Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 12 March 2017

:: National ::

BJP wins crucial states of UP and Uttarakhand

In what is regarded as a ringing endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, voters handed the BJP a three-fourths majority in both India’s most populous State, Uttar Pradesh, and the neighbouring hill State of Uttarakhand.
The BJP took 312 of the 403 Assembly seats in U.P., and its allies another 13 seats; in Uttarakhand, it won 57 of the 70 seats at stake.
Goa and Manipur delivered fractured mandates as the Congress fell short of the halfway mark in both States. In Goa, the party tallied 17 seats in the 40-member Assembly, with the BJP close behind at 13.
The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party were on Saturday poised for a power tussle in Goa and Manipur with both the States throwing up a fractured verdict.
While in Goa the Congress won 17 seats in an Assembly of 40, in Manipur the party got 28 seats in a 60-member House. The BJP was close behind with 13 and 21 in Goa and Manipur respectively.
Given the scenario, smaller parties hold the key to government formation. In Manipur, political observers said despite the Congress being tantalisingly close to the majority mark of 31, it would be advantage BJP.
The National People’s Party (NPP) and the Naga People’s Front (NPF) have won four seats each and both are inclined towards the BJP.

Twelve CRPF personnel were killed in an ambush by Maoists in Sukma district

Twelve CRPF personnel were killed in an ambush by Maoists at the Bhejji forest area in Sukma district, along the Chhattisgarh- Andhra Pradesh border.
The attack took place when a team of the CRPF’s 219 battalion from Bhejji camp were heading to a road construction site near Kottacheru village.
The Maoists triggered landmines and opened fire indiscriminately at the personnel. D.M. Awasthi, Special Director General of Police, Anti Naxal Operations (ANO) unit of the Chhattisgarh police, said the team consisted of 110 men.

Justice Karnan says contempt of court notice by SC is an error

Describing the suo motu contempt of court notice issued by the Supreme Court against him as an “error”, sitting Calcutta High Court judge C.S. Karnan said that the order should not be executed.
The development comes a day after the Supreme Court issued a bailable warrant against him.
Justice Karnan alleged that he was being targeted by the Supreme Court because he belongs to a Scheduled Caste community. He also instructed CBI to start a probe against the seven Supreme Court judges including CJI J.S. Khehar.
Last month the Supreme Court issued a contempt of court notice against him for allegedly degrading the judiciary.
“The order passed by the seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court is out of law. It should not be implemented and executed against me,” said Justice Karnan.
Justice Karnan further alleged that the SC’s contempt order against him is “ill-motivated.” He also said that the seven judges who passed the contempt of court order against him did so for their “personal gains.”

BIll to regulate surrogacy has some issues

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill was introduced in Parliament in November 2016. The Bill seeks to regulate the surrogacy part of a rather flourishing infertility industry in the country.
Defining ‘surrogacy’ as a practice in which a woman undertakes to give birth to a child for another couple and agrees to hand over the child to them after birth.
The Bill allows ‘altruistic surrogacy’ — wherein only the medical expenses and insurance coverage is provided by the couple to the surrogate mother during pregnancy.
No other monetary consideration will be allowed. India has emerged a hub for infertility treatment, attracting people from the world over with its state-of-the-art technology and competitive prices initially to treat infertility.
Soon after, with the prevailing socio-economic inequities, underprivileged women found an option to ‘rent their wombs’ and thereby make money to take care of their expenses — often to facilitate a marriage, enable children to get education, or provide for hospitalisation or surgery for someone in the family.
Once information of the availability of such wombs got out, the demand also picked up. Unscrupulous middle men inveigled themselves into the scene, and the exploitation of women began.
Several instances began to emerge after women, in desperate straits, began to file police complaints when they did not receive the promised sum. Other issues also began to crop up.
In 2012, an Australian couple commissioned a surrogate mother, and arbitrarily chose one of the twins that was born. The time was ripe for regulation, or a revolt.

:: International ::

Chemical atack possibility in Iraq

Red Cross issued a statement condemning “in the strongest possible terms” the use of chemical weapons in Mosul, the second largest city of Iraq where the Iraqi troops have been fighting the IS terrorist group for over four months.
The Red Cross said seven people, including children, with symptoms consistent with an exposure to a toxic chemical agent were being treated at a hospital in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
According to WHO, and authorities at the West Erbil Emergency Hospital, the symptoms, such as blisters, redness in the eyes, irritation, vomiting and coughing, are that of chemical attacks.
Who is behind the assault The needle of suspicion points to the IS. The attack happened in the eastern part of Mosul, which has for weeks been under the Iraqi troops’ control. The city has been divided into east and west by the Tigris river.
When the Iraqi troops began the battle for Mosul in October 2016, they started by attacking the eastern suburbs of the city, slowing making moves into the IS’s power centres.
This is not the first time the IS has been accused of using chemical weapons. In September and October last year, IS fighters launched at least three chemical attacks in Qayyarah, 60 km south of Mosul.
The attacks came after the town was recaptured by Iraqi troops. They caused painful burns to at least seven people consistent with exposure to low levels of a chemical warfare agent known as “vesicants,” or blister agents.
Chlorine is commercially available as an industrial chemical, and terrorist groups often use it to make bombs. But it’s not clear from where IS got sulfur mustard, a chemical warfare agent.
It is believed that the IS is involved in its production. In January, when the Iraqi troops recaptured Mosul University from IS, they found chemistry labs had been converted into makeshift weapons labs.

:: Science and Tech ::

Indian researcher has been able to increase wheat grain yield by 20%

Indian researcher has been able to increase wheat grain yield by 20% and also improve the resilience of wheat to environmental stress such as drought.
By using a precursor that enhances the amount of a key sugarsignalling molecule (trehalose-6- phosphate (T6P)) produced in wheat plant, Dr. Ram Sagar Misra, has been able to increase the amount of starch produced and the yield.
The technique The T6P molecule stimulates starch synthesis, which in turn, increases the yield. Since the pathway of T6P molecule is the same in other plants, the yield can potentially be increased by using suitable precursors.
While genetic methods can increase the T6P level two-three fold, the four precursor compounds were able to achieve 100-fold increase in the sugar-signalling molecule level compared with plants that did not receive the molecule.
In field trials using wheat, a tiny amount of precursor given to the plant increased the yield significantly — the grains produced were bigger as the amount of starch content in the grains increased by 13-20% compared to controls that got only water.
To study the resilience of wheat to drought-like conditions when treated with the precursor molecules, the researchers carried out two different studies.
Resilence to drought In the first case, four-week-old wheat plants already treated with the precursor molecules were not watered for nine days to simulate a droughtlike condition.
More trials on a larger scale are needed to confirm the role of the precursor molecules in increasing yield and withstanding drought-like conditions.

Despite high institutional delivery, breastfed children are still low

Despite institutional delivery being as high as nearly 79% nationally, the number of children in India breastfed within one hour of birth is less than 42% — near 43% in urban areas and 41% in rural India, according to NFHS-4 data.
The Janani Suraksha Yojana — cash incentives to pregnant women to attend antenatal clinics and opt for institutional deliveries — has led to a sharp increase in institutional delivery (from 39% in 2005-06 to 79% in 2015-16).
It nearly doubled number of children breastfed within one hour of birth in the last 10 years. Breastfeeding babies soon after birth can prevent a significant number of neonatal deaths — about 20% newborn deaths and 13% under-five deaths.
At 99.9% in both urban and rural areas, Kerala has the highest institutional births in the country. Tamil Nadu is a close second with 99.2% institutional births in urban areas and 98.7% in rural areas.
Yet, Kerala and Tamil Nadu do not fare greatly when it comes to initiating breastfeeding within one hour of birth. At 64%, Kerala is well below Goa’s average of 73%.
Similarly, Maharashtra with 90% institutional deliveries has 57.5% for early initiation of breastfeeding compared to Tamil Nadu’s nearly 55%.
Bihar has shown the most improvement in initiating breastfeeding within one hour of birth — from 4% in 2005-06 to 35% in 2015- 16.
Other States that have shown good improvement on this front are Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. S
imilarly, all States have registered an improvement in the case of exclusive breastfeeding of children under age six months.
While Goa has shown a dramatic increase from 17.7% in 2005-06 to nearly 61% in 2015-16, Chhattisgarh has witnessed a drop from 82% to 77%.
According to NFHS-4 data, the national average for babies delivered by caesarean section is 28%, which is more than three times the 2005-06 figure of 8.5%.

:: Business and Economy ::

India's commercial ties US could be restrained under Trump

The new U.S. trade policy unveiled by Donald Trump administration earlier this month could turn India’s commercial ties with its second-biggest trading partner more contentious.
The Trump administration’s drive to reduce American trade deficit will bring India into sharp focus. India is the ninth biggest trading partner of the U.S. and India had a trade surplus of about $26 billion with the U.S., in goods trade alone last year.
Mr. Trump’s campaign with its four-point agenda — “defending national sovereignty over trade policy, strict enforcement of U.S. trade laws, using leverage to open foreign markets and negotiating new and better trade deals.
India does not allow poultry imports from the U.S. and it lost the case at WTO at two stages. Now, the U.S., is seeking punitive measures against India.
There will be a push for dairy products and beef too, as the document is a signal to the farming community in the U.S. that the Trump administration would stand by it.
The document rejected multilateralism as the favoured trade route for the U.S. but this is more in the context of FTAs such as NAFTA and TPP, which the U.S. has already withdrawn from.
The emphasis on sovereignty essentially means the U.S. would not abide by WTO decisions that are not in its favour, according to Ms. Joshi. “Not that this is something new.
The U.S. has a very a poor record of enforcing WTO decisions that are against it anyway. This administration is saying it upfront.

The Centre has granted tax exemption for oil payments to Iran

The Centre has granted tax exemption for oil payments to Iran, a move also aimed at boosting India’s trade with that country. The decision comes a little over a year after the lifting of international sanctions on Tehran.
IndusInd Bank has come forward to facilitate all Iran-related transactions.
Central Board of Direct Taxes, said the National Iranian Oil Company’s (NIOC) income received in India in Indian Rupees for sale of crude oil to an entity in India shall be exempt from (withholding) tax from August 16, 2016 onward.
The related conditions include: (i) such income should stem from a pact/arrangement entered into by the Centre or approved by it; (ii) the foreign company (NIOC) and the arrangement/ pact are notified by the Centre and that (iii) the foreign company (NIOC) is not engaged in any activity, other than receipt of such income, in India.
This will benefit Indian exports as payment in free foreign exchange with Iran has not yet stabilised though a few banks have come forward.
The continuance of free foreign exchange mechanism and RPM will provide wider choice to Indian exporters and Iranian importers particularly when Iranian currency is facing huge volatility.
Previously, following economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities, both the nations had agreed in 2012 that 45% of India’s oil import payments to Iran would be paid in rupees and deposited in UCO Bank as that bank hardly had an exposure to the U.S. or the European Union.
In turn, Iran was to utilise that amount to pay for its imports from India. It is learnt that the balance in the rupee account may not be sufficient to cover three months of India’s exports to Iran.
In FY’16, India-Iran trade was $9 billion of which $6.3 billion were imports from Iran (of which $4.5 billion was the oil import bill) while India’s exports were only $2.7 billion.
Of the $7 billion worth imports from Iran in April-December FY’17, oil imports were $5.85 billion.

RBI prohibited NBFCs from lending more than ₹20,000 in cash against gold

In a fresh push toward a less cash economy, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has prohibited non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) of all kinds from lending more than ₹20,000 in cash against gold.
The NBFCs have been told to issue cheques for loan amounts above this prescribed limit. Earlier, NBFCs had been directed to disburse only high value loans of ₹1 lakh and above against gold by cheque.
The RBI has now decided to reduce the cash disbursal limit on loan against gold to ₹20,000 from ₹1 lakh in line with the provisions of the Income- Tax Act. The RBI fiat comes into effect immediately.
The latest RBI fiat would only inconvenience small customers “who don't want to wait in the bank and who seek quicker disbursal of money. We have to manage the business anyway.”