Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 25 JULY 2019

::NATIONAL::

The Unlawful Activities Prevention (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was passed by the LokSabha, amid a walkout by the Opposition which opposed the clause that allows the government to designate individuals suspected to have terror links as “terrorists”.
Several Opposition leaders, including Trinamool Congress’s MahuaMoitra, objected to the changes saying the law could be misused to target individuals.
“If the Centre wants to target someone, they will get them somehow with the help of some law. Opposition leaders, minorities, right activists and others, if they disagree with the homogeneous idea of India that this government is trying to thrust upon us, the Opposition runs the risk of being labelled as anti-national,” Ms.Moitra said.
Replying to the Opposition’s allegations that anyone who questioned the government is termed anti-national, Mr. Shah said no one would harass genuine social activists.

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has expressed his concern over the all-round degeneration of values in different fields, including in politics and urged all political parties to evolve a code of conduct for those in public life to raise the level of public discourse.
Shri Naidu wanted the younger generation of politicians to learn from the life of Shri Chandra Shekhar who was not only committed to lofty ideals but always maintained decorum and dignity at all times irrespective of whether he was holding an office or not.
Shri Naidu said the book traces the late leader’s political journey and his evolution into one of the country’s top socialist leaders, his association with the Congress party, his role as Young Turk, his stint in the Janata Party and his tenure as the Prime Minister of India.
Lauding the announcement made by the Prime Minister, ShriNarendraModi earlier to build museums for all former Prime Ministers in Delhi, the Vice President said the new generation must know about the great leaders so that they get inspiration.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, at its 36th meeting on Thursday, is likely to reduce the tax rate on electric vehicles, ease tax issues for the solar sector and deliberate on the tax rate on lotteries.
On the direct tax side, the government had, in the Budget, announced an additional income tax deduction of up to Rs. 1.5 lakh on the interest paid on loans taken to purchase electric vehicles.
At the moment, according to a notification issued earlier this year, 70% of the cost of a solar plant is considered as goods and is taxed at 5%.
The remaining 30% is considered as services and is taxed at 18%. Solar manufacturers have approached the Council saying that the break up of goods and services is more along the lines of a 90-10 split rather than 70-30.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s dramatic admission that “30,000 to 40,000” militants — trained in Afghanistan and Kashmir — are still operating in Pakistan, may become a serious issue for Islamabad with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), government sources in New Delhi said.
They indicated that India was considering making the remarks a part of its submission ahead of the next meeting in October of the international terror financing watchdog.
In New Delhi, government sources said they were “glad” the Pakistani Prime Minister was “owning up” to the existence of these groups.

The Milky Way, home to our sun and billions of other stars, merged with another smaller galaxy in a colossal cosmic collision roughly 10 billion years ago, scientists said on Monday based on data from the Gaia space observatory.
The union of the Milky Way and the so-called dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus increased our galaxy’s mass by about a quarter and triggered a period of accelerated star formation lasting about 2 to 4 billion years, the scientists said.
High-precision measurements of the position, brightness and distance of around a million stars within 6,500 light years of the sun, obtained by the Gaia space telescope, helped pinpoint stars present before the merger and those that formed afterward.
Certain stars with higher content of elements other than hydrogen or helium arose in the Milky Way, they found, and others with lower such content originated in Gaia-Enceladus, owing to its smaller mass. While the merger was dramatic and helped shape the Milky Way, it was not a star-destroying calamity.