Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam - 27 March, 2014

Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

Scientists have for the first time ever created the brightest light ever imagined in the entire Universe.
X-rays brighter than a million suns were created which exposed the biochemical structure of a 50 million-year-old fossil plant to stunning visual effect when they were bombarded on it.
The team of palaeontologists, geochemists and physicists investigated the chemistry of exceptionally preserved fossil leaves from the Eocene-aged "Green River Formation" of the western United States by bombarding the fossils with X-rays produced by synchrotron particle accelerators.
The work shows that the distribution of copper, zinc and nickel in the fossil leaves was almost identical to that in modern leaves. Each element was concentrated in distinct biological structures such as the veins and the edges of the leaves and the way these trace elements and sulphur were attached to other elements was very similar to that seen in modern leaves and plant matter in soils.
The data has led the team to conclude that the chemistry of the fossil leaves is not wholly sourced from the surrounding environment as has previously been suggested but represents that of the living leaves.

Former India captain Jude Felix replaced his contemporary Vasudevan Baskaran as the coach of the national hockey team.
Felix will work under chief coach Terry Walsh and has been appointed initially for a period of three months. Hockey India’s high performance director Roelant Oltmans said they’ll assess Felix’s performance after the World Cup in June and decide if his contract will be extended beyond that period.

India outsmarted Pakistan 36-31 to win the third South Asian Handball Championship at an outdoor court in Noida.
India, who beat Pakistan also in the league stage, shrugged off a shaky start to get the better of the reigning South Asian Games champions. Bangladesh beat Afghanistan to finish third in the five-nation competition.

Creating a new Guinness world record, over two-and-half lakh Bangladeshis performed a chorus of their national anthem at the national parade ground here to mark the country’s 43rd Independence Day.
The erstwhile East Pakistan witnessed a historic moment after 2,54,681 persons gathered at the venue to chant “Amar shonar Bongla, ami tume balobashi… (My golden Bengal, I love you)” — penned and tuned by poet Rabindranath Tagore — which inspired the nation during the liberation war against Pakistan in 1971.
The venue bore a sea of humanity draped in national colours, red and green clothes and badges, during the much-publicised ceremony attended by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Speaker of Parliament, Ministers, MPs, armed forces officials and foreign diplomats.
The previous record for largest chorus to sing a national anthem at a single venue was held by Sahara India Pariwar, which organised 1,21,653 people to sing the Indian anthem in unison.

The Congress has tried to make a virtue of the inevitable by packaging the Supreme Court’s orders for setting up a national environment regulator as a commitment in its Lok Sabha election manifesto .
The party promises to bring in “a Bill to set up a National Environmental Appraisal and Monitoring Authority to conduct rigorous and time-bound environmental appraisals and recommend environment clearances … in a time-bound and transparent manner.”
In tune with its recent inclinations, the party promises to set up a regulatory reform task force to review all regulatory processes to streamline them and improve the “ease of doing business in India.”
While the UPA toyed with the idea of setting up an environment regulator in its second term, the move got a fillip when the Supreme Court endorsed such a body in the Lafarge judgement of February 2012. It set a deadline for the government to set it up by the end of March 2014.
While the UPA has consistently been in trouble with the National Ganga River Basin Authority, it has promised more such bodies for other key rivers, and to start a national mission on wind energy.