Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 29 MAY 2020

::NATIONAL::

A novel coronavirus vaccine being developed in India will likely begin to be tested in people in October, K. VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Adviser to the government, said at a press briefing on Thursday.
The scale of the pandemic was such that it did not matter which company made a vaccine first, and there was enough room for promising vaccine candidates that would take a while to develop. Moreover, it was possible for vaccines to show limited efficacy in primates but be more protective in people.
Dr. Paul, who is heading an empowered group on medical equipment and management plan to tackle the outbreak, said the results of a major sero-prevalence survey by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in 69 districts to estimate the level of infection in several districts were expected next week.

The ongoing lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic is severely challenging women’s and girls’ access to menstrual hygiene products and toilets for managing menstruation, especially given the presence of male and older family and community members, the Menstrual Health Alliance India (MHAI) observed in a recent survey.
The survey found that post COVID-19, and given the physical distancing measures in place, 67% of partner organisations have had to pause normal operations, while before COVID-19, 89% of the organisations were reaching the community through community-based networks, 61% were distributing menstrual products through schools, 28% through door to door retail, 26% through online retail channels and 22% through traditional retail stores.
“Various State and district governments have school-based distribution of sanitary pads. With schools closing down, many such girls had no access to sanitary pads. This has forced them to shift from disposable sanitary pads to cloth pads. Cloth pads can be a hygienic means of managing menstruation, if accompanied with information and facilities for hygienic management,” the MHAI noted.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India grew by 13% to a record of $49.97 billion in the 2019-20 financial year, according to official data.
The country had received an FDI of $44.36 billion during April-March 2018-19. The sectors which attracted maximum foreign inflows during 2019-20 include services ($7.85 billion), computer software and hardware ($7.67 billion), telecommunications ($4.44 billion), trading ($4.57 billion), automobile ($2.82 billion), construction ($2 billion), and chemicals ($1 billion), the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) data showed.
Singapore emerged as the largest source of FDI in India during the last fiscal with $14.67 billion investments.
It was followed by Mauritius ($8.24 billion), the Netherlands ($6.5 billion), the U.S. ($4.22 billion), Caymen Islands ($3.7 billion), Japan ($3.22 billion), and France ($1.89 billion). FDI is important as the country requires major investments to overhaul its infrastructure sector to boost growth.

At least 49 million people across the world are expected to plunge into “extreme poverty” — those living on less than $1.90 per day — as a direct result of the pandemic’s economic destruction and India leads that projection, with the World Bank estimating some 12 million of its citizens will be pushed to the very margins this year.
Some 122 million Indians were forced out of jobs last month alone, according to estimates from the CMIE. Daily wage workers and those employed by small businesses have taken the worst hit. These include hawkers, roadside vendors, workers employed in the construction industry and many who eke out a living by pushing handcarts and rickshaws.
A World Bank report found India had been making significant progress and was close to losing its status as the country with the most poor citizens. The impact of Modi’s lockdown risks reversing those gains.
It’s dire enough to warrant the country exiting its lockdown, as it has been doing incrementally since May 4, even as its infections are surging. India is now Asia’s virus hotspot with infections well over 1,50,000.

The US will end the last remaining sanctions waiver that allowed countries like China to cooperate with Iran on civil nuclear projects under the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced.
European nations and other parties to the nuclear deal, including Russia and China, have continued to work with Iran within the framework of the 2015 pact, which eased economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme. The waivers allowed companies from these countries to work with Iran on civil nuclear projects.\

China's parliament approved a decision on Thursday to go forward with national security legislation for Hong Kong that democracy activists in the city and Western countries fear could endanger its special autonomy and freedoms.
China says the legislation will be aimed at tackling secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference in the city but the plan, unveiled in Beijing last week, triggered the first big protests in Hong Kong for months.
The Chinese government's security law for the city is fuelling fears in Hong Kong and beyond that Beijing is imposing its authority and eroding the high degree of autonomy the former British colony has enjoyed under a "one country, two systems" formula since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Naturalists in Algeria have filmed a Saharan cheetah, a subspecies listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, for the first time in a decade, the national parks authority said.
One of the world's most elusive wild cats, the Saharan cheetah is quite different in appearance from the other African cheetahs. Its coat is shorter and paler in colour.
The animal was spotted in the Hoggar Mountains national park in the vast country's desert south, parks official Salah Amokrane told the state-run APS news agency.
Mr Amokrane was speaking at the release on Monday of a documentary on the work of the park's scientists, which includes images of the cheetah taken in the Atakor volcanic field whose peaks approach a height of 3,000 metres (9,800 feet).
The Saharan cheetah's range is now limited to isolated pockets across the Sahara and Sahel from Mali in the west to the Central African Republic in the east.

The much-delayed 36th National Games, scheduled for October-November in Goa, was on Thursday postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) recently asked the Goa government that it must host the National Games as scheduled from October 20 to November 4 this year. However, a spurt in the number of COVID-19 cases has led to a postponement.