Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 29 September 2016

:: National ::

Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh best performers in Swachh Bharat Mission

Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh have the maximum percentage of villages that are ‘Open Defecation Free’ according to the criteria of the Swachh Bharat Mission.
While the northeastern State scores a hundred per cent, as per the current tally, Himachal Pradesh scores 55.95 per cent.
Other better performing States with village-level achievements are Haryana and Meghalaya with just over 41 per cent each, Gujarat (37.58 per cent), Maharashtra (28.33 per cent), Chhattisgarh (24.91 per cent) and Rajasthan (23.83 per cent).
Kerala, which leads in overall household toilet coverage as per Swachh Bharat surveys, is in the list with only 19.92 per cent, indicating that declarations play a role in the overall assessment.
Besides these, the other States identified by the Mission trail the rest with lower coverage. The total number of districts declared ODF in the country stand at 23.
For purposes of assessing performance, the Swachh Bharat Mission considers both individual household latrine coverage and ODF.
Three cities in Karnataka — coastal Mangaluru, Udupi and Mysuru — have been declared “open defecation free” this week in the survey conducted among 75 cities across the country under different population categories.
Mysuru scored again, after it topped the list of “clean cities” for two consecutive years. A recent survey of 476 cities had also declared Mangaluru the third cleanest in India.

After India’s snub to SAARC summit, it is likely to be cancelled

The SAARC summit of 2016 will be cancelled. The confirmation from Nepal, the current SAARC Chair, came hours after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan decided, like India, to stay away from the summit scheduled for November in Islamabad.
Nepal had not taken any decision as it is the SAARC Chair and will have to follow proper official procedure before announcing the cancellation.
The leaders of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan do not want to share the dais with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
India argued that the SAARC rules are clear that the summit meeting cannot be held if one member withdraws.
Like India that cited “cross-border terrorist attacks in the region” as a reason for boycotting the summit, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan too expressed similar concerns in their official notes to Kathmandu.
The cancellation will be unprecedented as four members have cited “terrorism” , “interference” and “imposed violence” while withdrawing from the summit.
In the past, summits were postponed after quiet consultation but this time, major members of the regional grouping openly cited terrorism emanating from Pakistan as the reason for non-participation.

Govt is thinking about plan of SAARC minus Pakistan

India is going ahead with its plan for ‘SAARC minus Pakistan’ instead. The fact that India did not pull out alone but that Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan also did so, citing the same reason, was a significant step in that direction for the grouping.
Motor vehicle movement agreement, railway linkages, and the SAARC satellite programme for which all SAARC countries apart from Pakistan have signed up.
With Afghanistan, which cannot be accessed by land, the two governments have discussed a separate “air corridor” for cargo.
A bigger articulation of that vision is expected in mid-October, when India hosts the BIMSTEC outreach summit on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Goa.
The initiative for Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal is expected to see proposals on transport as well as electricity and broadband connectivity being discussed.
Another grouping of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka met for the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) programme in Delhi to release the first SASEC Operational Plan 2016-2025.
SASEC’s lead financier, Asian Development Bank (ADB), has already approved about 40 infrastructure and IT projects worth about $7.7 billion.
India’s push for a South Asian isolation of Pakistan is also driven by the fact that it received less than expected support on the world stage and at the UN General Assembly for the Comprehensive Convention on International Terror (CCIT).
However, Pakistan continues to receive support from several other countries outside of the SAARC, most notably China, and also has a new relationship with Russia that conducted its first ever military exercises in Pakistan just days after the Uri attack.
Iran too sent four naval warships to the Karachi port to participate in a Passage exercise (PASSEX) this week.

Union cabinet gave go ahead for Paris climate deal

The Union Cabinet gave the go-ahead for ratifying the Paris climate deal on October 2, in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement at the BJP’s national executive meeting.
Post-ratification, India will have to conform to the United Nations-brokered agreement to ensure that global temperatures do not rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels.
The country will have to provide continuously a detailed inventory of its emissions to the U.N. Secretary-General and ensure that its growth trajectory is significantly reliant on clean energy.
The ratification requires India to submit a document giving details of its action plan, called the Nationally Determined Contributions, to the U.N. Secretary General.
The Environment Ministry is still in the process of receiving sector-wise plans from various arms of government and industry on how its commitments are to be met.
There are two conditions for the Paris treaty to come into effect from 2020 — at least 55 countries have to accept and ratify it and at least as many countries responsible for at least 55 per cent of the world’s pollution must be covered.
As of September 28, 61 countries had ratified it and 47.79 per cent of the pollution target had been met.
With India, which is responsible for 5.8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, ratifying the deal, the Paris agreement would still be short of the 55 per cent target. The European Union has indicated that it will ratify the deal before October 7.

:: International ::

Jeffrey DeLaurentis to become first US Ambassador to Cuba in 50 years

The United States has tapped Jeffrey DeLaurentis, America’s top diplomat in Havana, to become the first official Ambassador to Cuba in five decades.
Mr. Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced a thaw in relations in December 2014. The two countries restored full diplomatic relations in July 2015.
Since then, Washington and Havana have taken once-unthinkable steps to mend ties after more than half a century of enmity.
Mr. Obama has visited Cuba and relaxed portions of the U.S. embargo imposed since 1962. Mr. DeLaurentis is already in Havana and previously worked in Bogota and at the United Nations.
But his nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, is likely to face stiff opposition in Congress, where Cuban-American lawmakers have sought to garner local support by opposing Mr. Obama’s policies.

:: Business and Economy ::

CBEC gets nod for Project SAKSHAM

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved a Rs.2,256 crore outlay for ‘Project SAKSHAM’, an initiative under CBEC to bolster the information technology network for the new GST regime that the government intends to roll out.
CBEC’s IT systems need to integrate with the GSTN for processing of registration, payment and returns data sent by GSTN systems to CBEC, as well as act as a front-end for other modules like audit, appeal and investigation.
There is no overlap in the GST-related systems of CBEC and GSTN.