Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

27 January, 2014

India’s re-election to UNHRC

• India has said it will seek re-election to the UN’s human rights body this year and would continue to strongly push for early reform of the powerful Security Council.

• On the occasion of India’s 65th Republic Day , India’s Ambassador to the UN, Asoke Kumar Mukherji, said that India would actively participate in the work of the United Nations during the coming year based on its national objectives and priorities.

• He said early reform of the UN Security Council will continue to be a “priority” for India, adding that maintenance of international peace and security is also a necessary external environment for India’s developmental objectives.

• India is currently a member of the 47—nation UN Human Rights Council and its term will end on December 31, 2014.

• It would seek re—election this year when elections are held in October.

• India will compete in the Asia—Pacific category in which four seats will be up for election and so far seven nations have announced their candidature, sources said.

• The Council members are elected for a period of three years by the world body’s General Assembly, and have the ability to discuss all thematic human rights issues and situations that require its attention throughout the year.

• Last year, the General Assembly had elected 14 countries, including China, Saudi Arabia and Russia to serve on the Council.

Syed Modi International India Grand Prix Gold tournament

• Top seed Saina Nehwal prevailed over compatriot and second seed PV Sindhu 21-14, 21-17 to win the $120,000 Syed Modi International India Grand Prix Gold tournament in Lucknow .

• The home tournament provided Saina the much-needed platform to end her title drought. The Indian had not won a title in more than a year. In the last edition of the tournament — held in December 2012 — Saina had pulled out of the tournament citing a knee injury when she was leading 21-17, 20-18 — just a point away from winning the first round game against Russian Ksenia Polikarpova. In the edition before that, she had pulled out citing a bout of ‘cold and flu’ and a ‘hamstring pull’. However, this year’s tournament turned out to be far more important to her than she might have imagined.

• In the men’s singles final, ninth seed Xue Song of China defeated sixth seed K Srikanth of India 16-21, 21-19, 21-13. Srikanth played well and had chances to pack up the match when he was up 19-12 in the second game after winning the first. Eventually, Song nicked the test and ran through the decider.

• The finals of all the doubles events proved to be all-Chinese affair. In the mixed doubles final Yilv Wang and Huang Yaqiong defeated Kaixiang Huang and Qingchen Chen 21-18, 21-14. In the women’s doubles finals, Qingchen Chen and Yi Fan Jia registered a 22-24, 21-19, 21-11 victory against Yu Xiaohan and Huang Yaqiong. In the men’s doubles finals, Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen beat Kaixiang Huang and Si Wi Zheng 21-17, 19-21, 22-20.

BJD’s candidates for RS polls

• The ruling Biju Janta Dal (BJD) has released the list of its Rajya Sabha candidates.
• The list has the names of three candidates. Out of these three candidates, two are serving ministers in Naveen patnaik govt while one candidate is a former state minister.
• The two serving ministers are – Panchayati Raj minister Kalpataru Das and Textile and Hand-loom minister Sarojini Hembram.
• The third candidate is the former minister Anang Uday Singhdeo.

Air Pollution in Delhi

• In mid-January, air pollution in Beijing was so bad that the government issued urgent health warnings and closed four major highways, prompting the panicked buying of air filters and donning of face masks. But in New Delhi, where pea-soup smog created what was by some measurements even more dangerous air, there were few signs of alarm in the country’s boisterous news media and on its effervescent Twittersphere.

• Despite Beijing’s widespread reputation as having some of the most polluted air of any major city in the world, an examination of daily pollution figures collected from both cities suggests that New Delhi’s air is more laden with dangerous small particles of pollution more often than Beijing’s. Lately, a very bad air day in Beijing is about an average one in New Delhi.

• The US Embassy in Beijing sent out warnings in mid-January, when a measure of harmful fine particulate matter known as PM2.5 for the first time this year went above 500, in the upper reaches of the measurement scale. This refers to particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, which are believed to pose the greatest health risk because they penetrate deeply into lungs.

• India has the world’s highest death rate because of chronic respiratory diseases, and it has more deaths from asthma than any other nation, according to the WHO.

• Perhaps most worrisome, Delhi’s peak daily fine particle pollution levels are 44 per cent higher this year than they were last year, when they averaged 328 over the first three weeks of the year.

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