Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 29 December 2015

:: NATIONAL ::

The government has decided that the benefit of the LPG subsidy will not be available for LPG consumers if the consumer or his/her spouse had a taxable income of more than Rs. 10,00,000/- during the previous financial year.
t present, all households are entitled to 12 cylinders of 14.2 kg at the subsidised rate of Rs. 419.26. The market price is Rs. 608 a cylinder.
There are 16.35 crore LPG consumers in the country, according to the government, of whom 14.78 crore receive the subsidy directly in their bank accounts.
Such a decision will likely affect at least 60 lakh people, if one were to go only by the number of people who filed their returns in the government’s e-filing portal.
The government had also launched a scheme for people to give up their subsidies so that the less privileged would benefit. So far, 57.50 lakh LPG consumers have opted out.

Delhi is gearing up for the odd-even scheme to check vehicular pollution, but road dust, burning of biomass and municipal solid waste, and industrial stacks contribute a far greater share of the city's air pollution, according to a study by the Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur.
The draft report found that particulate matter (PM) pollution from road dust, from various sources, was the highest in both categories: PM10 and PM2.5. Road dust contributed 56% of all PM10 pollution while it was 38% for PM2.5.
According to the same report, vehicular pollution from trucks, cars and two vehicles made up 9%-20% of the particulate matter pollution depending on whether it was summer or winter.
Other key contributors to pollution are burning of bio-mass (17%-26%), municipal solid waste (6%-7%) and secondary particulate matter that could range from 25%-30%, according to the report.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UN- ESCO) has established an ‘official relationship’ with the Ramakrishna Mission in the areas of inter-cultural dialogue, social cohesion and for promoting peace and non-violence, accord- ing to the latest governing body report of the Mission.
The bonding between the Paris-based world body and the over 100-year old Ramakrishna Mission started in 2002 with the former funding certain projects.
In 2012, the UNESCO set up a chair on Inclusive Adapted Physical Education and Yoga at the Coimbatore campus of the Vivekananda University.
Founded in 1945, the UN- ESCO’s mission is to contribute to building of peace, eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.
The organisation found common cause with the Ramakrishna Mission in many respects.

South Korea and Japan reached an agreement on Monday on their dispute over wartime sex slaves that has soured relations for decades, as Tokyo’s leader hailed a “new era” in ties with Seoul.
Japan offered a “heartfelt apology” and a one-billion yen ($8.3 million) payment to Korean women forced into Japanese military brothels during World War-II.
The fate of the 46 surviving South Korean “comfort women” is a hugely emotional issue in South Korea.
As part of the agreement Seoul will try to relocate a statue symbolising comfort women which currently stands in front of the Japanese embassy through consultations with relevant NGOs.

Iraqi forces said on Monday they had seized a strategic government complex in the western city of Ramadi from the Islamic State (IS) after a fierce weeklong battle, put- ting them on the verge of a crucial victory following a brutal seven- month occupation of the city by the extremist group.
The loss of Ramadi, the capital and most populous city of the western Iraqi province of Anbar, would be the most significant in a string of recent defeats for the Islamic State, which has occupied a large stretch of Iraq and Syria since the middle of last year.
The seizure of the government complex — the last major redoubt of Islamic State fighters in Ramadi — was a strategic and symbolic victory after days of fighting.

An expert panel led by former Finance Secretary, Vijay Kelkar, has called for swift amendments to the anti-corruption law and an endorsement from the Parliament for a new policy for public private partnerships or PPPs that balances risk-sharing between private and public partners, in order to spur infrastructure building.
The report, said rebooting PPPs is an urgent priority to take advantage of the historical conjunction of the country’s infrastructure needs and the availability of long-term funding, adding it is critical for India to make the leap from a low-income country to a high-income one in two to three decades, else it risks falling into a ‘middle income’ trap.
Report has also asked to ‘discourage’ the ‘Swiss Challenge’ the for auctioning infrastructure projects, under which any bidder can ofer to improve upon a project proposal submitted by another player.
This model has been adopted by the government since July to redevelop 400 railway stations.
The panel called for urgent changes to the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 as well as government’s vigilance and conduct rules in order to distinguish “genuine errors” in decision-making by public servants from acts of corruption, the panel has emphasised the need to guard officers against ‘witch hunt’ while taking immediate measures to punish malafide actions.

India Post, which was among the eleven applicants to have received approval from RBI for payment banks in August, will start its service by March 2017.
About 40 international financial conglomerates including World Bank, Barclays and ICICI have shown interest to partner with the Postal Department for the payment bank.
The Department has 1,55,015 post offices across the country, of which 1,39,144 are in rural areas.
It plans to float a wholly- owned subsidiary to open payment bank.