Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 16 September 2018

SSC CGL Current Affairs

::NATIONAL::

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the “Swachhata Hi Seva” (“cleanliness is service”) campaign on Saturday, and took up a broom to clean a school named after Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar. Union Ministers and BJP leaders and workers participated in similar exercises across the country.
He launched the “cleanliness is service” exercise to push for greater public participation in one of his government’s centrepiece programmes launched on October 2, 2015. It will continue till Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary next month.
All sections of society and every part of the country had joined the cleanliness drive, he said, exhorting people to rededicate themselves to fulfilling Gandhiji’s dream of a clean India.

The ‘Paryatan Parv’ by the Ministry of Tourism was inaugurated by Shri Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister, in presence of Shri K.J. Alphons, Union Minister for Tourism, Smt. Rashmi Verma, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and other dignitaries from participating Central Ministries and State Governmentsat Rajpath Lawns, New Delhi, today. This is the second edition of “Paryatan Parv”, a nation-wide celebration of Tourism, from the 16th to 27th September, 2018.
The Minister also urged Indians to visit various places in the country and thereby understand its rich and varied culture & heritage, also enjoy its natural beauty.
Speaking at the event the Shri K J Alphons said that Indians have made 1.8 billion domestic trips in the last year and added that the Ministry is aiming for double these visits in next 3 years. The Tourism Minister also called upon everyone to see, experience and get transformed by travelling across India.
Earlier in the day, India Tourism Kolkata, along with IHM, Kolkata and other stakeholders organized a Heritage Walk, from iconic Victoria Memorial Hall after a Swachhata activity, walking through the famous Queensway, Cathedral Road, Chowringhee covering Heritage monuments like St. Paul’s Cathedral, Kolkata Race Course and Indian Museum.

The Union Minister for HRD Shri Prakash Javadekar has inaugurated a network of more than 3,400 Test Practice Centres (TPCs) spread across the 622 Districts in the country. 25 Test Practice Centres (TPCs) joined Minister of HRD through Google Hangouts in this inauguration at New Delhi today.
These test centres have been set up to facilitate students appearing in entrance examinations for Higher Education to hold practice sessions to enable them to get used to the changed mode and pattern of examination.
He further said that the government has changed the pattern of JEE (Mains) and UGC NET Examination from this year. Now it has become computer based instead of Pen and Paper mode. The new exam pattern is more Transparent, leak proof, scientific, student friendly and fast.

Marking the revival of the spirit of warmth and cooperation of Marshal Tito-Pandit Nehru years, the Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu was extended the rare honour of addressing the special session of the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia in Belgrade last night.
It was in the same hallowed hall of the National Assembly of Serbia that former Prime Minister, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the world leaders while launching the Non-Alignment Movement along with the veteran leader of Yugoslavia Marshal Tito.
In his hour long address to the laws makers of the host country, Shri Naidu fondly recalled the close affinity and shared vision with which leaders of both the countries played a key role in launching the Non Aligned Movement (NAM).
From the early days of Independent India, both countries laid great emphasis on NAM and contributed much to creation of a new and democratic world order, particularly for the post-colonial third world that challenged the concept of bipolar world. The changes in global geo-politics now again give us an opportunity to work together for mutual benefit and for sharing prosperity with others”.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) got a high-octane boost last week, when Myanmar — facing the heat from the West because of the Rohingya refugee crisis — inked an agreement with Beijing to establish a cross-border economic corridor.
The 1,700 km corridor will provide China yet another node to access the Indian Ocean. Already, Gwadar port has become Beijing’s star gateway to the Arabian Sea.
“The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) can become a major factor in lifting the economies of landlocked southwest China, which includes the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan, by providing them a passage to the Indian Ocean,” said Long Xingchun, associate professor at China’s West Normal University.

UN member-states have agreed on a global plan to step up the fight against tuberculosis, the world’s number one killer among infectious diseases, settling a row with the U.S. over access to cheap drugs.
Following weeks of tough negotiations, the text of a final declaration won approval and will be formally adopted at the first-ever TB summit on September 26 in New York.
In July, South Africa clashed with the U.S. over proposals to water down language recognising the right of poorer countries to access cheaper medicines.

A PSLV launch on Sunday night will put two earth observation satellites from the U.K. to space.There is no Indian satellite on this flight. PSLV-C42 will be the first fully commercial trip of the year, breaking a five-month-long lull for the Indian Space Research Organisation.
ISRO did not make any launch post-April 12, after it put replacement navigation satellite, IRNSS-1I to space on the PSLV-C41 rocket.
A few days after that, it recalled its GSAT-11 from the South American launch port of Kourou and weeks before it was due for a launch ISRO Chairman K. Sivan said the interval was not connected with the satellite recall but for the sake of readiness of the two customer satellites.
PSLV-C42 is scheduled for launch at 10.08 p.m. from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. It will lift NovaSAR and S1-4 to a sun-synchronous ('pole-to-pole') orbit 583 km from Earth. The entire flight up to the release of the satellites is designed to happen within 17.5 minutes.

Lewis Hamilton scorched to Singapore Grand Prix pole position in his Mercedes with a red hot lap of 1min, 36.015sec at the Marina Bay street circuit on Saturday.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull will start on the front row for Sunday’s race alongside Hamilton after coming second, 0.319sec behind the Englishman, but Sebastian Vettel could only manage third.

They scored loads of goals, even broke the World record while doing so, but one loss undid all the good work the Indian men’s hockey team had done at the recent Asian Games in Jakarta.
The painful semifinal loss to Malaysia spoiled India’s chances of booking an automatic berth to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.