Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 24 January 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Subhash Chandra bose’s files declassified

Prime Minister released the first set of 100 declassified files pertaining to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the National Archives of India in the presence of members of the Bose family.
The government plans to release in the public domain 25 declassified files each month.
The release of the first set coincides with the 119th birth anniversary of the eminent freedom fighter and comes months before West Bengal goes to the polls.
Bose family members thanked the Prime Minister for declassifying the files.
The files do not seem to throw up any new evidence suggesting the freedom fighter survived the plane crash in Taihoku, now in Taiwan, on August 18, 1945.
A cabinet note of February 6, 1995, said that while the government accepted the plane crash theory on Bose’s death, it wasn’t advisable to bring back his ashes from Japan.
The government went with the Intelligence Bureau’s view: “If the ashes are brought back to India, the people of West Bengal are likely to construe it as an imposition on them of the official version of Netaji’s death.”

National family health survey shows less drinking and smoking

Preliminary findings from National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) released last week have given anti-tobacco campaigners a reason to smile.
The survey has found that across the board, people — both men and women — in India are smoking less than they were a decade ago. Not just tobacco, even alcohol consumption among Indians has fallen.
According to the NFHS-4 data, in the 13 States surveyed, tobacco use among men has fallen from 50 per cent in 2005-06 to 47 per cent in 2015.
Similarly, alcohol consumption among men has fallen from 38 per cent to 34 per cent. Over the last decade, consumption of alcohol among men has fallen in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Haryana, West Bengal and Meghalaya.
Smoking kills over one million people in the country annually and is the fourth leading cause of non-communicable diseases such as cancer and heart ailments. It also increases the risk of tuberculosis
The data comes at a time when India is on the verge of implementing stricter tobacco control laws.
From April 1, 2016, the Indian government will be implementing ‘plain packaging’ as directed by the Allahabad High Court, following a writ petition on the matter.
The public health community has been demanding implementation of ‘plain tobacco packaging’ — which means standardised packaging of tobacco products without any exclusive branding like colours, imagery, corporate logos and trademarks.
The laws will only allow the manufacturers to print the brand name in a mandated size and font. Australia, the first country to implement these laws, had passed the plain packaging legislation in November 2011.
According to the Health Ministry, the economic burden of tobacco con- sumption is around Rs.1,04,500 crore per annum.
India became a party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) on February 27, 2005.
Since then India has implemented a series of measures leading to the current status of increased social awareness. Soon after signing the WHO
The Indian government has also clamped down on promotion of tobacco consumption, with a complete ban on advertising under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA).

Bose had relationship with various countries

India’s historic ties with Japan, Germany, Russia/ Soviet Union and the United Kingdom came under focus on Saturday as the Netaji papers revealed inconvenient but unverified letters and reports regarding Netaji’s ties with these countries.
For example, one document written by the Planning Commission member P.D. Mukherjee rigorously argued that Netaji was imprisoned by the Soviet leaders till the early 1960s.
Mukherjee claimed that in 1978, his friend Satyanarayan Sinha had deciphered, with the help of a group of German professionals, a coded message between the USSR-Germany and the United States which convinced him that Netaji was alive till a few months before Jawaharlal Nehru passed away in 1964.
In view of such cables and papers, diplomats told The Hindu that ties with important world powers would have been affected if the reports on Netaji were given operational importance in the previous decades.
Netaji was part of the international network of sympathisers and supporters of the Nazi Germany and Japan during the World War II which perhaps prevented Berlin and Tokyo from taking up the Netaji mystery with India enthusiastically.
Among all the foreign powers, the declassified papers have shed most spotlight on India-Japan ties, especially since the most number of diplomatic exchanges are on the ties of Netaji to Japan.
The papers reveal that the issue of Netaji heated up in the mid-1990s as preparations began in India to mark the Bose centenary in 1997.
Bringing back the ashes at that time could have disturbed India-Japan political ties as Japan was a major international player under the U.S.-led world order and most of its World War II history was still a taboo.

Country wide raid against IS sympathisers

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said that in the nationwide swoop, altogether 14 persons have been arrested for plotting terror attacks.
The suspects were in the process of identifying a “forested area” to organise a training camp where associates could be taught handling of weapons.
After conducting raids at 12 locations in six cities, the NIA arrested eight more men.
Those arrested have been identified as Syed Mujahid (33), a resident of Tumakuru, Karnataka; Mohammad Aleem (20) of Luck- now; Mohammed Obedullah Khan (33) and Abu Anas (24) of Hyderabad; Asif Ali (21), Muhammed Abdul Ahad (46) and Suhail Ahmed (23) of Bengaluru; and Imran Khan Pathan of Aurangabad.
Unlike others arrested in the past for alleged links with the Islamic State (IS), this group had procured explosives and were in the process of carrying out attacks at multiple locations.

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

Eastern US faces massive snowfall

A deadly blizzard walloped the eastern United States, paralysing Washington and other cities under a heavy blanket of snow as officials warned mil- lions of people to remain indoors until the storm eases up.
Forecasters said the storm — dubbed “Snow- zilla” — would last into Sunday as it moved menacingly up the coast.
Thousands of motorists were stranded for hours on an ice-coated highway in Kentucky.
In the capital Washington more than a foot (30 cm) of snow was already on the ground, with another foot expected by midnight.
A blizzard warning was in effect for a large swath of the eastern United States from Washington up to New York.
The storm is expected to affect about 85 million Americans — about one quarter of the US population.

Zika virus is spreading fast across Latin America

Alarm over thousands of birth defects blamed on the mosquito- borne Zika virus spread, as the United States expanded a travel warning for pregnant women.
With the sting of a mosquito bite and a fever, many pregnant women may not know that they caught the Zika virus — until it strikes their unborn child.
Now authorities in some Latin American countries are warning women to avoid getting pregnant for fear of the virus.
Babies across the region, and at least one in the United States, have been born with abnormally smaller heads — a condition doctors call microcephaly, which can cause brain damage.
The scare has struck hardest in Brazil, which hosts the summer Olympic Games in August.

:: BUSINESS and ECONOMY ::

India make pith for Make in India at world economic forum

Colourful lions adorn a salon on the main street of Davos, inviting visiting business leaders to “Make in India”.
Optimism about the world’s fastest growing economy contrasts with the economic gloom facing other emerging markets and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra encapsulates a renewed confidence among Indian business and political leaders at the 2016 World Economic Forum.
The 140-plus strong India contingent at Davos is confident the turnaround this time is for real, driven by efforts at reform and falling oil import costs.
Indeed, the other BRIC emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China - are wrestling with problems. The first two are in a second year of recession, while this week China posted its weakest growth in 25 years.
India has finally taken on the mantle of the world’s fastest growing big economy; its equities and bonds are favourites with emerging market investors who are betting that growth will accelerate further.
What’s more, direct bricks- and-mortar foreign investment flows into India jumped 75 per cent over 2015, according to a report this week from United Nations trade body UNCTAD.
Davos regulars feel India may actually have something to crow about. A PWC survey of more than 1,400 global CEOs found India to be the rare bright spot among big economies, with rising confidence in short-term sales growth.

Govt. mobilises 900 kg of gold under monetisation scheme

The government said it had netted a hefty 900 kg of idle household and temple gold under the monetisation scheme and is hopeful that the number would rise further in future.
The Gold Monetisation Scheme, which had not picked up initially, was fine-tuned to make it more attractive and convenient to encourage entities holding idle gold to participate in the scheme.
Under the monetisation scheme, launched on November 5, banks were authorised to collect gold for up to 15 years to auction them of or lend to jewellers from time to time.
Depositors will earn up to 2.50 per cent interest per annum, a rate lower than savings bank deposits.
Currently, there are 46 Assaying and Hallmarking Centres which are qualified to act as Collection and Purity Testing Centres (CPTC) for handling gold under the gold monetisation scheme.
All gold deposits under the scheme have to be made at CPTC. Banks could also accept deposits of gold at designated branches, especially from larger depositors.
India imports about 1,000 tonnes of gold every year and the precious metal is the second—highest component of the imports bill after crude oil. An estimated 20,000 tonnes of gold are lying with households and temples.