Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 08 MARCH 2020

::NATIONAL::

The Election Commission of India (ECI) is considering new voting methods, capping the campaign expenditure of political parties, online registration of new voters at 17 years and ending social media campaigning 48 hours before polling among the recommendations proposed by working groups it set up in June 2019.
The nine working groups, constituted after the LokSabha election and comprising ECI officials and State Chief Electoral Officers, had presented their draft recommendations on February 18.
On Saturday, the ECI published 25 of the main recommendations and invited comments or suggestions from the public till March 31 on the email address: coordination@eci.gov.in
“Working groups collated inputs and analysed these inputs, and suggested pathways for the future to add value to the electoral process in the country,” the ECI said in the letter inviting suggestions. Among the proposals is to issue electronic versions of the voter ID card — EPIC — for convenience of voters.

Over 70% of respondents who had approached an internal committee to report sexual harassment at the workplace were not completely satisfied with the outcome, said a survey report released on Saturday by the Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI), and Gender at Work.
The survey found that 36% of all respondents reported having experienced sexual harassment at the workplaces. Of the respondents who experienced such harassment at work, 53% did not report it.
A small percentage made a report to the internal committee (IC) of their media houses. But 70% of those who made a complaint were not completely satisfied with the outcome, the report found.
Among the women who said that their organisation did not have a mechanism to deal with sexual harassment, 47% had faced sexual harassment.
The promise of rewards for compliance, accompanied by threats of mistreatment following a refusal to engage in sexual behaviour, were also reported. In addition, unwanted touching, fondling, sexual assault and rape were documented.

Special Investigating Team (SIT) appointed by Supreme Court to oversee probe in black money used during the last general elections will submit its seventh interim report in the next two months.
Speaking to media after a high-level meeting of SIT in Cuttack yesterday, its Vice-Chairman Justice ArijitPashayat said that a huge amount of cash, jewellery and drugs were seized by police and income tax officials from various states during the 2019 elections.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh today said defence sector can help in realizing the vision of making India a five trillion dollar economy.
He said the National Democratic Alliance Government is playing the role of an incubator, catalyst, facilitator and consumer, without becoming an impediment in the maturing of the Indian private sector defence industry.
Delivering a key-note speech at the Economic Times Global Business Summit in New Delhi, Mr Singh said, the government aims to achieve exports of defence goods and services to the tune of five billion dollars in next five years.
He said, all possible support would be extended to the private sector so that they can contribute significantly to achieving the target.
The Minister said that several important steps have been taken to create a climate in which the private sector and the public sector together contribute on the basis of their respective strengths and experience.

After a ban of 23 years, women worshippers can now pray at Peshawar’s famous Sunehri Masjid, a move welcomed by women’s groups, according to a media report.
Around 20 women offered prayers on Friday after the mosque administration announced the move, the Dawn News reported.
Provisions have been made for women to offer Friday prayers in the hall on the upper floor of the mosque, read a banner put up by the mosque administration. Women would also be allowed for Id prayers.
The mosque’s Naib Imam Muhammad Ismail said till 1996 women were allowed to attend Friday prayer congregations, but later they were stopped due to growing militancy.
The construction of the Sunehri Masjid was completed in 1976. It is much-appreciated for its Mughal-style architecture.

Bangladesh has reported its first confirmed case of Corona virus infection today. Speaking to media in Dhaka on Sunday, the Director of Institute of Epidemiology, Diseases Control and Research (IEDCR) Dr. Meerjady Sabrina Flora confirmed on Sunday that three Bangladeshis have been found positive for Corona Virus COVID 19 infection.
Two of the infected persons had recently returned from Italy. The third person is also a family member of one of them. Three more persons have been put in quarantine on suspicion of the Corona virus infection.
Earlier, speaking at a function to mark International Women's Day in Dhaka Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged people not to panic about the global outbreak of Corona virus as Bangladesh had sufficient capability and readiness to deal with it. She advised people to maintain cleanliness and follow instructions issued by the Health Ministry of Bangladesh.

Some of the first animals on the Earth were connected by networks of thread-like filaments which may have been used for nutrition, communication or reproduction, the earliest evidence yet found of life being connected in this way, according to a study.
Scientists from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford in the U.K. discovered the fossilised threads — some as long as four metres — connecting organisms known as rangeomorphs, which dominated the Earth’s oceans half-a-billion years ago.
The study, published in Current Biology, found these filament networks in seven species across nearly 40 different fossil sites in Newfoundland, Canada.
These were some of the most successful life forms during this period, growing up to two metres in height and colonising large areas of the sea floor, they said. The rangeomorphs may have been some of the first animals to exist, although their strange anatomies have puzzled palaeontologists for years.

Defending champions Australia have won the ICC Women's T20 World Cup for record fifth time, outclassing India by 85 runs in the summit clash at Melbourn today.
Riding on blistering half-centuries by openers Alyssa Healy 75 and Beth Mooney 78 not out, Australia posted 184 at the loss of four wickets. The bowlers did the rest of the work with Megan Schutt taking four for 18 and Jess Jonassen 3 for 20.