Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 08 September 2020

SSC CGL Current Affairs

::NATIONAL::

The government’s intervention in the education policy should be “minimal”, Prime Minister NarendraModi said on Monday, emphasising that the policy belonged to the whole country, rather than to any particular government in power.
Mr.Modi was addressing the inaugural session of the Governors’ conference on the National Education Policy (NEP), which is being attended by State Education Ministers and Vice-Chancellors.
The focus of the conference is on the implementation of NEP.Mr. Modi said the NEP 2020 provided a vision for a new India of the 21st century, in line with its aspirations to be a self-reliant power.
The Prime Minister felt it would help transform the country into a “knowledge economy” and tackle brain drain by paving the way to open local campuses of global educational institutions.
Mr.Kovind noted that such investment was only 0.7% of the GDP in India, in comparison to 2.8% in the U.S., 4.2% in South Korea and 4.3% in Israel.

As per directions of the Supreme Court, States are mandated to set up their three member committees on Content Regulation of Government Advertisements.State-level committees have already been constituted by Karnataka, Goa, Mizoram and Nagaland.
Under the Supreme Court’s guidelines dated 13th May, 2015, the content of Government Advertisement should be relevant to the government’s constitutional and legal obligations as well as the citizen’s right and entitlements.
The CCRGA was of the view that some state governments’ delay in setting up the state-level committees may be construed as contempt of Supreme Court’s order.
The CCRGA’s attention was also drawn to the fact that some respondents were yet to furnish their replies to the notices issued to them in response to the complaints received by the Committee.

The Reserve Bank on Monday specified five financial ratios and sector-specific thresholds for resolution of COVID-19 related stressed assets in 26 sectors, including auto components, aviation, and tourism.
The key financial ratios suggested by the K.V. Kamathcommittee are total outside liabilities/adjusted tangible networth; total debt/EBITDA; current ratio, which is current assets divided by current liabilities; debt service coverage ratio; and average debt service coverage ratio.
The 26 sectors specified by the RBI include automobiles, power, tourism, cement, chemicals, gems and jewellery, logistics, mining, manufacturing, real estate, and shipping among others.
The RBI said the ratios prescribed “are intended as floors or ceilings, as the case may be, but the resolution plans shall take into account the pre-COVID-19 operating and financial performance of the borrower and impact of COVID-19 on its operating and financial performance at the time of finalising the resolution plan, to assess the cashflows in subsequent years, while stipulating appropriate ratios in each case.”

The government plans to review crop planting across the country to align agricultural planning with changes in climate and rainfall patterns.
The focus of this exercise is to move towards precision agriculture with optimum water and nutrient use through drip, fertigation, conservation agriculture, mechanization.
The plan for each zone broadly will deal with the necessary diversification of crops with relation to climate change, farm mechanisation, adoption of agro-forestry systems including medicinal plants with integration of animal husbandry in arid region, export promotion and maximising farmers’ income of that region through scientific interventions.
“In last few years, there has been significant changes in monsoon pattern. Arid states like Rajasthan are receiving more than normal rains and retreat of monsoon too has been delayed.

Saudi Arabia supports a “fair” solution for the Palestinian cause, King Salman has told Donald Trump in a phone call, as the U.S. President praised the kingdom for opening its airspace to Israel-UAE flights.
Saudi Arabia has said it will not follow the United Arab Emirates, which announced last month it would establish diplomatic ties with Israel, until the Jewish state has signed a peace accord with the Palestinians.
In a phone call to Mr. Trump on Sunday, King Salman affirmed the “kingdom’s keenness to reach a lasting and fair solution to the Palestinian cause to bring peace”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Activists are setting up thousands of chairs outside the German parliament in Berlin to underline their calls to take in migrants from an overcrowded camp on a Greek island.
The 13,000 chairs being set up in front of the Reichstag building today are meant to symbolize the inhabitants of the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, as well the readiness of some German cities and states to take migrants in.
Sea-rescue activist groups say that the first confirmed coronavirus case at Moria adds urgency to long-standing calls for the camp's evacuation.
Greek authorities last week imposed a 14-day quarantine on Moria after one man who had been living in a tent outside the camp fence tested positive for the virus.

The hypersonic air-breathing scramjet technology was successfully demonstrated by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Monday with a flight test of the hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle (HSTDV), which will lead to the development of hypersonic cruise missiles and vehicles in future.
With this technology, cruise missiles could now travel at hypersonic speeds, a defence source said. “Scramjet engine is a major breakthrough. Air goes inside the engine at supersonic speed and comes out at hypersonic speeds,” the source noted.
The vehicle reaches a certain altitude, then cruises and also reaches very high temperatures, up to 1,000°-2,000° Celsius, during re-entry. “After the Anti-Satellite Test, this is the biggest achievement recently,” the source pointed out.
Critical events such as fuel injection and auto ignition of the scramjet demonstrated technological maturity, the DRDO said. “The scramjet engine performed in a textbook manner. It worked at high dynamic pressure and at very high temperature.”
Prime Minister NarendraModi congratulated the DRDO on Twitter. “The scramjet engine developed by our scientists helped the flight achieve a speed six times the speed of sound! Very few countries have such capability today.”

The 17-year-old AnsuFati became the youngest goalscorer in Spain’s history when he scored in the 4-0 win over Ukraine in the UEFA Nations League on Sunday.
The results: League A: Group 4: Spain 4 bt Ukraine 0; Switzerland 1 drew with Germany 1.