Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 12 September 2021

SSC CGL Current Affairs

::NATIONAL::

Vijay Rupani resigned as Chief Minister of Gujarat on Saturday in an unexpected turn of events ahead of an Assembly election in Prime Minister NarendraModi's home state later next year.
"... has been a five-year journey for development of Gujarat... under guidance of PM Modi. Now, to further develop the state, with new energy and power, I have decided to resign as Chief Minister," MrRupani was quoted by news agency ANI.
"It is well known the BJP, as a party, keeps changing as per requirements... it is a speciality of our party that every worker delivers to the fullest, and I too will continue to work for the party with the same energy," he added.
MrRupani's resignation (and, by default, his cabinet's) leaves the ruling BJP with three options - appoint a successor, allow the state to come under President's Rule, or have an early election.
Sources have said at this point no decision has been taken on early polls and a change of guard - a new Chief Minister - is likely to be the strategy.

United Nations nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is set for talks in Iran on Sunday that may ease a standoff between Tehran and the West just as it threatens to escalate and scupper negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal.
Grossi arrived in Tehran overnight, Iranian state media said, ahead of next week's meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA and Iran's envoy to the agency said he would meet the new head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami.
Grossi is expected to hold a news conference at Vienna airport around 8:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) after returning later on Sunday, the IAEA said.
The IAEA informed member states this week that there had been no progress on two central issues: explaining uranium traces found at several old, undeclared sites and getting urgent access to some monitoring equipment so the agency can continue to keep track of parts of Iran's nuclear programme as provided for by the 2015 deal.
President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, re-introducing painful economic sanctions. Iran responded as of 2019 by breaching many of the deal's core restrictions, like enriching uranium to a higher purity, closer to that suitable for use in nuclear weapons.

India will get this month the third set of Swiss bank account details of its nationals under an automatic exchange of information pact with Switzerland and this will include for the first time the data about real estate properties owned by Indians there, officials said on Sunday.
Marking a key milestone in the Indian government's fight against black money allegedly stashed abroad, India will get this month the complete information on flats, apartments and condominiums owned by Indians in Switzerland as also on earnings made from such properties to help it look into tax liabilities associated with those assets.
The move assumes significance on the part of Switzerland as well as the European Alpine nation is trying hard to reposition itself as a key global financial centre while warding off the long-persisting perception about the Swiss banking system being an alleged safe haven for black money.
While it would be the third time that India will get details about bank accounts and other financial assets held by Indians in Switzerland, it will be the first time that the information being shared with India would include information about the real estate assets.

Nearly three years since the collapse of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) sent shockwaves across the economy, confidence in non-bank lenders is reviving.
Exposure of mutual funds to debt issued by non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) stood at ₹1.9 lakh crore in July, up from ₹1.5 lakh crore in June, data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) showed.
While there is an increase in investments in NBFC non-convertible debentures (NCDs) and commercial papers (CPs), it is still lower than the levels of 2018, according to Sebi. The IL&FS collapse sparked a liquidity crunch, with mutual funds withdrawing a chunk of their investments from NBFCs. MF exposure to NBFC debt had been gradually falling since the IL&FS crisis and has now returned to November 2019 levels.
“Around 20% of the exposure of mutual funds was in NBFCs through NCDs and CPs in June 2018, which fell to 10% later, despite rising assets under management. Now, mutual fund investments are inching back up and show early signs of confidence and stabilization,” said Jinay Gala, associate director at India Ratings and Research.

IndiGo, one of Asia’s biggest budget airlines, is aiming at running at full capacity domestically and is targeting just over two-thirds in international routes as the virus pandemic eases and people start traveling more.
“Things are improving slowly,” Chief Executive Officer RonojoyDutta told Bloomberg Television’s RishaadSalamat and Haslinda Amin on Friday, adding that it was “hard not to be bullish as traffic is going up.”
He said the current load factor for the airline is around 70% and yields are likely to rise in coming months.
Current cash levels were “pretty good,” Dutta said, though he added that the company wanted to raise funds as an insurance buffer against a possible third wave. India’s air travel recovery could turn out to be short-lived as forecasters predict a new Covid wave may peak in October. India has suspended international flights until Sept. 30 and limited the passenger capacity on domestic services to 72.5% of pre-pandemic levels.
To combat the cash drain, Indian carriers have been raising funds. IndiGo in May said it’s considering raising 30 billion rupees by selling shares to large investors after it shelved the plan in January, saying back then that internal sources of cash would be sufficient as demand started to recover.

Chilean scientists have announced the discovery of the first-ever southern hemisphere remains of a type of Jurassic-era "winged lizard" known as a pterosaur.
Fossils of the dinosaur which lived some 160 million years ago in what is today the Atacama desert, were unearthed in 2009.
They have now been confirmed to be of a rhamphorhynchine pterosaur -- the first such creature to be found in Gondwana, the prehistoric supercontinent that later formed the southern hemisphere landmasses.
Researcher Jhonatan Alarcon of the University of Chile said the creatures had a wingspan of up to two meters, a long tail, and pointed snout.
"We show that the distribution of animals in this group was wider than known to date," he added.

Liverpool midfielder Harvey Elliott requires surgery after suffering a serious ankle injury in their 3-0 win at Leeds United on Sunday.
Elliott was taken off on a stretcher at Elland Road, following a tackle from Leeds' Pascal Struijk and Liverpool manager JuergenKlopp said his ankle was "not in the right place".
Elliott has been an integral part of Liverpool's side this season despite only turning 18 in April, but he faces a potentially lengthy absence.