Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 19 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

University and Minister under loop after suicide of scholar in Hyderbad

On a day of high drama following the suicide of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula of the University of Hyderabad (UoH), a case was filed against four persons, including Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya and University Vice-Chancellor P. Appa Rao.
Tension prevailed on the UoH campus ever since Rohith committed suicide on Sunday evening. On Monday, police entered the premises and removed his body.
Before he took his life, the 25-year-old Ph.D. scholar and four others, who had been suspended 14 days earlier, were sleeping in the open after expulsion from their hostels.
The suicide triggered a social media storm forcing the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) into action. It has sent a two-member fact-finding team to Hyderabad.

SC for relooking the criteria of deciding the minority status

A Supreme Court Constitution Bench decided to examine whether a religious community should be granted minority status in a State where they are both numerically strong and suffer no apprehension of being “dominated” by others.
The case may see the Supreme Court take a re-look at the circumstances in which a State government declares a community a religious or linguistic minority.
The five-judge Bench led by CJI Tirath Singh Thakur has appointed senior advocate T.R. Andhyarujina as amicus curiae and asked the Centre to be impleaded in the case.
The case concerns a challenge by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) of a Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment of December 2007, stayed later by the apex court.
A Division Bench of the High Court had quashed notifications issued by the State government granting minority status to SGPC-run educational institutions.
The notifications had allowed the SGPC to reserve 50 per cent seats in its institutions for students from the Sikh community.

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

China will become the lynchpin of evolving world economic structure

New structural linkages between Europe and Asia through three developmental banks that have emerged outside the post-war Bretton Woods framework are changing the global geopolitical architecture, with Eurasia at the core.
China is the lynchpin of the evolving world financial architecture. Notwithstanding the focus on the AIIB — a 57-nation lender, in which India and Russia are also major partners— China also quietly became the 67th member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
With China on board, the EBRD is rapidly re-defining its role. In 1991, it was formed to reinforce the unipolar world that had emerged following the Soviet Union’s collapse. Its focal area of interest was Eastern Europe, which was no longer under Moscow’s shadow, and had to be rapidly integrated in the western institutional web.
China, which was steering a Eurasian Silk Road connectivity initiative, was now a major pivot of global economy. China’s growing economic and political clout had been accomplished in little over two decades of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Eastern Europe is an example of how the world has changed. Ten years ago, those countries would have been looking for investors from Western Europe; they are now widening their portfolio and that includes China.
In recent years because of signs of weakness in the Euro Zone and so on, those countries in Eastern Europe have been trying to diversify their sources of investment.
They have looked at the Gulf, they have looked at Asia, looked at North America and China has started investing much more in Eastern Europe.
Analysts point out that the launch of the AIIB is another example of the reinforcement of economic bonds between Europe and Asia. In fact, the run-up to the formation of the bank opened cracks within the Atlantic alliance.
Despite U.S. objections, European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, joined the AIIB. Australia and South Korea—top U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific—also decided to participate in the development bank as its founding members.

:: SCIENCE and TECHNOLOGY ::

Ice found at the surface of comet 67P

Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have identified two large patches of water ice on the surface of comet 67P, perhaps the most studied comet in history.
The elusive ice was detected, using data collected by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, on the bottom part of the main lobe of the dumbbell-shaped comet, in a region called Imhotep.
It appeared as noticeably bright patches in visible light and was located on cliff walls and debris falls.
Data collected by Rosetta’s Visible Infrared and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) showed that the water ice grains in the Imhotep region came in different sizes.
Some of the grains were tiny, just tens of micrometres across, which were probably formed as a result of the comet’s 12-hour rotation.

PSLV-C31 launch in two days

The 48-hour countdown to the launch of PSLV-C31 rocket carrying IRNSS-1E satellite commenced at Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
IRNSS-1E is the fifth of the seven-series Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS), which India is hoping to put in place by the end of this year.
The regional navigation satellite system is aimed at providing accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

Merchandise export continues to shrink

India’s merchandise exports shrank for the 13th consecutive month in December 2015 during which trade deficit in goods increased the maximum since August 2015 following 179 per cent jump in gold imports.
However, according to the government, the silver lining was the services exports recording a 54.5 per cent rise during April-November 2015 to touch $179 billion, leading to less worry regarding the current account deficit.
Merchandise exports during April-December this fiscal had contracted by 18.06 per cent to $196 billion as compared to $239.9 billion during the same period in the previous financial year.
Of the 30 main items, the exports of 15 of them, including petroleum products and engineering goods, fell in December resulting in the overall merchandise exports contracting 14.75 per cent over the same month in the year earlier period to $22.3 billion.
However, this was the best showing on the export front following the contraction by 10.3 per cent since July and the third best this Merchandise imports meanwhile contracted by only 3.88 per cent to $33.96 billion due to the 179 per cent increase in gold imports to $3.8 billion (the highest since $4.95 billion in August 2015).

Increase in renewable energy share would also boost GDP

A 36 per cent share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030 would increase global gross domestic product by nearly $1.3 trillion, generating millions of jobs and helping countries like India dependent on importing oil and gas, a new study says.
‘Renewable Energy Benefits: Measuring the Economics’, released during the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) sixth assembly session, provides the first global estimate of the macroeconomic impacts of renewable energy deployment.
Specifically, the report highlights the benefits that would be achieved under the scenario of doubling the global share of renewable energy by 2030 from 2010 levels.
Beyond finding that global GDP in 2030 would increase by up to $1.3 trillion— the report also analyses country-specific impact.
Japan would see the largest positive GDP impact (2.3 per cent) but Australia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea would also see growth of more than one per cent each.
According to the report, improvements in human welfare would go well beyond gains in GDP thanks to a range of social and environmental benefits.
The impact of renewable energy deployment on welfare is estimated to be three to four times larger than its impact on GDP, with global welfare increasing as much as 3.7 per cent.
Employment in the renewable energy sector would also increase from 9.2 million global jobs today, to more than 24 million by 2030, the report said.
A transition towards greater shares of renewables in the global energy mix would also cause a shift in trade patterns, as it would more than halve global imports of coal and reduce oil and gas imports, benefiting large importers like Japan, India, Korea and the European Union.
Fossil fuel exporting countries would also benefit from a diversified economy. The report builds on previous IRENA analysis on the socio-economic benefits of renewable energy and on REmap 2030, a renewable energy roadmap to doubling the global share of renewable energy by 2030.

:: SPORTS ::

India might consider conditional use of DRS

India may consider conditional use of the Decision Review System after consultation with the team management on its return from Australia.
BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur said that India was not convinced the system was foolproof but it might be inclined to consider its use if leg-before decisions were left out of the ambit of the DRS.
The ICC, meanwhile, reaffirmed its commitment to the Spirit of Cricket and bringing about positive social change through the sport, by launching ‘Cricket for Good’, its CSR programme, in association with UNICEF.