Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 20 December 2015

:: NATIONAL ::

A Delhi court on Saturday granted unconditional bail to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case of cheating and misappropriation.
Senior Congress leaders P. Chidambaram, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Salman Khurshid stood behind Ms. Gandhi.
The court also granted bail to the other accused — Congress general secretary Oscar Fernandes, treasurer Motilal Vora and the Gandhi family loyalist Suman Du- bey — on the same terms and conditions.

In a dramatic twist 24 hours before Justice (re- tired) Virendra Singh is scheduled to swear in for an eight-year term as the Uttar Pradesh Lokayukta, the controversy over his candidature refused to die down
The petition, filed by Lucknow resident and journalist Sachchidanand Gupta through advocate Kamini Jaiswal, alleged that the Akhilesh Yadav government placed “incorrect facts” to compel the Supreme Court on December 16 to exercise its rare, extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to appoint Justice Singh, considered close to Samajvadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family, as the anti-corruption ombudsman.
The name of Justice (retd.) Virendra Singh was objected to by the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court after which his name was dropped, and the Chief Minister had assured him that the name would not be pursued further.

The Centre’s UDAY scheme for reforming debt-laden state electricity distribution companies or discoms is gaining traction, with Uttar Pradesh becoming the twelfth State to become part of the scheme.
The State cabinet approved bringing the virtually bankrupt state-electricity utility, burdened with outstanding arrears of about Rs 32,000 crore, under the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday).
With the State coming on board, nearly 40% of the total debt stress of State distribution companies or discoms is now part of the restructuring program that aims to reduce their interest burden and aggregate technical and commercial or AT&C losses, while lowering the cost of power.
As part of the scheme, States are required to take over 75 per cent of discoms’ debt as on 30th September, 2015, and shift it to their own balance sheet in two years without triggering their fiscal deficit thresholds.
States are also required to bring their AT&C losses down to 15% from the present level by 2018-19.

For the first time since the nearly five-year-old Syrian civil war began, world powers agreed on at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to embrace a plan for a ceasefire and a peace process that holds the distant prospect of ending the conflict.
A resolution adopted unanimously by the Security Council reflected a months-long effort by American and Russian officials, who have long been at odds over the future of Syria, to find com- mon national interests to stop the killing, even if they cannot yet agree on Syria’s ultimate future.
The resolution makes no mention of whether Syria’s President, Bashar Al-Assad, would be able to run in new elections, which it says must be held within 18 months of the beginning of political talks.
That process will begin sometime in January at the earliest, Mr. Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, conceded.
The remaining gap between the Russian and American sides became obvious at the very end of a news conference that involved Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lavrov.
Mr. Kerry noted that 80 per cent of Russian air strikes were hitting opposition groups fighting Mr. Assad, not the forces of the Islamic State extremist group.
Mr. Lavrov shot back that for two-and-a-half months, Russia had asked the U.S. to coordinate military operations.

Two U.S. B-52 bombers flew close to islands in the flashpoint South China Sea this month in a “serious military provocation”.
China insists it has sovereignty over virtually all of the resource-rich sea, conflicting with the various claims of several neighbouring nations, and U.S. activity in the area has provoked Beijing’s ire several times in recent months.
During the mission by the two B-52 bombers, one of the aircraft unintentionally flewwithin two nautical miles of an artificially constructed is- land.
The United States has previously argued for its right to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and is critical of China building artificial islands there.

The next three days in Parliament are extremely crucial. Govt is going to be push for the insolvency and bankruptcy law before Parliament in the next three days.
Arbitration and Conciliation Bill, which has already been passed by the Lok Sabha, provides for a fast-track mechanism to complete adjudication. The Bill would come up before the Rajya Sabha in these three days.
With a view to promoting ease of doing business and spurring economic activities, a government-appointed panel had last month suggested a modern bankruptcy law to deal with insolvency cases within 180 days that may arise on account of business failures or economic downturns.

India expressed its ‘thorough’ disappointment over non-reaffirmation to conclude 14-year-old Doha Round pacts, even as the five-day WTO meeting managed to win a commitment to allow developing nations to use special safeguards to protect farmers against import surges.
After hectic negotiations for five consecutive days exceeding the scheduled closing by almost 24 hours — the WTO Trade Ministers concluded their talks without any commitment on rich countries being asked to check their domestic subsidies.
Besides, rich nations refused to budge on their long- standing position of putting the onus on developing countries with regard to duties.
India is disappointed that notwithstanding a large group India, China, G33, African Union all insisting that Doha has to be re-affirmed, the reaffirmation has been divided.
The five-page declaration at the Nairobi meeting, which also marked the 20th anniversary since the establishment of the WTO, underlined the crucial importance of the multilateral rules-based trad- ing system and reaffirmed the principles and objectives set out in the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the WTO.

In order to make the best utilisation of the time in the run-up to the World T20 championship in March, the National selectors have chosen to experiment by picking a few youngsters and recalling some experienced players for India’s five ODIs and three T20s in Australia in January.
Following the selection committee meeting, the selectors drafted Punjab left-arm pacer Brainder Singh Sran and Himachal Pradesh all-rounder Rishi Dhawan into the ODI side, and uncapped medium-fast bowler Hardik Pandya into the T20 squad.

Vijender Singh notched up his third successive professional knockout triumph thrashing Samet Hyuseinov in less than two rounds.
Barely 35 seconds into the second round of what was to be his maiden six-round contest, Vijender cornered Hyuseinov with a combination, forcing the referee into stopping the bout to give the Indian a win via Technical Knockout.