Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 25 March 2016

:: NATIONAL ::

Govt. document refers Pakistan occupied Kashmir as Pakistan occupied Jammu & Kashmir

For the first time ever, an official document of the NDA government has referred to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK).
The change is significant as it is in line with the BharatiyaJanata Party’s narrative on unified Kashmir, although it was thus far restricted to party pamphlets and manifestos.
The reference figures in the 2014-15 annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), which was tabled in Parliament.
Organiser , mouth-piece of the RashtriyaSwayamsevak Sangh, has on many occasions referred to PoK as PoJK and even called for freeing it from illegal occupation by Pakistan.

1800 year old wall discovered in Telangana

In a significant discovery, archaeologists excavating the early historic site located between Pazzur-Yarragaddaudem villages of Thipparthy mandal unearthed a huge 16-metre-long brick wall of a house that is believed to have been constructed some 1,800 years ago.
Assistant Director P. Nagaraju said that the inhabitants of 2nd Century AD habitation had used light-weight bricks made in various sizes to construct their houses.
The biggest brick was measuring 58 cm long, 28 cm wide and 9 cm high, the longest ever found in excavations in the past in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
An horn of a deer was also unearthed at the site on Wednesday by the archaeologists, which proved that the inhabitants hunted wild animals for a living.
Apart from it, a huge number of beads and bangles made of various kind of materials, terracotta toys, and pottery were also found at the site.
Terracotta toys of animals such as dog, ram, pig, besides fossils of human legs and others were found. Ornamental beads made with terracotta, jasper, conch shell, glass, steatite, carnelian and others were also found.

Bacterium with least number of genes created by scientists

Researchers J. Craig Venter and Clyde Hutchinson and colleagues at the Venter Institute, California, report the making of a living, replicating and stable cell that uses the minimum number of genes — 437 — to be considered biologically ‘alive.’
In the natural world, no living organism is ever known to possess fewer than 1000 genes. The knowledge gained from this creation may be foundational to understand how organisms can be created from scratch.
Ever since the human genome — the complete sequence of genes that make up human DNA — was deciphered at the turn of the century, researchers have tried to understand the precise functions of these 25,000 genes and the way they network with other pieces of DNA in the cell to keep it functional.
In 2010, Mr. Venter and his team built and booted up the first self-replicating, synthetic bacterial cell (called Syn 1.0) through the sole chromosome (the storehouse of a cell’s DNA) of Mycoplasma mycoides — a bacterium with a relatively small genome — and transplanted it into Mycoplasma capricolum , from which they had previously extracted the DNA.
The hollowed-out capricolum was re-programmed to behave like a mycoides ; proof that genomes can be designed in the computer, chemically made in the lab, and transplanted into a recipient cell to produce a new, self-replicating cell controlled only by the synthetic genome.
• Simultaneously, another team — through trial and error — sliced and diced the genome of Syn 1.0 and then identified which of its original 901 genes could be done away with.

:: INTERNATIONAL ::

Experts blame intelligence failure for Brussels attack

It took the Belgian security services four months to arrest Paris attacker SalahAbdeslam, who was hiding in plain sight in Brussels. This demonstrates what experts have been calling a massive intelligence failure.
Experts say that Intelligence agencies often fail to prevent terror attacks as in Brussels on Tuesday “because they ignore some of the more traditional aspects of intelligence work, where you identify persons of interest and then investigate them and their networks.”
Dr. Joseph Downing, Fellow at the London School of Economics said: “There has clearly been some intelligence failing that hasn’t enabled security services to track down those who are under significant suspicion.”
The free movement in the Schengen area that allows terrorists to shift base and recoup after each operation is an argument advanced by eurosceptics against the open door policy of the European Union.
Security experts have also argued that greater intelligence sharing among European allies would have offset this perceived advantage to terrorists of the free movement rule.
Intelligence sharing is likely to be an issue addressed at a special meeting called of EU Ministers to discuss the fallout of the Brussels blasts.

First PM now Army chief of Nepal to visit China

Nepal’s Army Chief Gen. Rajendra Chhetri is likely to leave for a week-long trip to China to strengthen bilateral military ties between the two countries.
PM, K.P. Oli returns to Kathmandu after completing his week-long trip to China. During the trip, Nepal signed a landmark Agreement of Transit and Trade with China.
Military experts have told that the visit of the Army Chief of Nepal immediately after the visit of Mr. Oli follows the pattern of visits to Beijing by Pakistani civilian and military leaders.
The Nepali Army has grown in international importance due to its involvement in multilateral peacekeeping missions across the world.
China, which has traditional ties with the Nepali Army, has provided training and military equipment to its forces.
With the upgrading of political and economic ties, military ties are also expected to undergo transformation.

:: Business and Economy ::

Govt to decide about Safeguard duty on steel

The government will soon hold a meeting to decide whether or not to extend the safeguard duty on certain items of steel imports till March 2018.
The safeguard duty is a trade remedy recognised by the World Trade Organisation.
It is a temporary measure to counter the adverse impact caused to the domestic industry (local steel producers in this case) due to a sudden and unforeseen surge in (low-priced) imports of the item (largely hot-rolled coils in the case under review).
The government had on September 14, 2015, imposed a 20 per cent ‘provisional’ safeguard duty on several hot-rolled products of steel for up to 200 days following an order from the Directorate General (DG) of Safeguards.
The DG Safeguards had recently recommended the extension of this duty till March 13, 2018.
It recommended that the 20 per cent safeguard duty (minus any antidumping duty) should be in place till September 13 this year, following which, this duty is to be reduced to 18 per cent in the next six months (till March 2017), and further down to 15 per cent during the six months after that.
However, industries that are users of these steel items — including the engineering (automobile, industrial machinery and defence components) sector — have sent representations to the government stating that measures including the Minimum Import Price (MIP) as well as the provisional safeguard duty have already increased their raw material costs and are hurting their competitiveness.
An inter-ministerial panel will shortly take a call on whether or not to accept the decision of DG of Safeguards.
The panel — comprising representatives from the ministries of commerce, finance, steel and heavy industries — will also consider representations by the user industries, mainly from the engineering sector.
The market share and profitability of the local industry declined during the period under review (from 2013-14 to 2015-16), whereas market share of imports has increased during the same period, it added.
The safeguard duty will aid in recovery of the domestic industry and will ensure the end-users get a stable supply of the items from the local producers, it said.
Imports of flat-rolled products of steel and iron have been falling since December 2015, EEPC India said.
Pointing out that hot-rolled coil is a basic raw material for engineering products, EEPC India said the continuation of safeguard duty makes engineering exports uncompetitive.
The MIP was leading to an increase in raw material cost by around six to ten per cent.
Though the government had said the MIP will not be applicable to imports under the Advance Authorisation Scheme (AAS), EEPC India said the AAS was not used by the small exporters and had sought a price reimbursement mechanism.
Steel production during April 2015-February 2016 in FY'16 contracted by (-)1.9 per cent (year-on-year) to 82.9 mt. Steel imports during that 11-month period grew 20.5 per cent to 10.2 mt, while exports shrunk 31.9 per cent to 3.4 million tonnes.

Maiden feeder service between India and Bangladesh started

The maiden coastal feeder service between India and Bangladesh commenced on March 23, after facing a minor hitch, at Chittagong Port in Bangladesh.
As per the schedule, m.v. Harbour-1, the container vessel owned by NeepaParibahan, was to arrive at Krishnapatnam Port in Andhra Pradesh on March 26.
However, it failed to depart from Chittagong Port on March 17 due to lack of adequate number of containers and a crane fault.
In its maiden journey, the vessel was to carry 150 empty containers. Due to the crane fault, only 30 containers were loaded on to the vessel since March 17.
India and Bangladesh signed a coastal shipping deal during November 2015 to promote coastal shipping, enhance bilateral trade between the two countries and bring down transportation costs for EXIM cargo.
Bangladesh imports onion, rice, lentils, cotton, industrial raw materials and machinery.
Currently, container goods are moved from and to Bangladesh either through Colombo or Singapore as Chittagong Port does not have a deep draft and hence smaller feeder vessels are deployed.
Besides, rapid growth in bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh led to congestion on the road at Indo-Bangladesh border.
Hence, the importers and exporters urged introduction of feeder service between India and Bangladesh.
Out of a total of 1.8 million tonnes of cargo moved on Indo-Bangladesh protocol route during 2013-14, fly ash accounted for 98 per cent, which was transported from Kolkata to various river ports in Bangladesh.
During the current year, India for the first time used the Indo-Bangladesh river protocol to transport food grains via Ashuganj to Tripura.
However, the quantum of cargo has not picked up because of low draft in the upper reaches of Bangladesh rivers and also because of certain non-trade barriers, says a Shipping Ministry release.

:: SPORTS ::

Johan Cruyff one of the greatest footballer died

Johan Cruyff, one of the greatest footballers in history, died at the age of 68 from lung cancer.
Cruyff won three European Cups as a player with Ajax Amsterdam and Ballon d’Or titles in 1971 with Ajax and 1973 and 1974 with Barcelona, where he starred from 1973 to 1978.
He is considered one of the best four players in history, alongside Pele of Brazil, Diego Maradona of Argentina and France’s Michel Platini.
With his precision passes, speed, technique and goal-scoring ability, Cruyff set new standards as a player.