Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 17 January 2021

SSC CGL Current Affairs

::NATIONAL::

According to a Directorate of General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) report, 61.4% passengers in December complained of issues surrounding refunds.
These complaints were largely against national carrier Air India followed by SpiceJet and TruJet. This is despite the Supreme Court’s order to refund all passengers who booked tickets during the lockdown period last year.
Jay Bhatia, vice-president of Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI), said, “Air India is refunding the monies through travel agents, but the progress is very slow.
Presently immediate refunds are getting processed on our global distribution system (GDS) only below the value of our weekly sales.
As regards to SpiceJet, refunds for groups and series of agents is being processed slowly and we are confident that the same shall be settled by the end of this month. Our members had major concerns with GoAir but the airline has assured it would refund all monies by January-end.”

China's economy grew at the slowest pace in more than four decades last year despite a rebound after the country's coronavirus outbreak, official data.
The 2.3 percent expansion is the lowest figure since the Chinese economy embarked on major reforms in the 1970s.
The National Bureau of Statistics warned of a "grave and complex environment both at home and abroad", with the pandemic having a "huge impact".

Russia announced that it was leaving the Open Skies Treaty (OST), an accord between over 30 countries that allows participants to fly unarmed reconnaissance flights over any part of their fellow member states.
In November, the United States left the OST first after accusing Russia of violating the pact– allegations that Russia denied.
Moscow has now blamed Washington for its own decision of leaving the treaty.
The OST aims at building confidence among members through mutual openness, thus reducing the chances of accidental war.
Under the treaty, a member state can “spy” on any part of the host nation, with the latter’s consent.
A country can undertake aerial imaging over the host state after giving notice 72 hours before, and sharing its exact flight path 24 hours before.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has sought inputs from telcos and other industry experts on the sale and use of radio frequency spectrum over the next 10 years, including the 5G bands.
5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
5G mainly works in 3 bands, namely low, mid and high frequency spectrum — all of which have their own uses as well as limitations.
5G, have indicated that this band may be used by industries and specialised factory units for building captive networks that can be moulded into the needs of that particular industry.
The high-band spectrum offers the highest speed of all the three bands, but has extremely limited coverage and signal penetration strength.
Internet speeds in the high-band spectrum of 5G has been tested to be as high as 20 Gbps(giga bits per second), while, in most cases, the maximum internet data speed in 4G has been recorded at 1 Gbps.

With no way out, tennis players in lockdown are figuring out ways to keep themselves fit within the confines of their Melbourne hotel rooms as they prepare for the Australian Open.
Angelique Kerber, who won the Australian Open in 2016, spent her birthday in quarantine. At times in the past, she's spent the day playing or preparing for matches in the later stages of the tournament.
This year, with the season-opening Grand Slam event not starting until Feb. 8 because of travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, she had to settle for a message posted on social media by Australian Open organizers to mark the occasion.