Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 18 MARCH 2020

::NATIONAL::

Maintaining that women and men officers should be treated equally, the Supreme Court today cleared permanent commission for women in the Navy and asked the Centre to complete the modalities within three months.
A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud said, there cannot be any excuses for not granting gender equality in the armed forces and a level playing field is needed. It said, denying permanent commission to women officers who have served the nation would result in a serious miscarriage of justice.
The bench, also comprising Justice Ajay Rastogi, rejected the Centre's stand that sea sailing duties cannot be granted to SSC (Short Service Commission) women officers in the Navy as its Russian vessels do not have washrooms for them.
Such arguments, the court said, are contrary to the Centre's policy of 1991 and 1998 which lifted the statutory bar on the induction of women officers in the Navy.

The State-level committees of 25 States and Union Territories, meant to monitor the implementation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, had not met even once in three years — 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to information provided by the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry to Parliament on Tuesday.
Replying to a question by DMK MP D. Ravikumar, Social Justice and Empowerment Minister ThawarchandGehlot told the LokSabha that the 1995 rules formed under the Act mandated the setting up of State- and district-level vigilance and monitoring committees.
In 2016, there were two meetings of the committee in Haryana and one each in Karnataka and West Bengal. The next year, in 2017, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Puducherry held one meeting each, while Haryana had two.
In 2018, there was one meeting each in Assam, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Chandigarh and Puducherry, and two and three meetings in West Bengal and Gujarat respectively.
Similarly, the district-level committees mandated by the rules had held no meetings in three years in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Chandigarh, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Delhi, Lakshwadeep and Puducherry, the data showed.

Competition law for greater regulation of e-commerce platforms and ensure that presence of etailers has no severe impact on local jobs.
Responding to a series of queries on this issue during the Question Hour, Corporate Affairs Minister NirmalaSitharaman said in RajyaSabha that the cabinet has already looked into the amendments.
"The Competition Act Regulation Amendments will now bring in greater regulation. The cabinet has looked into it. Thisis one of the ways we are trying to regulate (e-commerce platforms)," she said in the Upper House. The amendments to the law have been proposed as per the recommendation of the Competition Law Reviewing Committee,under the chairmanship of Corporate Affairs Ministry, she said.
Prior to setting up of the committee, Sitharaman said anti-trust watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) had made efforts to promote self-regulation through advocacy from January this year after looking into a complaint it had received in April last year.
However, a court order from Karnataka stopped the CCI from taking further steps on self-regulation, she said. In its report on the complaint, the CCI had identified several practices which were not true to the ideals of free and fair market practices, she added.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), who have been the prime drivers of every bull run that the Indian capital market has seen till date, have been record sellers during the current month.
Till date in March, FPIs have sold equity and debt cumulatively worth ₹67,306 crore, which is the highest ever witnessed in any single month, as per data from National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL).
In the current calendar year, FPIs are net sellers at ₹57,379 crore as the first two months of 2020 saw some amount of buying by such investors.
“There are many good-quality stocks that are available at their book value or even below their book value. Also, crude is at a very low level that benefits India more than many other economies and rupee has performed relatively better than other Asian currencies,” an expert said.
“So, some of the macros are in favour of FPIs investing in India,” added Mr. Kumar. In 2019, FPIs were net buyers in the equity and debt segments at ₹1.01 lakh crore and ₹25,882 crore, respectively.

India has rejected the reference to Jammu and Kashmir in the Joint Statement issued by China and Pakistan after the recent visit of Pakistani President to China.
In response to a query, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. He said issues related to it are internal matter of India.
The spokesperson said India expects other countries including China not to comment on matters that are internal affairs and also to respect India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
India strongly objected to and reiterated its concerns to both China and Pakistan on “China Pakistan Economic Corridor”, which is in the territory of India that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947.
The spokesperson said India is opposed to any actions by other countries to change the status quo in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir. New Delhi called on parties concerned to cease such actions and said such illegal activities will never be accepted by India.

Chandrayaan-3 will be launched in the first half of 2021, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said, indicating that there could be a slight delay in the launch of the third moon mission.
In written response to a question in LokSabha, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Singh said four biological and two physical science experiments related to microgravity will be conducted during the Gaganyaan project, India's manned mission to space.
Singh said the revised configuration takes care of the robustness in design, capacity enhancement for mission flexibility and at the same time retained the heritage of Chandrayaan-II to the extent possible.
Elaborating on the progress made on Gaganyaan, Singh said hardware realisation has commenced for ground test and space flight training of four astronaut candidates has also commenced.
National collaboration for design, development and delivery of human centric products such as crew medical kit, crew health monitoring system, emergency survival kit, dosimeters, earmuffs and fire suppression system has started, Singh said.
A three-week training programme for flight surgeon was also completed at ISRO with participation of CNES, the space agency of France, he added.