Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 17 May 2017

:: National ::

India urged Palestine and Israel to coexist peacefully

India urged that a future state of Palestine should coexist peacefully with Israel.
However, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that a sovereign state of Palestine should be built according to the pre-1967 borders and include East Jerusalem as the capital.

Ransomware cyberattack has hit computers of the Gujarat government

Ransomware cyberattack has hit several hundred computers of various departments of the Gujarat government. Computer systems crashed in some Regional Transport Offices, several district collectorates and police stations.
As a precaution, the government issued an alert to switch off the computers and IT networks till anti-virus systems are installed.
According to Gujarat’s IT secretary Dhananjay Dwivedi, 120 computers across the State were affected. A few police stations and the Ahmedabad civil hospital were also affected.
The State IT department and State Crime Record Bureau have issued advisories to all departments and agencies to install a security patch and upgrade the systems before using them.
No private company in the State has so far complained of cyber intrusion in their networks. However, cyber experts said the private firms have avoided reporting complaints and have instead been upgrading their networks.
Meanwhile, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch has developed an anti-virus software which once installed protects all data and systems.

Mars rover Opportunity has reached the main destination

Mars rover Opportunity has reached the main destination of its current two-year extended mission — an ancient fluid-carved valley incised on the inner slope of a vast crater’s rim, NASA has said.
As the rover approached the upper end of ‘Perseverance Valley’ in early May, images captured by its cameras began showing parts of the area in greater resolution than what can be seen in images taken from the orbit above the Red planet.
“The science team is really jazzed at starting to see this area up close and looking for clues to help us distinguish among multiple hypotheses about how the valley formed,” said Opportunity Project Scientist.

Training camps for cooks engaged in providing midday meals

The government will organise two-day training camps for cooks engaged in providing midday meals for children in schools so that they cook better food.
This was announced by Human Resource DevelopmentMinister, as he presented the three-year report card of his Ministry.
On Tuesday itself, there was a report of a dead lizard being found in midday meals in Jamui district of Bihar, the latest among a series of such complaints.
India has the world’s largest midday meal scheme, serving 10 crore students in 11.5 lakh schools with nutritious food,” Mr. Javadekar said, adding that while any instance of problem in the meals was reported — as it should be — the scheme’s scale was seldom discussed.
The economic cost involved for wheat-based meals is Rs. 8.2 per day for a secondary level student, and it is Rs. 9.6 for rice-based meals.

:: International ::

Pakistan under fire in its own country for CPEC

Opposition leaders slammed Pakistan govt after the Dawn daily disclosed the “master plan” of theCPEC, which will link the port city of Gwadar in Balochistan to China’s Xinjiang province via a network of highways and railways.
Member of Parliament from the Opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said the government must come clean on the long-term plan for the corridor.
Dawn reported it had acquired exclusive access to the original document that discloses what the Chinese priorities are in Pakistan for the next decade and a half.
The master plan, drawn up by the China Development Bank and the National Development Reform Commission of China, states that thousands of acres of agricultural land to be leased out to Chinese enterprises to set up projects in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology.
The Pakistani government challenged the report, saying the details were quoted from one of the working papers prepared to be discussed with the Chinese leadership during the recently-held Belt and Road Forum in Beijing.
The report states that Chinese enterprises will also operate their own farms, processing facilities for fruit and vegetables and grain, while logistics companies will operate a large storage and transportation system for agrarian produce.
China’s plan is to gradually create a favourable industry image and reputation for Pakistan by relying on domestic demand, states the document.
In the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of the CPEC, the focus is on mineral extraction, with potential in chrome ore and gold reserves and diamonds.

:: Business and Economy ::

Way for multibrand foreign retailers to tap the Indian market

Centre is expected to pave the way for multibrand foreign retailers to tap the Indian market, by allowing overseas investors in the food retail segment to offer ‘Made in India’ non-food items as well, according to Food Processing Minister.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had assured her ministry that the concerned foreign direct investment (FDI) norms would be tweaked as a ‘sweetener’ for foreign investors likely to attend a mega World Food Forum being held in the national capital this November.
While India’s $600 billion retail sector, with 70% of it comprising food, is a ‘mind boggling’ proposition for foreign retailers grappling with stagnating growth in the developed world, the minister said that the food-only model was a challenge for them.
India had opened up 100% FDI in multibrand food retail and food processing sectors in early 2016.
Investors had also pointed out that multibrand food retail ventures entailed a lot of investment in infrastructure but the margins had to be really small as one could not be viable with big margins on food.
For consumers, in any case, it was more convenient to buy food and small home care items in one place instead of going to different retailers, Ms. Badal added.

Chief Economic Advisor says India’s employment challenge is very difficult

India’s current employment challenge is particularly difficult as sectors that did well in generating jobs in the country’s previous economic boom years — information technology (IT), construction and agriculture – are in trouble now, Chief Economic Advisor said.
Stressing that the economy needs to clock 8% to 10% growth for greater job creation, the CEA said that the IT sector that “we thought would always be a dynamic sector for India” is ‘now the new problem.’
Employment is a very important question that the government is very focused on and takes very seriously. The problem is this – it’s relatively easy to diagnose that there is an employment problem.
India’s boom period in the 2000s led to job creation in three sectors that did extremely well, Mr. Subramanian said after a public lecture at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

Equity indices reached new highs

The equity benchmark indices touched new highs as investors continued to take note of positives emanating from domestic factors like a good monsoon forecast and low inflation numbers along with firm global cues.
The 30-share Sensex surged 260.48 points to 30,582.6. Barring the BSE Metal index, all sectoral indices also ended with gains. The broader 50-share Nifty rose 66.85 points to 9,512.25. The BSE saw 1,414 stocks gaining against 1,367 declines.