Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 08 APRIL 2019
::NATIONAL::
India rejects Pak’s statement on claiming another attack
- India on Sunday rejected as “irresponsible and preposterous” Pakistan
Foreign Minister Shah MahmoodQureshi’s comments that India was planning to
attack Pakistan again between April 16 and 20.
- In a strongly worded statement, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson
Raveesh Kumar said the comments by the Pakistani Foreign Minister were aimed
at whipping up war hysteria in the region.
- “India rejects the irresponsible and preposterous statement by the
Foreign Minister of Pakistan with a clear objective of whipping up war
hysteria in the region. This public gimmick appears to be a call to
Pakistan-based terrorists to undertake a terror attack in India,” Mr. Kumar
said.
- The MEA spokesperson’s statement came hours after Mr.Qureshi said at a
press conference in Multan that Pakistan had “reliable intelligence” that
India was planning to attack Pakistan again between April 16 and 20.
- Mr.Qureshi claimed that ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN
Security Council in Islamabad had been informed about “the plan” two days
ago.
- India struck the biggest training camp of the terror group,
Jaish-e-Muhammed, deep inside Pakistan on February 26 nearly two weeks after
the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.
Closure of national highway creates havoc in Jammu
- The first day of closure of the 271-km Baramulla-Udhampur national
highway for convoy movement disrupted distribution of essentials on Sunday
and halted all passenger services. The National Conference (NC) and the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held street demonstrations to defy the ban
- The highway closure was enforced around 4 a.m. in accordance with the
State Home Department’s directions, leaving many stretches deserted till 5
p.m. Additional troops and mobile bunkers were used to seal the connecting
roads. Many stretches were dug up to disallow any civilian traffic.
Concertina wires were used to plug the streets leading to the highway.
- Essentials like milk and vegetables from south Kashmir to capital
Srinagar, and the movement of newspaper hawkers from the capital to south
and north Kashmir, was badly hit. “My vehicle was stopped at Pathachowk. I
failed to distributed newspapers,” said Aslam Khan, a hawker.
- The blockade also resulted in the closure of markets and shops on the
flanks of the highway. Locals were seen walking deserted streets to reach
hospitals and see relatives. “My daughter is admitted in a maternity
hospital. I walked on many stretches to reach Srinagar,” said Nazima Jan, a
resident of Pulwama’sTral. Meanwhile, the NC, the PDP and the People’s
Conference made separate bids to defy the civilian traffic restrictions,
which have been imposed in the wake of the Pulwama suicide attack that left
40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans dead on February 14. The
closure will be enforced on Sundays and Wednesdays till May 31.
::ECONOMY::
NCDR fines e-commerce portal for potraying misleading ads
- The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has directed
e-commerce portal Home Shop 18 to compensate a complainant by paying ₹16,000
over misleading advertisements of “free gift vouchers”.
- The complainant, Mridul Jain, alleged that on seeing an “offer of gift
vouchers worth ₹1,000,” he purchased a phablet worth ₹6,400. However, the
vouchers received had “terms and conditions” he was not aware of previously.
The portal contended that the vouchers were “voluntarily” provided and that
the terms and conditions were on the website.
- However, the panel said, “The advertisement on the website does not
specifically mention about the ‘conditions to follow’ therefore the case
falls within the ambit of relevant rules, which specifies the offering of
gifts, price of other items with the notification of not providing them as
offered, when it is fully or partly covered by the amount charged in the
transaction as a whole.”
Majority beneficiaries under PMUY still using earthernstoves : Study
- The hidden truth of the PradhanMantriUjjwalaYojna (PMUY), being touted
in the BharatiyaJanata Party’s (BJP) election campaigning as one of the big
successes of the incumbent government, is that most rural households with
LPG (liquiefied petroleum gas) connections still use chulha s with firewood
or dung cakes, to the detriment of rural health.
- The survey, conducted in late 2018, covered a random sample of 1,550
households in 11 districts of the four States, which collectively have
two-fifths of the country’s rural population.
- The UjjwalaYojna, launched in 2016, subsidises LPG connections for rural
households by providing a free gas cylinder, regulator and pipe. Central
government data shows that more than six crore households have received a
connection through the scheme.
- The r.i.c.e study shows that in the four States surveyed, there has
indeed been a substantial increase in LPG ownership due to the scheme, with
76% of households now owning an LPG connection.
- However, more than 98% of these households also own a chulha . Surveyors
asked if food items roti , rice, sabzi , dal , chai and milk had been cooked
on the chulha or the gas stove on the previous day. They found that only 27%
of households exclusively used the gas stove. Another 37% reported using
both the chulha and the gas stove, while 36% made everything on the chulha .
- The study argues that those women, who do the unpaid labour needed for
“free” solid fuels, are not typically economic decision-makers in the
household, hindering a shift to LPG usage.
::INTERNATIONAL::
Former Maldivian president wins massively in elections
- Former President and popular leader of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP),
Mohamed Nasheed, was among the major winners in Saturday’s parliamentary
polls — the third multi-party contest in the Indian Ocean archipelago that
saw President Ibrahim Solih’s party heading for a majority.
- The popular MDP leader has lived in exile in the United Kingdom and Sri
Lanka following a widely-disputed criminal conviction in 2015 that many
believe was politically motivated during former President Abdulla Yameen’s
tenure.
- The speculation followed the MDP’s decision to go it alone in the
general election, reportedly upsetting other members of the ruling alliance.
They saw the MDP as reneging on an earlier pledge to stay together for the
parliamentary polls.
- The main Opposition Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), led by
former President Abdulla Yameen, whose leadership was tainted by accusations
of large-scale corruption and authoritarianism, fielded candidates in just a
quarter of the seats. As per results declared so far, the PPM has lost in
most.
::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::
Scientists discover new fungus spread across the globe
- In May, an elderly man was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital in Brooklyn,
U.S., for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with
a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious. Doctors swiftly
isolated him in the intensive care unit.
- The germ, a fungus called Candida auris , preys on people with weakened
immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe. Over the past
five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a
hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical centre to shut down
its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa.
- C. auris is so tenacious, in part, because it is impervious to major
antifungal medications, making it a new example of one of the world’s most
intractable health threats: the rise of drug-resistant infections.
- For decades, public health experts have warned that the overuse of
antibiotics was reducing the effectiveness of drugs that have lengthened
life spans by curing bacterial infections once commonly fatal. But lately,
there has been an explosion of resistant fungi as well, adding a new and
frightening dimension to a phenomenon that is undermining a pillar of modern
medicine.
- All the while, the germs are easily spread carried on hands and
equipment inside hospitals; ferried on meat and manure-fertilized vegetables
from farms; transported across borders by travellers and on exports and
imports; and transferred by patients from nursing home to hospital and back.
::SPORTS::
Li Dan wins Malaysian open badminton title
- Chinese badminton ace Lin Dan clinched the Malaysia Open in Kuala Lumpur
today. After an electric performance , he beat countryman Chen Long 9-21,
21-7, 21-11.
- The title is Lin's first win this year, and also his first major success
since taking the Malaysia Open in 2017.
