Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 28 March 2017

:: National ::

SC says using Aadhaar is a voluntary excercise

Supreme Court said obtaining the 12-digit Unique Identification number, which requires the holder to part with his personal bio-metric data, and using it to avail himself of government subsidy was a voluntary exercise.
The court’s observations follows a series of recent government circulars making Aadhaar mandatory to access welfare schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and Employees Pension Scheme.
The government has made Aadhaar compulsory for beneficiaries, many from the poorest of the poor, despite a Constitution Bench of the court directing the government in October 2015 that a citizen cannot be compelled to have Aadhaar as a pre-condition to access Centrally sponsored welfare schemes.
In short, the court had made it clear that the government was not free to discriminate between a person who has the Aadhaar card and one who does not.
However, a Bench found no fault with the government’s choice to make Aadhaar mandatory for “non-welfare” activities like opening a bank account or filing Income Tax returns or applying for a mobile connection.
The recently-passed Finance Bill made Aadhaar mandatory for filing tax returns and getting a permanent account number (PAN).
The court’s observations came during a mentioning for an early date for hearing pending petitions raising the issue of Aadhaar as a violation of the citizen's privacy. The court, however, did not agree for an out-of-turn hearing.

The monsoon is likely to be “below normal” in 2017, says Skymet

The monsoon is likely to be “below normal” in 2017, says Skymet, a private weather forecasting company.
The rains from June to September are likely to be 95% (with an error margin of 5%) of the long period average (LPA) of 887 mm.
Gujarat, Konkan, Goa, central Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu will get rainfall below their normal quota. The chances of drought, or rains below 10% of the seasonal quota, are about 25%.
Over the past three months, international weather models have been warning of an El Nino, characterised by the warming surface waters in the equatorial Pacific, during the latter part of the year, which is known to cause poor rainfall six out of 10 times.
However, a favourable form of a current in the Indian Ocean, called the Indian Ocean dipole, is widely expected to counter the effects of the El Nino during the monsoon.
Greater clarity on this will emerge only after April, say forecasters of the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The IMD’s estimate is expected next month.
At present, the IOD is in the neutral phase, but weather models are indicating that it may become positive during the second half of the monsoon.
By then, the El Nino might also start reflecting its position, which, as per weather models, has over a 60% chance of coming into existence.
Pre-monsoon rain would be less during April, eventually leading to intense heating of the land mass, and will likely pick up pace during May, a Skymet press statement said.

SC says Centre should address the “serious issue” of farmers suicide

The Supreme Court said the Centre should address the “serious issue” of farmers taking their own lives and implement a comprehensive policy to be adopted by the State governments for preventing the tragedy.
Additional Solicitor General P.S. Narasimha said the government was coming up with a comprehensive policy to address the problems of the farmers.
He said now the government was directly procuring food grains from the farmers at the minimum support price and they did not need to take the help of middlemen or market.
Insurance cover has been increased for the farmers. Earlier, it was for those who took agriculture loan but now it has been extended to all the farmers.

Blood test diagnoses active TB cases with high sensitivity

In a marked departure from the current methods for active TB diagnosis that are based on the presence of live bacteria in sputum samples, a rapid blood test that relies on two proteins for diagnosis and quantification of the severity of active TB has shown promise.
The blood test accurately detects minute levels of two biomarkers — CFP-10 and ESAT-6 — that TB bacteria release only during active infections.
In a pilot study, the new blood test was able to diagnose active TB cases with “high sensitivity and specificity”. It was able to diagnose active TB even in people co-infected with HIV.
It was able to diagnose both pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB cases with high sensitivity — over 91% in the case of culture-positive pulmonary TB (PTB) and above 92% extra-pulmonary TB (EPTB).
And 82% in culture-negative PTB and 75% in EPTB in HIV-positive patients. In the case of HIV coinfected cases, the sensitivity was 87.5% for PTB and 85.7% for EPTB cases.
Obtaining sputum samples is not always easy and is particularly difficult in the case of little children. Biopsy samples are needed in the case of EPTB cases.
Even Gene Xpert, introduced a few years ago to improve sensitivity and specificity, relies on sputum samples, and as per a 2014 WHO update, Xpert has “very low quality evidence” for EPTB diagnosis.

:: International ::

U.S., allies, boycott disarmament talks

Saying the time was not right to outlaw nuclear arms, the United States led a group of dozens of UN members that boycotted talks at the global organisation for a treaty that would ban the weapons.
“There is nothing I want more for my family than a world with no nuclear weapons,” Ambassador Nikki R. Haley of the United States told reporters outside the General Assembly as the talks were getting under way.
Ms. Haley and other Ambassadors standing with her, including envoys from Albania, Britain, France and South Korea, declined to take questions.
The talks, supported by more than 120 countries, were first announced in October and are led by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa and Sweden. Disarmament groups strongly support the effort.
The United States and most other nuclear powers, including Russia, oppose the talks.
Ms. Haley and Ambassador Matthew Rycroft of Britain emphasised their countries had vastly reduced the size of their nuclear arsenals since the height of the Cold War.

:: Business and Economy ::

Indian Railways will invest Rs. 12,000 crore in a common digital platform

Indian Railways will invest about Rs. 12,000 crore in developing a common digital platform for integrating information from all its departments leading to savings of about Rs. 60,000 crore, said Suresh Prabhu, Railway Minister.
“In the last Rail Budget, I had announced an Enterprise Resource Planning system that will be an IT-based platform for system-wide integration and planning,” Mr. Prabhu said.
The Minister said Rs. 10,000–Rs. 12,000 crore of investments will be required for the enterprise-wide digital platform called IR-One ICT that will lead to benefits worth Rs. 50,000–Rs. 60,000 crore to the Indian Railways in the long run.
It might take at least two-three years to complete the first phase. With the common platform, the monitoring of the entire Indian Railways operations can be done on a single platform.
Several passenger complaints can be solved. We may also get to know the vacancies in a train and the number of people travelling. Maintenance issues can be handled remotely.
‘One ICT’ will cover all the aspects of the Indian Railways, including cost analysis, attendance, accounting, asset management, medical management and land management.

Govt wants petroleum to come under GST

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said his Ministry was working towards bringing petroleum under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as it would benefit the states.
“This (the inclusion of petroleum in GST) will benefit the states also,” Mr. Pradhan said. The Minister said he expected oil prices to remain in the $55–$60 range in the near term.
“When oil was at $40 a barrel, then the economic viability of the discovered small fields was looked at. Now it is around $50 and the expectation is for it to remain in the $55-60 range in the near term,” he said.
The DSF bid round was unveiled in May 2016. The bid witnessed as many as 134 e-bids for 34 contract areas with 47 companies participating, either singly or in a consortium. Of these, bids were awarded for 31 contract areas to 22 companies.
According to the Ministry, the cumulative peak production from the awarded fields is expected to be about 15,000 barrels of oil per day and 2 million metric standard cubic metres per day (mmscmd) over their economic life.
The estimated total revenue from this would be about Rs. 46,600 crore of which the Centre’s royalty would be Rs. 5,000 crore and the states’ royalties Rs. 2,100 crore.
The Minister also inaugurated a two-way online portal by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons developed to facilitate contract management and the redressal of queries.
Of the 22 companies awarded the contracts, 17 were from domestic private sector, four public sector companies and one foreign private company.