Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 15 February 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Srikanth Srinivasan set to become Judge of US Supreme Court

The death of a serving judge of the U.S. Supreme Court has set of acrimonious exchanges between the Democrats and the Republicans on whether President Barack Obama should nominate a new judge in the last year of his presidency.
Mr. Obama has declared that he would nominate a replacement for Antonin Scalia who died on Saturday at 79, ending a controversial tenure through which he steered the court towards the right with a series of pronouncements.
Srikanth Srinivasan whose family came to the U.S. from a village in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu figures as the most probable choice to succeed Scalia.
Mr. Srinivasan, 49, is now U.S Circuit Judge of the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which served as a stepping stone for at least three judges of the Supreme Court.

Major revamp to rehabilitation scheme proposed

To liberate crores of children, transgenders and others trapped in human trafficking, beggary or any such forms of forced labour, the Union government has proposed a major revamp of the rehabilitation scheme for rescued bonded workers, raising aid from the present Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 3 lakh.
The government has finalised a proposal to institute a three-tier rehabilitation fund- ing scheme, under which a rescued transgender or disabled person will get Rs. 3 lakh, women or children Rs. 2 lakh and adult men Rs. 1 lakh.
Now, Rs. 20,000 goes towards rehabilitation of a bonded labourer with an equal contribution from both the Centre and theStates.
It is estimated that 1.4 crore workers in the country are bonded labourers, one of the highest in the world, according to the Global Slavery Index of 2014 released by the Australia- based Walk Free Foundation.
However, official estimates show the State governments had rehabilitated 2.80 lakh workers till March 2015.
A person becomes a bonded labourer when his or her labour is demanded as a means of repayment of a loan.
To ensure a sustainable flow of money, a significant chunk of the rehabilitation sum will be credited to the bank accounts of the res- cued persons in the form of fixed monthly deposits.

Barsimalugiri of Assam became first smart village in North-east

A remote nondescript, insurgency-ravaged village in Assam along Indo- Bhutan border has earned the distinction of being the area’s first smart village.
Barsimaluguri, about 11 km from the Indo-Bhutan border, in Baksa district has been turned into a model smart village with 100 per cent toilets, solar power and pure drinking water, following an initiative taken by a few individuals under the aegis of Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF).
There are more than 20,000 villages in Assam with government schemes being implemented, but none has been transformed into a smart village till now.

Government ready with major banking sector reforms

When most of the public sector banks are bleeding, and their com- bined market capitalisation has fallen below private sector peer HDFC Bank, Union Finance Minister is set to announce a series of reforms in the banking sector, including reducing the government’s holding in these banks to 51 per cent.
Mr. Jaitley also said: “I don’t think India has reached a state where India can pull out of the banking all together.”
In the last 3-4 decades, state-ownedbanks have played an important role as they reached out to areas where there was no banking.
Mr. Jaitley said “Just 20 months ago, when this government took over, we still had a situation in which only 58 per cent of India was connected to banks and 42 per cent of Indians had no bank accounts.”
Therefore, these banks have an important role to play in financial inclusion and geographical reach.

:: International ::

Syrian rebel targets will continue to be bombed by Russia

The Turkish army shelled Kurdish militia in northern Syria for a second day on Sunday, while Russia made clear it would continue bombing Syrian rebel targets, raising doubts that a planned ceasefire would bring much relief.
Major powers agreed on to a limited cessation of hostilities in Syria but the deal does not take effect until the end of this week and was not signed by any warring parties — the Damascus government and numerous rebel factions fighting it.
Russian bombing raids directed at rebel groups are meanwhile helping the Syrian army to achieve what could be its biggest victory of the war in the battle for Aleppo, the country’s largest city and commercial hub before the conflict.
The situation has been complicated by the involvement of Kurdish-backed combatants in the area north of Aleppo near the Turkish border, which has drawn a swift military response from artillery in Turkey.

More reforms needed to make dream of ‘Make in India’ a reality

Thousands of people and mascots of lions swarmed the weekend opening of a “Make in India” drive to attract foreign direct investment, pitched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “the biggest brand that India has ever created”.
But even as the Make in India hype scales new heights, some bosses question Mr. Modi’s delivery on promises to make it easier to do business, while marketing experts caution against creating unrealistic expectations.
More pressingly, key legislation such as a goods and services tax and land acquisition bill are stuck in parliament, just as global competitors such as Vietnam step up their own reform efforts.
Make In India has scored major wins, including a pledge by Tai- wan’s Foxconn to invest $5 billion in a new electronics manufacturing facility.
That has helped foreign direct investment to nearly double to $59 billion last year, the seventh most in the world, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
Yet in critical aspects, India remains far behind its goals. The proportion of manufacturing to gross domestic product has been stuck at around 17 per cent for five years, below the government’s goal to ramp it up to 25 per cent.
India has only created 4 million manufacturing jobs since 2010, according to Boston Consulting. At the current rate, India may only create 8 million jobs by 2022, well below the government’s goal of 100 million.

Lot of things are associated to High speed trains

High Speed Rail means different things in different contexts.One widely accepted definition applies to new lines running at 250 kmph and above, and existing lines that are able to run at 200 kmph and above.
High speed rail programs have been successful in Japan, China and several European countries such as France, Germany and Spain.
The benefits include reduced journey times that impact individuals and business, connectivity benefits to populations and markets, increased passenger comfort, mode shifts from more polluting air and road transport and consequently, lower road congestion.
High speed rail can create agglomeration benefits i.e., benefits that accrue from the clustering together of firms and labour markets, and regeneration benefits for an area.
The actual construction also provides an opportunity for employment and the potential for technology transfer.
The high speed lunch, like all other lunches, is not free. Environmental degradation along the route, dislocation of people, noise pollution, as well as regionally imbalanced development are potential pitfalls that need to be carefully negotiated.
How the high speed line interacts with existing transport choices is also crucial for the strength of the overall case.
India has been toying with the idea of high speed trains for fifteen years. The High Speed Rail Corporation (HSRC) of India was set up by the government in 2012 to de- sign and implement the country’s high speed projects.
Through this, feasibility studies for various segments of the ‘Diamond Quadrilateral’, a proposed high speed network spanning the country, connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, were initiated.
Simultaneously, the government has pushed ahead with plans to develop a Rs.980 billion, 505 km segment be- tween Ahmedabad and Mumbai on which it will run “bullet” trains, as high speed trains are often called.
Higher speeds imply higher costs which may then necessitate higher ticket prices. Tickets will cost approximately Rs.2,800 and the journey will take approximately two hours.
This bullet train has brought into focus the parameters associated with high speed rail that need careful consideration.
The United Nations Environment Pro- gram (UNEP) and the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) published a study on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai train line last year.
The report points out that the region in question is highly active economically.
It is also a high density corridor (18 million passengers in 2010); connecting dense urban areas has been a key success factor for high speed rail in China and Europe.
Travel demand between 2010 and 2050 is expected to increase four-and- a-half times to 58.2 billion passenger kilometers according to the study.
In the HSR scenario, high speed trains cater to one-fifth of the total travel demand in 2050, and the growth rate of air travel slows, because of competition from high speed trains.
The HSR solution is also cleaner; CO2 emissions in 2050 are also lower by 0.2 MT and further emission drops are possible with decarbonisation of electricity, accord- ing to the UNEP.
In general, per passenger km, high speed rail has lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than road or air transport. It also supports lower emissions over the longer term as road and air passengers shift to trains.
Increasing the operating speed of existing lines would be one possible way forward for transforming India’s rail systems.
High speed lines require huge investments and cause long term demographic and economic impacts.
Their success depends on getting a comprehensive, context-specific optimal solution; at the very least this means getting speed, pricing, and distance right.

:: Science and Technology ::

India will come up with its own version of LIGO

With the discovery of gravitational waves by the U.S.-based LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory), Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have tweeted his support for a similar detector in India but such a project is at least eight years away.
This is not counting the time it will take the Central government to clear the proposal, estimated to cost around Rs. 1,200 crore, and is further premised on the project not running into environmental or State-level hurdles.
Another ambitious mega-science project, the Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO) project — a proposed, underground observatory inTamil Nadu to detect ephemeral particles called neutrinos — had been cleared by the Union government in 2015.
Scientists associated with the India-LIGO project (called INDIGO) say that they have, since 2009, done considerable work in identifying suitable sites in India and met officials in several States.
INDIGO will be a replica of the two LIGO detectors and many of its components have already been built and are ready to be shipped from the United States.
The project was initially tobe located in Australia but, since 2011, scheduled to be located in India. At least 25 sites were considered for the detector that will, most saliently, have two L-shaped four- kilometre-long arms.
Other than the benefit of having a third detector, which will likely improve the chances of spotting gravitational waves, an India detector would improve the chances of novel, exciting discoveries being made out of India and being made by Indians.

Scientists finding ways to reduce coral bleach

Oceanographers are diving deep into the aquamarine seas of Lakshadweep to unravel the mysteries of marine life that thrive and wither deep down there around the colourful corals.
A group of researchers from Kerala are looking at the science behind the defence mechanism of corals to resist coral bleaching, the biggest threat to their beautiful submarine world.
Coral bleaching is considered as a stress response of corals to a few biotic and abiotic factors. Increased solar irradiance (photosynthetically active radiation and ultraviolet band light) is an important factor.
Exposure to UV radiation when combined with thermal stress could be lethal for corals.” It could lead to the loss of algal symbionts from coral tissue and coral bleaching.
Mycosporinelike Amino Acids (MAA)are small secondary metabolites produced by organisms that live in environments with high volumes of sunlight.
Besides protecting cells from mutation due to UV radiation, they also boost cellular tolerance to desiccation and salt and heat stress.
The coral reefs are highly sensitive ecosystems facing the threat of extinction. They are often compared to tropical rainforests considering the ecosystem services they deliver.
Coral reefs are considered valuable source of pharmaceutical compounds from which drugs for the treatment of cancer, HIV, cardiovascular diseases, ulcers, and other ailments are extracted, highlighting the medicinal value of corals, the researchers noted.

Antarctica inﬂuencing weather in tropics

Scientists are coming to grips with how weather in Antarctica is inﬂuencing climate as far away as the tropics.
For example, researchers at Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center have discovered an inﬂuence of atmospheric circulation in the Wilkes Land and Ross Sea regions of Antarctica on precipitation from the East Asian monsoon.
In this context, the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) project gains importance as it studies the skies above Antarctica for answers to questions such as how climate change and associated atmospheric physics are affecting Antarctica and how the ripple effects of these phenomena are being felt thousands of miles away in the mid latitudes and the tropics.
The temperature gradient between the equator and the poles essentially drives the atmospheric circulation in the southern hemisphere in the form of three north- south systems: the polar cell, the mid-latitude Ferrelcell and the tropical Hadley cell. These cells are dynamically linked together.
The AWARE project by the United States located at Mc Murdo station in Antarctica will observe how climate change affects the polar region as it has been determined that when the polar region warms, the lo- cation of the boundary be- tween the polar and Ferrel cells will change, along with the strength of circulation in both cells.
Antarctica acts as a global heat sink. Near the equator the Sun is highest in the sky and insolation (solar radiation reaching the surface) is larger than thermal radiation loss to space.
At the South Pole during winter there is no insolation and the Antarctic continent loses energy to space.
Energy and warmth transported over the Antarctic continent by global circulation patterns is lost to space by radiative cooling.
Another wind system is the circumpolar westerlies which prevents warm air from the northern latitudes of the southern ocean from reaching the interior of eastern Antarctica which remains a cold, isolated desolate region, losing energy to space.