Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 26 October 2016

:: National ::

President wants world leaders to come together against terrorism

President Pranab Mukherjee asked world leaders to come together to defeat the menace of terrorism, which has “no ideology” and only believes in “wanton destruction of humanity.”
“Terrorism has no ideology except the wanton destruction of humanity. We need to deal with this menace in order to leave a safer world for the coming generations,” he said.
The President said global governance was not just about maintaining peace as there were many challenges that needed to be tackled.
“Manifold challenges are staring at us such as poverty, hunger, disease and exploitation of the resources of mother earth,” he said, adding global governance was a concept that had come to acquire increasing significance today.
Poverty eradication, environmental preservation of our planet, maintenance of peace, social inclusion etc. are at once the objectives of global governance and challenges to overcome.

Rajasthan and UNICEF starts a drive to end child marriages

Under the banner of “Sajha Abhiyan” of the Rajasthan government, UNFPA and UNICEF, a district-level Abhiyan Yatra was flagged off in Dausa for complete elimination of child marriages in the State.
Child marriage in Rajasthan continues to be much higher than the national average.
In order to address the issue, the State government, with the support of UNFPA and UNICEF, has taken the lead in developing a comprehensive strategy and action plan for doing away with the marriages of minor boys and girls.
As part of ‘Sajha Abhiyan’, multiple stakeholders, interventions and sectors are converging to address child marriage in the State as a unified force.
The yatra will bring the community on a united platform to work towards making the State child marriage-free. Yatra will wind its way through as many as 50 village panchayats in the district to generate awareness among the rural populace.
A significant aspect of the yatra is that it would apprise the people of the ill effects and harmful consequences of child marriage and convince them to get such marriages nullified if they have taken place in their families and neighbourhood.

CBI will have a new Director of Prosecution

In May 2013 the Supreme Court, while hearing the ‘Coalgate probe report’, had described the national agency for investigation and collection of criminal intelligence information as a ‘caged parrot speaking in its master’s voice.’
Come December 23, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) would have a brand new Director of Prosecution with a nominal role for the Union government in the selection of the candidate.
Thanks to new eligibility norms for appointment at the highest level in the agency, the same goes for the post of CBI Director.
Following the directives of the apex court, the Centre now is to be entirely guided by a panel headed by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).
The early 2013 landmark verdict of the Supreme Court deals with issues related to the status of the CBI as well as the CVC, procedure on appointment of CBI Director and the changed eligibility criteria for selection of the Director of Prosecution.
The apex court has said that henceforth the selection of the Director of Prosecution shall be on the recommendation of the Central Vigilance Commission.

Apex court stayed away from Hindutva judgement

The Supreme Court has declined to check the “devastating consequences” of its 1995 judgment that Hindutva or Hinduism is a “way of life” and has nothing to do with “narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry”.
A seven-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur, clarified that the Supreme Court is now examining only what constitutes corrupt electoral practice under Section 123 (3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
The court said it would not be going into the larger issue of whether Hindutva meant the Hindu religion.
Specifically, the Constitution Bench is hearing arguments on whether it amounts to a corrupt electoral practice if a candidate ropes in the services of religious leaders to use their mass appeal to swing votes in his or her favour.
Justice Verma had concluded in 1995 that “no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms ‘Hindu’, ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone.
Classifying Hindutva as a way of life of the people in the sub-continent, he dismissed the idea of equating the abstract terms Hindutva or Hinduism with the “narrow fundamentalist Hindu religious bigotry”.

:: Business and Economy ::

World Economic forum says gender gap has narrowed in India

The World Economic Forum (WEF) reckons that the gender gap in India has narrowed down — with the gap closing in primary and secondary education enrolments, pushing it up in the Forum’s global gender gap rankings from 108 to 87.
However, India remains one of the worst countries in the world for women in terms of labour force participation, income levels as well as health and survival.
According to the Forum which has been compiling the Global Gender Gap report since 2006 by examining four broad dimensions of gender equality — economic participation, education, health and politics.
India has closed its gender gap by 2 per cent in a year, but much work remains to be done to empower women in the economic sphere, the WEF report noted.
The global workplace gender gap, measured in terms of economic participation and opportunities, is getting worse and stands at the highest level since 2008, according to the WEF. This gap will ‘now not close until the year 2186,’ going by current trends.
Within South Asia, India’s neighbour Bangladesh is the top performer (ranked 72nd), recording progress on the political empowerment gender gap, but a wider gap on women’s labour force participation and estimated earned income.
India’s women rank highly on political empowerment and the country is closing the gap on wage equality and across all indicators of the educational attainment sub-index, fully closing its primary and secondary education enrolment gender gaps.
Clubbing India with the likes of Iran, UAE and Chile, the report said these countries have made key investments in women’s education but have generally not removed barriers to women’s participation in the workforce.

Govt formed a committee to look into the regulator TRAI’s recommendation

The Telecom Ministry has formed a committee to look into the regulator TRAI’s recommendation of a Rs.3,050 crore penalty on top three telcos — Airtel, Vodafone and Idea — for denial of interconnection points to Reliance Jio.
The committee has been asked to give a report on the recommendations soon. While the timeline for submission of the report is not confirmed, it is likely to be before November 15.
TRAI had earlier suggested a hefty penalty on the three incumbents for “non-compliance of the terms and conditions of license and denial of Interconnection to RJIL appears to be with ulterior motive to stifle competition and is anti-consumer.”
While the recommended fine for Airtel and Vodafone amounts to Rs.1,050 crore for 21 service areas (all, expect Jammu and Kashmir), for Idea the penalty suggested for 19 service areas pegged at Rs 950 crore.

Centre will hold a special high-level meeting with States for reforms

The Centre will soon hold a special high-level meeting with States and Union Territories (UTs), which have performed poorly in implementing reforms, to improve the ease of doing business
The states, among others, included Kerala and those in the entire North-Eastern region. They have managed to implement only 25 per cent or below of the 340-point ‘Business Reform Action Plan’ that was circulated in late October 2015.
The performance in respect of this ‘action plan’ is being considered for a state-wise ‘ease of doing business’ ranking in the spirit of ‘competitive and cooperative federalism’. This year’s state-wise ranking will be released shortly by the Centre.
The 17 states/union territories that are laggards present a contrasting picture to the intense competition seen among the other states to grab top spots in the state-wise ease of doing business index.
The Centre’s portal on the ‘business reform action plan’ has a ‘real time ranking and tracking of the states/UTs’ on the basis of the implementation of the plan.
At present, there are ten states that have an implementation percentage of 90 per cent or more and these have been categorised as ‘leaders’.
The number one rank is currently being held by two States — Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with a score of 99.09 per cent each.
The next category is that of ‘aspiring leaders’ — those with an implementation rate between 60-90 per cent. There are currently seven states in that category of which five have an implementation rate of over 80 per cent.
The third category is termed ‘acceleration required’ — those with an implementation percentage of 30-60 per cent. There are two States in this category.
The 17 poorly performing States/UTs are those falling in the last category called ‘jump-start needed’ with a 0-30 per cent implementation percentage.
Reform areas are under categories including construction permit, environmental and labour registration, obtaining an electricity connection, online tax-return filing, inspection reform, single window, land availability and dispute resolution.

India improved its position to 130 in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business 2017 report

Improving India’s ranking in the report has been a key target of the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India which had been ranked 130 in the 2016 report, was placed at 131 according to the revised rankings for last year.
India could not improve its ranking better despite reform measures that have been lauded in the report because other countries around it in the ranking list also did well last year, World Bank officials who oversaw the report said .
“While ranking is relative, DTF score is an absolute figure,” he said. India was 35th in DTF improvement last year. “It is pretty impressive,” he said.
India has improved and is at 55.27 compared with last year’s 53.93, while the perfect score is 100. New Zealand that is ranked first has a DTF score of 87.01.
Word Bank Doing Business reports, introduced in 2004, review business regulations and their enforcement across countries —190 this year. The latest edition takes into account developments in one year up until June 1, 2016.
India is one of the few economies that was discussed separately for its reform measures in the report. Four reform measures undertaken by India during the year helped the country improve its DTF score, said the World Bank.
Paying taxes is easier after the introduction of an electronic system for paying employee state insurance contributions, a reform that applies to both Mumbai and Delhi.
The report said that the Government has “embarked on a fast-paced reform path.”
It scored well on protecting minority investors and is one of only six economies in the world that earn the highest possible score on the extent of shareholder rights index, which measures shareholders’ rights in corporate governance.
The overhaul of the Companies Act has brought Indian “companies in line with global standards, particularly regarding accountability and corporate governance practices,” according to the report.