Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam - 08 January, 2014

Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

India stopped short of co-sponsoring a first-of-its-kind United Nations resolution on eliminating "early marriage" due to a lack of greater legal clarity, according to the External Affairs Ministry .
The Resolution on 'Strengthening efforts to prevent and eliminate child, early and forced marriage: Challenges, achievements, best practices and implementation gaps', was adopted by consensus at the 24th Session of the Human Rights Council held between September 9-27, 2013, in Geneva, Switzerland.
India supported the resolution, and even made a strong statement in its favour, but refused to join it as a co-sponsor.
"The resolution calls for preventing and eliminating child and forced marriages since their existence goes against the principles of human rights. India has been completely supportive of this call. However, the resolution also calls for preventing and eliminating 'early marriage'.
"The concept of 'early marriage' is nowhere defined and it is debatable whether early marriages can be 'eliminated' if such a marriage is above the legal age for marriage as per the law of the land, i.e. 18 years in the case of India.
India co-sponsored three resolutions - on promoting human rights through sport and the Olympic ideal, local government and human rights, and equal political participation - at the September, 2013, meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.

Two relatives of the former Maharashtra Chief Minister, Ashok Chavan, are among the 33 benami apartment owners that the CBI has unearthed in its probe into the Adarsh building society scam.
While the CBI did not find any money trail linking Mr. Chavan to the two benami transactions in the names of his relatives — one his mother-in-law, and the other, his father-in-law’s brother — it has evidence that the funds for both were provided by a prominent city builder.
The Commission too had named these two individuals and a third relative, but in the list of “ineligible” owners who should not have got membership in the Society.
The Commission had not linked them to benami transactions. While the CBI report has nailed 11 more benami purchases than the Adarsh Commission’s findings of 22 such transactions, the sources said the CBI had not been able to establish any cases of benami purchases by key politicians indicted by the Commission.

The deadlock in Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly over the state bifurcation issue seems to be unending as the House stood adjourned without any business twice.
Barely three minutes after the day's proceedings began at 9 AM, Speaker Nadendla Manohar was forced to adjourn the House for an hour as legislators from Seemandhra region as well as Telangana trooped into the Well raising slogans for a united and a separate state respectively.
The Speaker repeatedly appealed to the members to return to their seats and let the debate on the draft AP Reorganisation Bill-2013 be taken up.
Telling the legislators that they "must go back" to their seats, Manohar reminded them that they had even given up the Question Hour to enable debate on the draft Bill.
Amidst the slogan-shouting, the Speaker rejected the adjournment motions moved by TDP and YSRC on the state bifurcation issue and by CPI on the Palem bus mishap in which 44 persons were charred to death.
As the agitating members showed no mood to let the House run, the Speaker adjourned it for an hour.
Normalcy did not restore when the House reassembled after more than two hours, leading to the second adjournment for one more hour.

World number one Tiger Woods has cracked USD 1.3 billion in career earnings by leading the Golf Digest 50 with USD 83 million in income last year, the magazine reported on its website.
Woods, a 14-time major champion, topped the list for the 11th time in its 11-year history with $83,091,508, including an estimated $71 million off the course and more than $12 million in prize money.
The story says Woods' winnings of more than $155 million reflect less than 12 per cent of his career earnings, with $1.16 billion coming from endorsements since his pro debut in 1996, a figure that continues to increase even in the wake of an infamous sex scandal and ensuing divorce.
Second on the Golf Digest list for 2013 income was Phil Mickelson at $52,009,156, with an estimated $45 million in endorsements and other non-prize money income.
The US left-hander won last year's British Open and hopes to complete a career Grand Slam by winning this year's US Open, an event where he is a record six-time runner-up.

India's tennis doubles specialist Rohan Bopanna and his Pakistani partner Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi registered their first win of the new year after coming together again winning the first round of men's doubles competitions of the ATP Sydney International .
Bopanna and Qureshi defeated the Dutch-Roman pair of Jean-Julien Roger and Horia Tecau in the first round of the $511,825 hardcourt event.
The Indo-Pak pair, who are seeded third, won 7-6(5), 6-7(2), 10-3 over Roger and Tecau in one hour and 41 minutes.
In their first match of the season, Bopanna and Qureshi had suffered a loss and made a first round exit from last week's Chennai Open.
Bopanna and Qureshi will next face Treat Huey from Philippines and Briton Dominic Inglot. Huey and Inglot had defeated the Spanish pair of Pablo Andujar and David Marrero 6-4, 6-3 in the first round.
Meanwhile, the second-seeded Indo-Czech pair of Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek will start their campaign against the French pair of Julien Benneteau and Edouard Roger-Vasselin. In the Chennai Open, Vasselin had finished runners-up in the men's singles.
It was also end of the road for India's Somdev Devvarman, who failed to qualify for the main draw in the singles after he lost the second round of the qualifiers.