Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 09 DECEMBER 2019
::NATIONAL::
New panel formed to monitor govt. ads as mandated by SC
- A panel comprising former chief election commissioner OP Rawat,
advertising veteran Ramesh Narayan and former Prasar Bharati member AK
Tandon will look into the content and propriety of government advertisements
to check their adherence to Supreme court guidelines.
- In 2015, the SC directed the central government to constitute a
three-member committee "consisting of persons with unimpeachable neutrality
and impartiality" to regulate the issue of public advertisement In a
notification issued last week, the I&B ministry said the new committee will
look into the implementation of the SC guidelines on content regulation of
government advertising.
- The new committee has been selected by a three-member panel comprising
Press Council of India chairman CK Prasad,lyricist Prasoon Joshi and I&B
secretary AmitKhare.
- In 2016, Tandon-led committee had flagged the expenditure of AAP in govt
ads, following a complaint from Congress leader Ajay Maken on the issue. It
had also directed the AAP to reimburse the money spent on such ads and had
said the Delhi government should assess its expenditure.
PM stresses on effective policing to ensure women safety
- Prime Minister NarendraModi has emphasised the role of effective
policing for the safety and security of women. He was speaking at the
concluding session of the 54th All India conference of DGPs and IGPs in Pune
today. Mr Modi said at all times, police personnel must strive to improve
the image of the police force to inspire confidence amongst all sections of
society, including women and children.
- The Prime Minister participated in the conference today as well as
yesterday. Apart from leading the discussions and giving valuable
suggestions over the past two days, he addressed the valedictory session of
the conference this evening. The Prime Minister also awarded the President’s
police medals for distinguished service to officers of the Intelligence
Bureau.
- Commending the Conference for generating good inputs for policy planning
and implementation, Mr Modi laid emphasis on the emergence of concrete
outcomes from the finalised action points.
- The Prime Minister appreciated the meticulous efforts made by the
country’s police forces for maintaining general peace and tranquillity in
the country and ensuring normalcy. He said people must not forget the
contribution of the families of police personnel, who stood firmly behind
them.
::ECONOMY::
Report suggests UPI may not see new players
- The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system may not see many new players
entering the space as it has got aggregated with few players, according to a
report.
- As a payment product, UPI will continue to scale with more innovative
use cases coming in and will remain default payment gateway for the country,
said a report by The Digital Fifth.
- Advisor on industry and data management and analysis at the Niti Aayog,
Roy also leads the Women in Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) initiative,
supporting women entrepreneurs in India. She is leading the Government of
India's initiatives on frontier technologies such as Big Data, artificial
intelligence and Block chain.
- The report further said the remittance business would continue to scale
as the market has remained largely untapped as of now.
- India will see emergence of few large remittance players with focus on
high-traffic corridors, it said.
- The business-to-business segment has done well over past few years
across POS (point-of-sale) and payment gateway segments with firms such as
Pinelabs and Razorpay, building scalable and profitable business models, it
said.
- This change will impact payment start-ups focusing on the issuance side
where they share issuance fees with banks and acquirer side, it said.
New national policy on statistics to be unveiled soon
- India will shortly unveil a National Policy on Official Statistics in
the wake of various controversies related to the alleged suppression of bad
news, undermining the credibility of government data, said people with
knowledge of the matter.
- The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) has
begun work on a cabinet note on the policy that seeks to provide “timely and
credible social and economic data,” one of the persons said.
- Earlier this year, the government withheld the Periodic Labour Force
Survey report that showed unemployment sharply rising to 6.1% in FY18
compared with 2.2% in FY12. Issues were also raised about GDP data based on
the new series with economists citing quality issues.
::INTERNATIONAL::
India hopefull in inking crucial agreement with the U.S
- India and the US hope to conclude three key agreements on issues,
including space and science, at the second edition of the 2+2 ministerial
dialogue in Washington on December 18.
- The two sides are negotiating pacts on science and technology, water,
and space that could entail technology transfer and collaboration, ET has
learnt. The proposed pacts could be signed at the Foreign and Defence
Minister, or 2+2, dialogue in DC.
- The space deal will entail collaboration in handling space debris and
incidents of increased collision threat with operational spacecraft. The
pact could lead to collaboration between ISRO’s Space Situational Awareness
& Management (SSAM) and the corresponding US agency.
- The ISRO control centre would host a range of activities pertaining to
protection of Indian space assets from inactive satellites, pieces of
orbiting objects, near-earth asteroids and adverse space weather conditions.
The water agreement is likely to involve collaboration under the
government’s Jal Shakti Mission.
- “Inherent in India’s growth story is a natural partnership with the US.
This partnership is evolving fast both in strategic and economic domains,”
Indian envoy to Washington Harsh Vardhan Shringla told students and faculty
of the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Global arms sales rise by around 5 percent in 2018
- Worldwide arms sales rose by nearly five per cent in 2018. According to
a new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),
the market is dominated by the United States.
- The turnover of the 100 biggest arms manufacturers came to 420 billion
dollars. US manufacturers alone accounted for 59 per cent of the market, or
a turnover of 246 billion dollars, up 7.2 per cent on the previous year.
- Russia was second in the rankings for arms production, with 8.6 per cent
of the market, just ahead of the United Kingdom on 8.4 per cent and France
on 5.5 per cent.
- The study did not include China, for lack of sufficient data, but SIPRI
estimated that there were between three and seven Chinese businesses in the
top 100 arms manufacturers.
- The world's largest arms maker remains the US firm Lockheed Martin, as
it has been since 2009. Its turnover last year was 47.3 billion dollars. Its
sales alone account for 11 per cent of the world market.
::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::
Scientists decode evidence on river Saraswati
- There has been a strong belief that the Harappan civilization depended
on monsoons. But now there is ample evidence that a large number of Harappan
settlements had mushroomed and flourished along the ancient course of the
modern seasonal stream, Ghaggar, in northwestern India. And this ancient
course was that of the mythical river Saraswati.
- A new research — led by the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL),
Ahmedabad, in collaboration with IIT-Bombay — has reported “unequivocal
evidence” that there existed a perennial river on the plains of northwestern
India. The river, according to the researchers, flowed roughly along the
course of the modern Ghaggar. Researchers say that this river was the
Saraswati mentioned in the Rig Veda.
- The researchers provide evidence that the Saraswati was perennial and
had flowed from the Higher Himalayas between 7,000 BC and 2,500 BC, and that
the Harappans had built their early settlements along this powerful river
between 3,800 BC and 1,900 BC.
- The research posits that the decline of the Saraswati had led to the
collapse of the Harappan civilization. The demise of the river and the
civilization approximately coincide with the beginning of the Meghalayan
Stage — the current dry phase in the global climate that began about 4,200
years ago.
::SPORTS::
Anthony Joshua reclaims world heavyweight championship
- Britain's Anthony Joshua reclaimed his world heavyweight crown from Andy
Ruiz, outclassing the Mexican-American to score a unanimous points victory.
- Joshua, who suffered a stunning knockout defeat to Ruiz in New York in
June, produced a masterclass performance to regain his IBF, WBA and WBO
titles in emphatic fashion at Ad Diriyah in Saudi Arabia last night.
- Dominating from the outset, Joshua won by margins of 118-110 on two
scorecards with the third judge making it 119-109.
