Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 24 JANUARY 2020

::NATIONAL::

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde on Thursday said a condemned person cannot fight the death penalty endlessly and it was important for the capital punishment to reach its finality.
The death penalty, he noted, cannot be questioned at every turn by the convict. “One cannot go on fighting endlessly for everything.”
The CJI said it was not for a judge to forgive a crime. The cardinal duty of a judge was to see if the punishment was proportionate to the crime. The law applied whether the criminal was a first-timer or a hardened one.
The 2014 verdict had issued guidelines, which primarily held that an unexplained delay in carrying out an execution would lead to commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment.

Former President Pranab Mukherjee has said that any attempt to denigrate election commission will be an act of undermining the democracy itself. He said, Indian democracy has been tested time and again adding consensus is the life blood of democracy.
He was giving the first SukumarSen Memorial Lecture in New Delhi on Thursday. SukumarSen was the first Chief Election Commissioner of India, who commendably conducted the first two general elections to the LokSabha.
The Former President also emphasised the importance of people in the electoral process and said it is the key to the healthy democracy.
Mr Mukherjee said the management of an electorate of over 900 million in 2019 that is nearly the combined population of third, fourth and fifth largest nations in the world, and ensuring fair polling is not an easy job.

India is likely to fund roughly $28 billion of its expenditure outlay in its budget for fiscal 2020/21 via off-budget borrowings, three government sources said, as it seeks to revive a sagging economy while keeping its fiscal deficit in check.
Off-budget borrowings are a means by which the government keeps its fiscal deficit in check by making quasi-government entities borrow on its behalf, to partly fund its expenditure plan for the year.
This would mark a roughly 13.8% increase in so-called off-budget borrowings from an estimated 1.75 trillion rupees ($24.6 billion) in the ongoing fiscal year, said the three sources, who have direct knowledge of the matter.
The government could increase the target of raising revenue through privatisation of state companies to 1.5 trillion rupees for next fiscal year, the second official said.
India's committed spending, excluding capital spending, could be targeted at near 27 trillion rupees ($379.91 billion) for the next fiscal year, compared to the budgeted 24.5 trillion rupees in the current fiscal year, while about 4 trillion rupees could be allocated to capital spending, the first official said.

India has been ranked at the 80th position among 180 countries and territories in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) prepared by Transparency International.
The CPI, released at the WEF 2020 here, ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, according to experts and business people.
Denmark and New Zealand have cornered the top spot, followed by Finland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland in the top ten.With a score of 41, India is at the 80th spot. The rank is also shared by China, Benin, Ghana and Morocco. Neighbouring Pakistan is ranked at the 120th place.
This year's analysis shows corruption is more pervasive in countries where big money can flow freely into electoral campaigns and where governments listen only to the voices of wealthy or well-connected individuals, Transparency International said.

India on Thursday supplied 30,000 doses of Measles/Rubella vaccine to the Government of Maldives in response to their emergency requirement.
While Measles has been eliminated from the Maldives, four cases have tested positive in the last one week. Government suspects an outbreak and required emergency supplies of vaccine.
MEA, working closely with Ministry of Health, procured supply of 30,000 doses of Measles/Rubella vaccine from the Serum Institute of India, Pune and delivered the consignment on 23rd January. This will suffice the immediate requirement of Maldives.
India once again proved to be first responder in times of emergency for Maldives. In 2015, India responded to the water crisis in Malé due to breakdown of the main RO plant. India airlifted water immediately and also sent supplies by ship, including an RO plant.

A new snake eel species residing in the Bay of Bengal has been discovered and documented this month (January) by the Estuarine Biology Regional Centre (EBRC) of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) at Gopalpur-on-sea in Odisha.
This new marine species has been named Ophichthuskailashchandrai to honour the vast contributions of Dr.Kailash Chandra, Director of ZSI, to Indian animal taxonomy.
Ophichthuskailashchandrai is the eighth species of the Ophichthus genus found on the Indian coast. It is the fifth new species discovered by the Gopalpur ZSI in the last two years.
In 2019, two new species of marine eel, Gymnothoraxandamanensesis and Gymnothoraxsmithi were been discovered by this ZSI centre.