Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 15 NOVEMBER 2019

::NATIONAL::

A group of selected student innovators of the Atal Tinkering Lab Marathon-2018, called on President Ram NathKovind at RashtrapatiBhavan today.
Addressing the student innovators, the President said, he was happy to note that they were selected as the best innovators from approximately 50,000 students from 2,700 schools across the country.
He said that it makes him wonder what young children of this nation can achieve when given the opportunity to think unconventionally.

Union Minister for Women and Child Development SmritiIrani has announced that her Ministry along with NITI Aayog will prepare a framework for a national plan for States and Union Territories.
She said, it will be prepared by early next year for better implementation of all the Central and States policies and programmes for women and children. The Minister was speaking at the two-day National Conference organized by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in New Delhi today.
Ms Irani also suggested that a protocol may be developed for ranking of States and UTs doing commendable work for women and children and also ranking of childcare institutions in the States and UTs.
During a presentation by Adviser, Health and Nutrition in NITI Aayog regarding strategy of New India at 75-Status of Women and Children, it was decided that the issues being faced by women and children cannot be contained only within the Ministry of WCD but other Ministries like food and public distribution, health, urban development, law and justice and home may also be actively involved.

Retail inflation surged to 4.62 per cent in October this year mainly on account of higher food prices.
According to government data released today, the inflation in the food basket spiked to 7.89 per cent in October this year as against 5.11 per cent the preceding month.The inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 3.99 per cent in September and 3.38 per cent in October last year.
The Reserve Bank mainly factors in the CPI-based inflation to arrive at its bi-monthly monetary policy.The RBI has been asked to keep the retail inflation at around four percent.
Wholesale prices based inflation eased further to 0.16 per cent in October, as against 0.33 per cent in September.
Government data showed subdued prices of non-food articles and fall in prices of manufactured items today.Annual inflation, based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI), was at 5.54 per cent in October last year.

The labour ministry plans to drop its proposal to corporatise the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and instead dust off its earlier proposal to set up a body headed by the Prime Minister to oversee the social security of nearly 500 million workers. The move comes after it was pulled up by the Prime Minister’s Office.
The ministry’s proposal to corporatise the EPFO had faced severe criticism from labour unions. In its latest draft code on social security released in September, it had proposed a corporate structure, to be headed by a CEO, to manage the provident fund and pension as well as medical insurance for workers.
The redesigning of the code has been fast-tracked following a directive from the PMO and outright rejection from all trade unions at the first tripartite meeting of the labour ministry with all stakeholders on the proposed draft last week, said the official.

India and Russia will hold their maiden Bilateral Regional Forum at the level of Russian Provinces and Indian States be held next year to dismantle the barriers of trade at regional level.
The two leaders noted with satisfaction that the USD 25 billion target of bilateral trade by 2025 has already been achieved. The two leaders noted the stability and progress made in imports of oil and natural gas. President Putin highlighted the potential of Arctic region in natural gas and invited India to invest in the region.
The two leaders also reviewed the progress made in the field of Infrastructure particularly railways in context of raising the speed of the Nagpur-Secunderabadsector railway line.

Bangladesh has the highest business bribery risk among South Asian courtiers, according to the Trace Bribery Matrix which releases annual ranking for 200 countries. The Matrix evaluates countries under four parameters which are business interaction with the government, anti-bribery deterrence, transparency and civil society oversight.
Bangladesh has been placed at 178 position among 200 countries in terms of business bribery risk. It has been on the high risk country list of Trace Bribery Matrix since 2014 when the first matrix was released.
According to the report Bangladesh has a high degree of government interaction in business, a high expectation of bribes and a high regulatory burden which contributes in high bribery risk for business in the country.

After departing from a distant asteroid, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft started its year-long journey home after successfully completing its mission to bring back soil samples and data that could provide clues to the origins of the solar system.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency says the spacecraft left its orbit around the asteroid Ryugu, about 300 million kilometres from Earth.
Hayabusa2 made two touchdowns on the asteroid and successfully collected data and samples during its 1½-year mission since arriving there in June 2018.