Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 09 September 2020

SSC CGL Current Affairs

::NATIONAL::

Although almost all children in India are vaccinated against tuberculosis, and receive their birth dose of polio vaccine, two out of five children do not complete their immunisation programme, according to the ‘Health in India’ report recently published by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO).
In the national capital, less than half of all children have been given all eight required vaccines.The report is based on the 75th round of the National Sample Survey (July 2017-June 2018) on household social consumption related to health.
Across the country, only 59.2% of children under five years are fully immunised, according to the NSO report. This contradicts the Centre’s Health Management Information System portal data, which claimed that full immunisation coverage for 2017-18 stood at 86.7%.
About 97% of children across the country received at least one vaccination — mostly BCG and/or the first dose of OPV at birth — a statistic that remains steady across income groups and geographies. However, only 67% of children are protected against measles.
Among States, Manipur (75%), Andhra Pradesh (73.6%) and Mizoram (73.4%) recorded the highest rates of full immunisation. At the other end of the spectrum lies Nagaland, where only 12% of children received all vaccinations, followed by Puducherry (34%) and Tripura (39.6%).

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Centre to adhere to a Union Road Ministry circular of March 2018, which had advised against building full-fledged roads cutting across the fragile Himalayan slopes, while implementing the ₹12,000-crore ambitious Char Dham project for better connectivity to pilgrimage centres in Uttarakhand.
The project had proposed the widening of single-lane roads into double-lanes by up to 10 metres, developing the highways and thereby improving access to the Char Dham (four shrines) — Yamunotri, Gangotri, Badrinath and KedarNath.
The petitioners had contended that the project was proceeding without environmental clearances and the debris was being disposed haphazardly. Earlier, the NGT had found no need for an environmental clearance.

Higher demand across rural India which is being seen as the only silver lining for economic growth over the next two-three quarters, has led packaged consumer goods companies to accelerate spends on hinterlands, with rural spending on distribution outreach, consumer promotions and products overtaking that of urban spends this year.
“Favourable monsoon, record kharif crop sowing and high reservoir levels would spur rural incomes that could push up demand at the onset of the festive quarter; this would be a silver lining for economic growth as other sectors have seen more adverse impact of the pandemic,” CARE said.
The report said the agriculture sector contributes nearly 15% of India’s GDP, and that the economy is banking on the farm sector to grow by 3.5-4% across all quarters to prop up GDP growth.

Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister DharmendraPradahan today said that five Public Sector Undertakings under his Ministry will be joining International Solar Alliance (ISA) Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action (ISA-CSCA) as Corporate Partners.
He said, Indian Oil and Gas companies are actively taking part in this clean energy transition. He said, in order to reduce carbon footprint, these companies will be focusing more on green energy investments such as renewables and biofuels.
He said, an additional 60 Mega Watt solar capacity will be added in the coming year. He said, the government has taken up the mission of solarizing about 50 per cent of fuel stations owned by Public Sector oil companies in the next five years. He said, more than five thousand fuel stations of Indian Oil, were solarized last year.

The Government of Bangladesh has asked Facebook to abide by the rules and regulations of the country in matters relating to both revenue and content.
In a virtual meeting with Facebook officials at its regional Headquarters in Singapore on Monday, Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar asked Facebook to comply with all the relevant laws and regulations of Bangladesh including the Digital Security Act.
The Minister also asked the company to appoint resellers and representatives to pay taxes to the government for its operations in Bangladesh.
Facebook officials assured the government that they will comply with the relevant rules and regulations of the country. It informed that it has appointed a Bangladeshi person Sabnaj Rashid Dia as Bangladesh Affairs Officer of Facebook in the country for speedy resolution of issues.

An experimental reusable spacecraft launched into orbit two days ago by China has successfully returned to a designated site on Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The successful experiment marks an important breakthrough in China's technology to reuse spacecraft, which would provide the country more convenient and cheaper space round-trips for it to use the space in a peaceful way, Xinhua said.
Three years ago, China said it would launch a spacecraft in 2020 that can fly like an aircraft and would be reusable, increasing the frequency of launches and lowering mission costs.
It is not known if the experimental spacecraft launched by China was a fixed-wing craft like the U.S. Space Shuttle. If it was similar to the X-37B, it would be about a fifth of the Space Shuttle in size.
The Chinese spacecraft was deployed into orbit on Friday by the Long March 2F, a family of rockets that have transported Shenzhou spacecraft into orbit on both crewed and uncrewed missions over the years.
A Chinese national independently travelled to space for the first time in 2003 onboard the Shenzhou.

The Sports Ministry has extended the contract of 9 foreign coaches and support personnel, including High Performance Director of athletics with an eye on the 2024 Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games 2022.
In July this year, the Sports Ministry had decided to draw up extended contracts for foreign and Indian coaches in sync with the Olympic cycle.
This decision was taken by the Ministry with a focus on the 2024 and 2028 Olympics, and to ensure Olympic-bound athletes are able to train consistently and in continuity with one coach and improve their performance as per the international standards.