Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 21 May 2017

:: National ::

EC's hackathon to be held on June 3

EC invited recognised political parties to an “Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) Challenge” beginning June 3 to demonstrate that the machine can be, or were, during the five recent Assembly elections, tampered with.
Only Indian experts are allowed to participate in the event. The challenge will be open for four to five days, for the political parties that participated in the Assembly elections in Goa, Punjab, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
An independent team of experts will supervise the proceedings, which will be video-recorded.
Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi said the political parties, each of which can nominate three experts, had to confirm their participation by 5 p.m. on May 26.
Each party will be assigned four EVMs of their choice, picked up from EC warehouses in any Assembly constituency.
They can also accompany the EVMs from warehouses to the venue at the EC headquarters, at their own cost.
Although the parties’ experts will be allowed to open and inspect the machine, they will not be allowed to tweak its components, as the EC said changing the internal circuit was like changing the whole device itself.

Hassan Rouhani was re-elected by a wide margin in Iran

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected by a wide margin. The victory gave the moderate cleric a second four-year term to see out his agenda pushing for greater freedoms and outreach to the wider world.
The 68-year-old incumbent secured a commanding lead of 57% in a race that drew more than seven out of every 10 voters to the polls.
His nearest rival in the four-man race, hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, secured 38% of the vote.

Better forecast from Earth Science System Organisation

The Union Ministry of Earth Sciences’ premier agency — INCOIS will soon be operating through a brand new high-powered super computer enabling quicker computations and thereby more accurate forecasts for ocean waves and tsunami alerts.
The new high-powered supercomputer of 34 teraflops capacity, estimated to have cost Rs. 4 crore, including five years maintenance period, is being currently shipped from Singapore.
This one will be replacing an older version which has a capacity of just 7.8 teraflops.
The existing high-powered computer has completed its life cycle of eight years and is ‘coming apart’ inside the INCOIS’ sprawling facility at Pragatinagar near Kukatpally necessitating the procurement of a new one.
The new supercomputer is to be made operational within a month of arrival after feeding the available forecasting model that INCOIS has developed over the years as in tracking the ocean wave currents, real time Tsunami alerts and so on, in a more precise manner with a higher resolution and for a larger terrain.
The agency is currently able to predict the estimated tsunami landfall for up to three metres of wave heights only.

EC reiterated that the device being a standalone machine could not be hacked

Seeking to dispel the doubts about Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) security, the Election Commission reiterated that the device being a standalone machine could not be hacked and that it was far superior to those manufactured abroad.
Indian manufacturers have supplied EVMs to Namibia, Nepal and Bhutan. Several other countries, including Australia, Russia, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Bulgaria, have also shown interest in the product, the EC said.
EC’s machines — manufactured by two public sector undertakings, Bharat Electronic Limited and Electronics Corporation of India — do not have any frequency receiver or data decoder for wireless signalling.
He also ruled out any manipulation at the manufacturing stage due to very stringent security protocol on software security.
The results cannot be altered even by activating any malicious software as the chip used is only one-time programmable.
The control unit activates the ballot unit for only one key press at a time; any additional key pressed is not sensed and this makes it impossible to send signals by pressing a sequence of keys or secret codes.
The new model introduced in 2013 has additional features like tamper detection and self diagnostics, which checks if any changes have been made.
Reacting to assertions of some political parties on several countries having stopped using EVMs, Dr. Zaidi said the machines used in Netherlands, Ireland and Germany were privately manufactured and had no independent certification system.
In the United States, the direct recording machines are used in 27 states, among which paper audit trails are used in 15 states.
In India, the EC will henceforth use paper-audit trails in all the elections, Dr. Zaidi said.

Issues with Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act or RERA is a law that seeks to regulate and standardise the real estate sector, where the need for uniform guidelines and transparency has been felt for long.
After its passage in Parliament in March 2016, it received the presidential nod on March 25, 2016. The RERA came into force on May 1, 2017, a year after the government notified it.
The Act will bring on a common platform buyers, sellers and intermediaries engaged in the sector.
It covers commercial and residential real estate properties, bought or sold with the construction covering at least 500 sq m or eight apartments.
Most important, it brings the entire real estate sector within a regulatory environment, defining the liabilities and liberties of a developer and providing an effective grievance redress mechanism to the buyer.
Under this, property developers will have to register their projects. Agents too will have to register themselves with the regulatory authority.
It was necessary to bring the real estate sector under a regulatory framework as it had got a bad name due to the lapses of a few.
Moreover, the house-buyer did not really have any effective forum to address his complaints, on either construction, quality, delays in delivery or frauds.
To address these issues, the Centre began moves to make this unregulated sector conform to certain guidelines in an equitable manner.
Developers will now have to provide project details, timelines and the layout plan. They will need to deposit 70% of the money raised from buyers in an escrow account.
Until recently, investment in a house, often with one’s life’s savings, came around post retirement. It was almost always a leap of faith, more so if the developer happened to be a non-governmental player.
That scenario has changed substantially over the last few decades with a younger age profile of a house-buyer. Not only that, the young is more discerning, more demanding and has money at his disposal.
It is no longer an issue of a roof-over-his-head or a matter of roti, kapda aur makan (food, clothing and shelter).
This law will empower the consumer while boosting the credibility of developers. It is widely felt that the Act will shift housing demand at least in the immediate term towards the organised players, better-equipped as they are to fulfil various stipulations.
Essentially, the Act marks the first step in regulating a sector. Until now, consumers were protected by a State’s consumer protection measures, where getting justice was a long and arduous process. This law is more focussed.
But it must be noted that the RERA is a model Act and each State will need to notify its own Act separately as land is a concurrent subject. Many States are yet to do so.
Till then in most States, promoters will be regulated by the Promoters Registration Act, which mandates registration by promoters. However, there is little scope of consumer protection here.

:: International ::

Rouhani promises to keep moderate policies

It was a referendum on Hassan Rouhani’s more moderate political policies, which paved the way for the landmark 2015 nuclear deal that won Iran relief from some sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.
His resounding victory suggests that Iranians largely approve of the President’s policies.
Mr. Rouhani has come to embody more liberal and reform-minded Iranians’ hopes for greater freedoms and openness at home, and better relations with the outside world.
“Great nation of Iran, you are the winner of the election. I humbly bow down before you. I will remain loyal to my promises to you,” he wrote.
Iran’s President is the second-most powerful figure within the country’s political system. He is subordinate to the supreme leader, who is chosen by a clerical panel and has the ultimate say over all matters of state.
Although considered a moderate by Iranian standards, Mr. Rouhani was nonetheless the favourite pick for those seeking more liberal reforms in the conservative Islamic Republic.
One of the first world leaders to congratulate Mr. Rouhani was Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose government is backed by Tehran.
Iran’s President oversees a vast state bureaucracy employing more than 2 million people, is charged with naming Cabinet members and other officials to key posts, and plays a significant role in shaping both domestic and foreign policy.

:: Business and Economy ::

Weaker U.S. dollar may help keep the profit momentum rolling

With S&P 500 companies set to notch their strongest quarterly earnings growth in about six years, a weaker U.S. dollar may help keep the profit momentum rolling and support share prices in the coming weeks.
After a dramatic week in Washington that rattled financial markets, one possible silver lining for stock investors was the weaker dollar, which can support earnings of U.S. multinational companies with large foreign operations.
The dollar weakened 0.5% against a basket of currencies following reports that U.S. President Donald Trump tried to interfere with an investigation into his former national security adviser’s ties with Russia, revelations that also sparked the S&P 500’s biggest one-day drop in eight months.
The currency was on track for its biggest weekly percentage drop in a year, and so far in 2017 the dollar has pulled back 5%, erasing post-U.S. election gains.
Dollar movements can be significant for U.S.-based multinationals. The stronger the greenback is against other currencies, the less valuable foreign sales become when translated into the U.S. currency for reporting purposes.
First-quarter profits are on pace to rise 15.2%, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Second-quarter earnings are expected to rise 8.5%, a figure that could swell depending on currency moves. The dollar has fallen 3.2% in the second quarter alone.
Companies with significant global operations have already showed strength as the dollar has weakened in the first quarter.
S&P 500 companies with more than half their revenue from outside the U.S. reported a 13.2% increase in earnings, excluding the energy sector, compared with a 10.6% increase for companies with half or more of revenues coming domestically.

:: Science and Technology ::

Indian researchers has been able to achieve 100-fold reduction in TB bacterial load

A team of Indian researchers has been able to achieve 100-fold reduction in TB bacterial load in lungs of mice after 60 days of treatment using bergenin — a phytochemical isolated from tender leaves of sakhua or shala tree.
Unlike the regularly used antibiotic drugs that target the TB bacteria, the bergenin compound modulates the immune system to kill the bacteria found inside the macrophages (a type of white blood cells).
The researchers undertook several studies to understand the mode of action of the compound. The compound was unable to directly kill TB bacteria when treated with the compound.
However, in the case of in vitro studies, the compound was able to kill the bacteria found inside infected cells. In mice infected with TB and treated with the compound, there was significant reduction in the bacterial load in the lungs.
Unlike in the case of in vitro studies, in mice the compound was found to activate not only the macrophages but also other cell types (T cells) that led to effective killing of the bacteria.
A significant reduction in the number of granulomatic lesions was seen in animals treated with the compound.
Also, the bacterial load was 100-fold lower in mice treated with the compound compared with controls (animals that were not treated with bergenin).
Previous studies have shown that T helper 1 (Th1) cells play a key role in protecting the host against TB bacteria, while Th2 cells oppose the protection offered by Th1 cells.

Scientists have discovered a new moon orbiting the third largest dwarf planet

Scientists have discovered a new moon orbiting the third largest dwarf planet, that resides in the frigid outskirts in our solar system.
With this discovery, it appears that most of the known dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt larger than 965 kilometres across have companions. These bodies can provide some insight into how moons formed in the young solar system.
The combined power of three space observatories, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, has helped uncover the moon orbiting the dwarf planet 2007 OR10 in the Kuiper Belt, a realm of icy debris left over from our solar system’s formation, which is believed to have happened about 4.6 billion years ago.
The team uncovered the moon in archival images of 2007 OR10 taken by the Hubble Telescope.
Observations taken of the dwarf planet by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope first tipped off the astronomers of the possibility of a moon circling it. Kepler revealed that 2007 OR10 has a slow rotation period of 45 hours.
The astronomers spotted the moon in two separate Hubble observations spaced a year apart. The images show that the moon is gravitationally bound to 2007 OR10 because it moves with the dwarf planet, as seen against a background of stars.
The astronomers calculated the diameters of both objects based on observations in far-infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory, which measured the thermal emission of the distant worlds.
The dwarf planet is about 1,528 kilometres across, and the moon is estimated to be 240 kilometres to 400 kilometres in diameter.
2007 OR10, like Pluto, follows an eccentric orbit, but it is currently three times further than Pluto is from the sun. 2007 OR10 is a member of an exclusive club of nine dwarf planets.