Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 15 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

FS level talks between India and Pak rescheduled

After days of suspense, India and Pakistan agreed on Thursday to put off talks between the Foreign Secretaries that were due to be held on Friday in Islamabad.
the postponement of talks to a later date is a matter of “mutual convenience”, but the announcement at the last hour indicated that India had held out for more action from Pakistan against the perpetrators of the Pathankot attack before deciding to put off the talks that had been announced by Pakistan for January 15.
However, despite media reports quoting several police and intelligence officials on the “protective detention” and questioning of JeM founder Masood Azhar, there was no confirmation from the Pakistani government of this.
India had noted the Pakistan government’s discussion on sending a Special Investigation Team comprising a six-man investigation committee including ISI and Military intelligence officials.

National Science Foundation report says Indian scientists increasing rapidly in US

Indian-origin scientists and engineers in the U.S. grew 85% between 2003 and 2013, says a report by the National Science Foundation, a key funder of research in the United.
The 950,000 scientists and engineers of Indian origin in 2013—the latest year for which the foundation has data—suggest that India’s rise far outstrips that of the Philippines and China.
Their share of immigrants rose 53% and 34% in the same period and contributed 465,000 and 438,000 workers respectively.
In 2003, Indian-origin researchers were 2.5% of the U.S. research workforce and as of 2013, made up 3.3%.
Immigrants, according to the report, include naturalised citizens, permanent residents and temporary visa holders.
The most common fields of study for immigrant scientist and engineers in 2013 were engineering, computer and mathematical sciences and social and related sciences and over 80 per cent of the immigrant scientists and engineers were employed in 2013, the same percentage as their U.S.-born counterparts.
The rapid rise in the number of expatriate Indian technologists comes in the decade when India—concerned about ‘brain-drain’—has launched a plethora of schemes to attract highly-qualified scientists back to India.
According to a report by the U.N., Indians make up the largest diaspora in the world, with 16 million of them scattered across the world. This is partly due to its sizable population of 1.2 billion and a large proportion of youth.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been seeking to convince this massive diaspora to engage more with India as well as invest in the country.

HRD and Dept. of Science Technology partnership to start startup hubs

The HRD Ministry and the Department of Science and Technology have agreed to partner in an initiative to set up over 75 startup support hubs in NITs, IIITs, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) and NIPERs.
The number of IIT/IIM graduates looking to start their own ventures has gone from two per cent a few years ago to nearly 10 per cent now, but we need to take this movement to our other educational institutions as well.
As per the plan, the HRD Ministry and the Science and Technology Ministry would share the costs for setting up startup centres in these institutions, which would need around 5,000 square feet space and cost around Rs. 50 lakh a year.
The Start Up India mission to be unveiled on Saturday envisages technology business incubators and research parks.
The Science and Technology Ministry would bear 100 per cent cost to set up business incubators in institutes like NITs. Each incubator would work with 20 budding ventures, and be spread over 10,000 sq.ft.
The cost of each incubator is expected to be in the range of Rs. 5 crore to Rs. 10 crore. Separately, research parks like the one at IIT Madras would be set up in a handful of institutes at a cost of Rs. 70 crore to Rs. 100 crore each.

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

WHO declares end to Ebola

The World Health Organisation declared an end to the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever after no new cases emerged in Liberia, though health officials warn that it will be several more months before the world is considered free of the disease that claimed more than 11,300 lives over two years.
Success comes after a harrowing toll: nearly 23,000 children lost at least one parent or caregiver.
Some 17,000 survivors are trying to resume their lives though many battle mysterious, lingering side effects. Studies continue to uncover new information about how long Ebola can last in bodily fluids.
Liberia, which along with Sierra Leone and Guinea was an epicentre of the latest outbreak, was first declared free of the disease last May, but new cases emerged two times forcing officials there to restart the clock.

:: Science and Technology ::

Antartica may be a place for largest canyon in the world

The world’s largest canyon — over 1,000 km long and in places as much as one km deep, — may lie under the Antarctic ice sheet, a team of scientists, including Indian researchers, has revealed.
The canyon system is made up of a chain of winding and linear features buried under several kilometres of ice in one of the least unexplored regions of the Earth’s land surface — Princess Elizabeth Land (PEL) in East Antarctica.
Very few measurements of the ice thickness have been carried out in this particular area of the Antarctic, which has led to scientists dubbing it one of Antarctica’s two “Poles of Ignorance.”

Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) contribute 8 Mln for anti-microbial resistance

The U.S. government’s Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), launched two years ago to contain the spread of new and emergent infections following the Ebola outbreak, has pumped in a whopping $ 8 million to map the rising anti-microbial resistance in India and build capacities to tackle it better.
The rising anti-microbial resistance is a serious health concern in India, and also figured in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in September last year.
While Indian hospitals acknowledge a rise in drug-resistant infections, there is no centralised documentation of the infection rates, with hospitals shying away from reporting this data fearing loss of business.
This project is aiming, rather ambitiously, at the creation of a national network where hospitals will pool in their data on infection rates, which would then be in the public domain for patients to make an informed choice when they have to select a hospital to undergo treatment.
Titled ‘Capacity Building and strengthening of hospital infection control to detect and prevent anti-microbial resistance in India’, the project will be jointly executed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and the India office of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The project will start with surveillance, followed by data analysis. Systems will then be put in place to first check infections and eventually bring down resistance rates.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

Before clearing National IPR policy govt. to hold discussions with WIPO

Commerce and Industry Ministry will hold discussions with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the global body for promotion and protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), before approaching the cabinet for clearance of the national IPR policy.
There will be discussions between the WIPO and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) on some components of the proposed national IPR policy.
These could include ways to integrate a formal awareness strategy into the policy to ensure respect for IPRs, as well as on an effective enforcement framework and capacity building measures.
The government's decision to formulate a national IPR policy followed criticism from developed countries, including the US, of India's “weak” IPR system as it allegedly does not do enough to effectively protect IPRs.
The U.S. had on January 11 sought public comments for the 2016 version of the Special 301 Report.
The report “identifies countries that deny adequate and effective protection of IPR or deny fair and equitable market access to US persons who rely on IP protection.”
Noting America’s concerns on India’s IPR system, the 2015 Special 301 report said India will remain on the ‘Priority Watch List’.

Startups for tax breaks, single window system

Simplified tax structure, easy compliance process and single window system are some of the issues that startups expect to be addressed through the much-awaited ‘Startup India’ policy.
Ease of doing business is important for any enterprise but critical for startups.
With limited resources at their command, they cannot afford to spend too much time, money and effort in navigating a complex environment, populated by archaic laws and a labyrinth of registrations, permits and approvals.
Startup India is expected to mark the next phase of growth for entrepreneurship and startups in India.
With 4,200 enterprises, India already ranks third in the world for the number of start ups after the U.S. and the U.K. With three to four startups emerging every day, this number is expected to reach several thousand by 2020.

Rupee goes below 67 per dolar

The rupee tumbled by 44 paise to a more than 2-year low at 67.29 against the U.S. currency on fresh dollar demand from banks and importers amidst volatile equities.
The Indian unit resumed sharply lower at 66.98 a dollar against Wednesday’s closing level of 66.85 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market.
It dropped further to a 2-year low at 67.30 before concluding at 67.29, showing a loss of 44 paise or 0.66 per cent.