its own readjustments in the IndiaChinaBhutan trijunction, with forward deployment of T72 tanks and BrahMos missiles among other equipment.
• The two Armies were engaged in a standoff at Doklam near the trijunction since June 16 after Indian soldiers prevented the Chinese from building a road in the disputed territory. After prolonged diplomatic negotiations, the two sides announced disengagement on August 28 ending the 73day standoff.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Japan shows interest in Silk Road

• Avoiding a zerosum trap, Japan has signalled its intent to take advantage of the Chinaled Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), notwithstanding its highprofile engagement with India, as seen during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s India visit.
• The multitrack diplomatic approach pursued by Japan became evident when its logistics giant Nippon Express signed a major cargo deal in midAugust with Kazakhstan’s state railway company.
• Under the agreement, the two companies will team up to transport goods from China’s east coast to Europe through Central Asia.
• Nippon Express will be involved in aggregating goods from Japan, Korea and other parts of Southeast Asia. These items will be pooled together at the Chinese port of Lianyungang in the East China Sea.
• The “steel silk road” — a reference to Beijing’s transcontinental rail enterprise — is one of the most visible symbols of the BRI, which has a sweeping land and maritime dimension of seamless connectivity between Asia, Europe and Africa.
• In view of the new trade and investment opportunities opening up in the BRI zone, including Central Asia, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry has set up a liaison office in China.
• Japan’s mega banks, including the Bank of TokyoMitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho Bank, have also looking for expanding their China operations, in view of the BRI.
• Prime Minister Abe has already flagged his interest in the BRI, provided the plan follows the rules of transparency and fairness. However, Tokyo has so far desisted from participating in the Chinainitiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which is expected to support BRI projects, which focus on Asia.
• In tune with the commercial opportunities offered by the BRI, Japan is sending important political signals for reviving ties with Beijing. Last week, Mr. Abe paid a surprise visit at a ceremony marking China’s National Day — a step that no Japanese Prime Minister has taken in the last 15 years

Hamid Karzai wants India to be cautious regarding US

Afghanistan’s Former President Hamid Karzai said India should not be pulled into the U.S.’s approach to Afghanistan but should maintain an independent approach based on the shared interests of India and Afghanistan.

Mr. Karzai said he had expressed his own reservations to India about the new alliance between India and the U.S. in the region. “India is a friend and an ally and a traditional civilisational friend of our country but I want India to continue its traditional wise man’s approach to the region. It is too deep a civilisation to be taken away by an American design… too big a nation to be in any temporary arrangement with this or that country,” he said during a meeting.

India has ruled out deploying troops but has said that it will expand development and medical assistance in the country to which it has extended around $3 billion in aid to date.

Mr. Karzai reiterated his concerns about the new U.S. policy towards Afghanistan, warning that it would not bring peace but just further suffering to the Afghan people. “Every day Afghans told the U.S. of the sanctuaries outside our borders. The U.S. knew they were there but couldn’t do much because Pakistan was an ally,” he said.

While praising India for being a “tremendous friend” of Afghanistan, he was critical of the influential role that U.S. approach had on India’s own policy. He cited Afghanistan’s request to the Manmohan Singh administration for help in its own military buildup. India’s decision not to respond positively at that stage, he believes, was influenced by the U.S. being against it.

He said the best strategy towards the Taliban was to reach peace with them. “It is too late to talk of defeat… defeat means causing war in Afghanistan on a higher, larger scale... military solutions are no more an option for us. The Taliban are Afghans and we must sit down with them and have peace with them.”

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Supermassive black holes discovered

• Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have identified five pairs of supermassive black holes, each millions of times the mass of the Sun, that could help better understand the phenomenon of gravitational waves.
• These black hole couples formed, when two galaxies collided and merged with each other, forcing their supermassive black holes close together.
• The black hole pairs were uncovered by combining data from a suite of different observatories, including NASA’s Chandra Xray Observatory, the WideField Infrared Sky Explorer Survey (WISE), and the groundbased Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, researchers said.
• Researchers used optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, to identify galaxies where it appeared that a merger between two smaller galaxies was underway.
• Seven merging systems, containing at least one supermassive black hole were found with this technique.
• Closelyseparated pairs of Xray sources were found in five systems, providing compelling evidence that they contain two growing (or feeding) supermassive black holes.
• The research has implications for the burgeoning field of gravitational wave astrophysics. However, the merging black holes discovered have been of the smaller variety.
• The merging black holes in the centres of galaxies are much larger. When these supermassive black holes draw closer, they should start producing gravitational waves.

Human brains may drain out waste

• By scanning the brains of healthy volunteers, researchers have found longsought evidence that our brains may drain out some waste through lymphatic vessels, the body’s sewer system.
• Now, a research team has discovered lymphatic vessels in the dura, the leathery outer coating of the brain. The results, published online in the journal eLife , further suggest that the vessels could act as a pipeline between the brain and the immune system.
• Lymphatic vessels are part of the body’s circulatory system. In most of the body they run alongside blood vessels. They transport lymph, a colourless fluid containing immune cells and waste, to the lymph nodes.
• Blood vessels deliver white blood cells to an organ and the lymphatic system removes the cells and recirculates them through the body. The process helps the immune system detect whether an organ is under attack from bacteria or viruses or has been injured.
• Brain scans and autopsy studies of brains from nonhuman primates confirmed the results seen in humans, suggesting the lymphatic system is a common feature of mammalian brains. “These results could change the way we think about how the brain and immune system interrelate,” said Walter Koroshetz, Director, NINDS.
• Researchers are planning to investigate whether the lymphatic system works differently in patients who have multiple sclerosis or other neuroinflammatory disorders.

Six decades since Sputnik

• Six decades after Sputnik, a refined version of the rocket that put the first artificial satellite in orbit remains the mainstay of Russia’s space programme as a stunning tribute to the country’s technological prowess, but also a sign that it has failed to build upon its achievements.
• And unlike the Cold War era when space was a key area of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, space research now appears to rank low on the Kremlin’s priorities.
• The Soyuz booster, currently the only vehicle that launches crews to the International Space Station, is a modification of the R7 rocket that put Sputnik in orbit on Oct. 4 1957. Another Sovietdesigned workhorse, the heavylift Proton rocket that has been used to launch commercial satellites to high orbits, was developed in the 1960s.
• Glitches found in Proton and Soyuz in 2016 were traced to manufacturing flaws at the plant in Voronezh that builds engines for both rockets.
• Work on a new spacecraft intended to replace the Soyuz capsule designed 50 years ago has crawled slowly.
• Attempts to send unmanned probes to Mars in 1996 and one of the Martian moons, Phobos, in 2011 failed due to equipment problems. It has struggled for years to build its own scientific module for the International Space Station.
• Amid funding shortages, Roscosmos has also decided to cut the size of its ISS crews.

BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

RBI keeps interest rates unchanged

• In a postpolicy interaction with the media, RBI Governor Urjit Patel cautioned that any moves by the government to impart a fiscal stimulus to the economy could have unintended consequences for macro economic stability.
• “Given the general government fiscal deficit, in other words, of the States and central government’s accounts combined, even that is in the region of 6% of GDP, our national fiscal stance can hardly be described as tight,” Dr. Patel said. “We have to be very cautious about these fiscal actions,” he said.
• The RBI’s monetary policy report, notes that while the combined fiscal deficit of the Centre and States is budgeted at 5.9% for 201718, empirical estimates suggest that an increase in the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio by 100 basis points could lead to a permanent increase of about 50 bps in inflation. The decision means lenders are unlikely, for now, to cut their rates on home and auto loans for consumers.
• While five of the six members of the MPC voted for holding rates, one member, RavindraDholakia, voted for a 25 bps cut.
• The RBI noted that the goods and services tax implementation seemed to have had an adverse impact as it made prospects of the manufacturing sector uncertain which may further delay investment revival.

RBI angry over banks keeping rates high

• The Reserve Bank flayed lenders for keeping interest rates high and flagged concerns over the base rate and the marginal cost of fundbased lending rate (MCLR), saying these have not improved monetary transmission.
• An internal RBI group also suggested switching over to an external benchmark in a timebound manner so that better rates are available to borrowers.
• “The RBI study group has observed that internal benchmarks such as the base rate/MCLR have not delivered effective transmission of the monetary policy,” RBI said in a report today.
• The group was constituted by RBI to study various aspects of the MCLR system from the perspective of improving policy transmission.
• RBI introduced MCLR on April 1, 2016 after finding that the then prevailing base rate had failed to achieve the objectives of easier and faster policy transmission.
• Before the MCLR was rolled out, the banks were following a more rigid base rate system, which came into force on July 1, 2010, replacing the banks’ prime lending rate.
• The base rate/MCLR regime is also not in sync with global practices on pricing of bank loans, it said, adding that “the study group has, therefore, recommended a switchover to an external benchmark in a timebound manner.”
• Addressing the media, RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya said the report had proposed three possible external benchmarks to which such lending could be tied to going forward.
• The report also suggested that “the interest rate resets, which are right now at an annual frequency, creating potentially a oneyear lag in transmission, can be changed on all floating rate loans to quarterly resets so that transmission would be much faster once the monetary policy changes.”
• RBI will take a final view on the recommendations of the study group after taking into account the feedback [from the public] received until October 25, 2017.

It is States responsibility to reduce VAT Finance Minister

• After the Centre eased the impact of taxes on fuel prices by slashing excise duty by Rs. 2 per litre, Petroleum Minister DharmendraPradhan said that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would soon write to all the States.
• Mr. Jaitley would urge them to reduce their VAT rates on petrol and diesel by five percentage points each in order to further ease the consumers’ plight in the face of rising fuel prices, he said.
• It is the responsibility of states to reduce the VAT on petrol and diesel by five percentage points, then consumers will get even more relief.
• “The States are the biggest beneficiaries of the tax on fuel,” Mr.Pradhan added. “They receive the VAT on petrol and diesel, and also due to the recommendations of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, they get 42% of the central excise collections from the fuels as well.”
• The VAT on petrol and diesel varies sharply across States, with Maharashtra leading the pack — it levies a VAT on petrol of 47.94% in Mumbai, Thane, and Navi Mumbai, and 46.81% for the rest of the State.
• The lowest VAT rates on petrol are in Goa (17%) and in Andaman and Nicobar (6%) among the Union Territories.
  Both Mr. Pradhan and Mr. Jaitley had reiterated several times of late that the government was not considering a cut in the excise duties in the face of rising fuel prices, with the latter daring Oppositionruled States to also slash Statelevel taxes on petro products and forego their share of the exchequer’s revenue from excise levies.
• Mr. Jaitley also pointed out that States such as Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh were quick to increase their VAT rates on petrol and diesel every time prices fell.

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