Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 18 August 2017

::National::

Prickly pear cactus to be used to provide renewable energy

• The prickly pear cactus is such a powerful symbol in Mexico that they put it smack in the middle of the national flag.
• It was considered sacred by the ancient Aztecs, and modern-day Mexicans eat it, drink it, and even use it in medicines and shampoos.
• Now scientists have come up with a new use for the bright green plant: producing renewable energy.
• Instantly recognisable with its jumble of spiny discs — its bright red fruit protruding like fat fingers from each one — the prickly pear cactus is farmed on a massive scale in Mexico.
• Its soft inner flesh plays a starring role in a plethora of favourite national dishes: tacos, soups, salads, jams and even candies.
• The cactus’s thick outer layer, with all those spines, has always been a waste product — until researchers developed a biogas generator to turn it into electricity.
• The pilot project was launched in May at Milpa Alta’s sprawling cactus market. The area produces 2,00,000 tonnes a year of prickly pear cactus — up to 10 tonnes of which ends up as waste on the floor of the cactus market each day.
• Oil-producing Mexico has emerged as a green energy leader in recent years.
• It won praise in 2015 when it became the first emerging country to announce its emissions reduction targets for the United Nations climate accord, ambitiously vowing to halve them by 2050.
• To get there, it is seeking to generate half its energy from renewable sources. Last year, green energy made up 15.4% of its energy mix — though just 0.1% was from biogas.

PM says his government is taking steps to uproot corruption

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that his government is taking steps to uproot corruption that had become institutionalised, and promised more measures to ease the common man’s problems.
• Addressing over 200 start-up entrepreneurs at ‘Champions of Change’ programme here, he said the government had already ended the system of interviews for group III and IV employees in the government.
• “It is unfortunate that corruption had become institutionalised. Till you make a counter institutional arrangement, you cannot stop it,” Mr. Modi said at the event organised by NITI Aayog.
• As the middlemen were out of work now, they were the ones who were shouting the most about unemployment.
• Mr. Modi, who met the entrepreneurs twice in as may days, said governments and their initiatives alone would not make a New India.
• “Change will be powered by each and every citizen of India.” Prodding young entrepreneurs to innovate, he said he would like the Champions of Change event to be an annual feature.

International human rights agencies called India to not force Rohingya's back

• International human rights agencies Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called upon India to “abide by international legal obligations” and not force 40,000 Rohingya immigrants to return.
• “While India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, it is still bound by customary international law not to forcibly return any refugee to a place where they face a serious risk of persecution or threats to their life or freedom,” Human Rights Watch said.
• Human rights watch was referring to the international principle of “non-refoulement” adopted by the UN.
• “Indian authorities are well aware of the human rights violations Rohingya Muslims have had to face in Myanmar and it would be outrageous to abandon them to their fates,” said Amnesty International.
• UN Secretary General’s office had expressed concerns over the Indian Home Ministry statement on identifying and deporting Rohingyas, including about 16,500 who have been registered by the UN High Commission for Refugees in India.
• The Rohingyas who fled to India after violence in the Western Rakhine State were mainly settled in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan.
• India was going ahead with plans to deport Rohingyas, and is in discussions with the Myanmar and Bangladesh governments on the issue.
• The official also said that the government was planning to set up “detention centres” for the refugees, and if required “push them back” over the India-Myanmar border, if Myanmar refuses to accept the refugees back.

All toll plazas on national highways will have electronic toll collection facility

• All toll plazas on national highways will have electronic toll collection facility with at least one lane dedicated to vehicles with electronic tag device, known as FASTags, beginning September 1.
• FASTags is a device that can be installed on the windshield of any vehicle, and toll payments can be made directly from the pre-paid account linked to it. Hence such vehicles do not have to stop at toll plazas for payment of fees.
• The dedicated FASTag lanes will become operational at all 371 national highway toll plazas from September 1,” NHAI said, “One lane in every toll plaza will be a dedicated FASTag lane where no other form of payment will be accepted.”
• FASTags can be purchased online from the websites of banks, the National Highways Authority of India and Indian Highways Management Company Limited and it will be delivered at the customer’s doorsteps.
• FASTags are valid for five years and can be recharged online through debit or credit card and internet banking.
• The government said the installation and integration of Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags at all toll plaza lanes was under progress and was likely be completed by October 31.

::Science and Tech::

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission will use smart X-ray techniques

• NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission, which aims look for signs of past life on the Red Planet, will use smart X-ray techniques originally developed to find the oldest life on Earth.
• Mars 2020 takes the next natural step in its direct search for evidence of ancient microbial life, focusing measurements to the microbial scale and producing high-resolution maps over similarly postage stamp-sized analytical areas.
• Rather than using “bulk” geochemistry techniques that measure the average composition of a rock.
• Mars 2020 is developing new capabilities including X-ray fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy to map the elemental, mineral, and organic composition of rocks at high spatial resolution, with analytical spot sizes about the width of a human hair.
• Understanding the spatial distribution of chemical features preserved in ancient rocks is key to determining whether or not they were formed by life.
• The mission will collect samples to bring back to the earth, scientists said.

::International::

U.S. to come up with fresh strategy to break the logjam in Afghanistan

• President Donald Trump will brainstorm with his national security team on a fresh strategy to break the logjam in Afghanistan, where 8,400 U.S. soldiers are currently deployed.
• The meeting at the Camp David Presidential retreat in Maryland, 100 km northwest of the U.S capital, will discuss “the South Asia strategy,” the White House said in a statement.
• A South Asia strategy to deal with the Afghanistan crisis will involve India and Pakistan, but questions remain on the role and context of both countries.
• India has been involved in the reconstruction and stabilisation efforts in Afghanistan and a Pentagon report recently described India as Kabul’s “most reliable regional partner”.
• However, India is strongly opposed to any discussion on Jammu and Kashmir in the context of Afghanistan, as being demanded by Pakistan.
• Pakistan has been trying to impress upon America that Kashmir and Afghanistan are part of the same problem and solution to one is impossible without the other.
• The U.S. approach to resolving the Afghanistan situation must be narrowly focussed on the conflict and leave out other regional questions.

::Business and Economy::

India should leverage its coal assets while it is still economical to do so

• India should leverage its coal assets while it is still economical to do so before ramping up its renewable energy capacity, Chief Economic Adviser ArvindSubramanian said.
• He added that the low tariffs seen in the renewable sector do not include several implicit costs that are, so far, being subsidised.
• Mr. Subramanian also said that India should not be influenced by ‘coal imperialism’, with developed countries trying to influence developing countries to cut their fossil fuel consumption at a rate not in keeping with historical factors and equity.
• “There are several social costs of moving away from coal. We must be abundantly cautious about claims on behalf of renewables. Properly costed, renewables will achieve true parity in social terms with coal only in the future.”
• “We should maximise the use of natural assets while economics permits it, and then ramp up the free assets such as renewable sources when needed,” he added.
• “There is a window, perhaps narrow, until renewables become truly viable, for accelerating expansion of coal, and driving up capacity utilisation sharply in thermal power generation.”
• Among the costs of adopting renewable energy that are not factored into the tariff currently, Mr. Subramanian included the cost of intermittent supply of power from solar and wind sources, the land acquisition costs and the cost of stranded coal assets.
• “The proper estimates of the full costs of renewable energy are elusive,” Mr. Subramanian said.
• “Recent bids are not indicative because of the implicit subsidies and the factor of strategic bidding that has entered the renewable energy space as it did with coal and spectrum auctions.”
• He also added that the costs of moving away from coal are also significant, since it will impact employment, and the regional economies where coal mines are located.

Centre will go ahead with its proposal to amend the Factories Act of 1948

• The Centre will go ahead with its proposal to amend the Factories Act of 1948 by giving flexibility to State governments to enhance the threshold limit over which a unit will be considered a factory despite concerns flagged by a Parliamentary Standing Committee.
• The proposal was discussed at a tripartite meeting chaired by Labour Minister BandaruDattatreya with representatives of trade unions, industries and State governments.
• The Standing Committee, examining the proposed changes, however, observed in 2014 that “if the amendment is carried out more than 70% of the factory establishments in the country will be out of the coverage of the Factories Act and workers will be at the mercy of employers.”
• The Ministry of Labour and Employment did not agree with the committee’s observations and said that it had only given flexibility to State governments to fix the threshold limit.
• And all the factories, including the one which employs a single worker may also be brought under the purview of the act thus, in fact, increasing the total number of workers covered under the Act.

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