Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 24 September 2021

SSC CGL Current Affairs

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 24 September 2021

::NATIONAL::

Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021

The central government introduced Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021 which reduced the fee for patent filing and prosecution for educational institutions by 80 percent.
The central government introduced Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021 on Tuesday which reduced the fee for patent filing and prosecution for educational institutions by 80 percent. The move has been taken to strengthen innovation and creativity in the knowledge economy.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry in a press release on Thursday said, “In order to create a conducive environment for innovation, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade has been working towards promoting greater collaboration between industry and academia. This can be achieved by facilitating commercialization of research undertaken in educational institutions.”
The high patenting fee was a hindrance for educational institutions in getting newer research and technologies patented and hence worked as a disincentive for the development of newer technologies, the ministry noted. While applying for patents, innovators had to apply for these in the name of institutions that were required to pay exorbitant patenting fees. However, now the official fees payable by them in reference to the Patents Rules, 2003 have been reduced through the Patents (Amendment) Rules, 2021.

::INTERNATIONAL::

US announces $180 million in humanitarian aid for Rohingya refugees

The United States has earmarked an additional USD 180 million to aid more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced nearly USD 180 million in additional humanitarian assistance for those affected by the Rakhine State/Rohingya refugee crisis in Burma, Bangladesh, and elsewhere in the region.
"With this new funding, our total humanitarian assistance for this response reaches more than USD 1.5 billion since August 2017, when more than 740,000 Rohingya were forced to flee ethnic cleansing and other horrific atrocities and abuses in Burma's [Myanmar's] Rakhine State to safety in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh," Price said in a press release on Wednesday.
The state department lauded humanitarian actors for a strong and well-coordinated humanitarian response, which includes preventing and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup on February 1, when the Myanmar military led by Senior General Ming AungHlaing overthrew the civilian government and declared a year-long state of emergency. The coup triggered mass protests and was met by deadly violence.

::ECONOMY::

Piyush Goyal inaugurates Center of Excellence in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at NITIE in Mumbai

“I hope the Centre of Excellence inaugurated today will help the logistics sector become more cost-effective, make the sector more competitive, create new jobs, export more, engage better with the world markets, expand outreach and bring more economic activity to India” he added.
Addressing the NITIE community ShriGoyal opined that India is at a very nascent stage of industrial engineering training, research and study. “There is huge potential in industrial engineering, you can transform the future of this country by the work you are doing. A lot of industrial engineering goes also into sectors such as restaurant design and operations, e-commerce businesses and delivery of public services as well” the Minister added.
Speaking about NITIE, ShriGoyal said, “When I saw the good work done by NITIE, I realized that some back-end support from Government will help in public, private and academia working together as stakeholders and partners”. NITIE, located in Powai, Mumbai is a leading Management Education Institute, pioneering in Engineering Management, and it is widely known for it transformative contribution in the field of supply chain management and operations.
Managing supply chains is becoming more and more complex owing to the challenges posed by global competitiveness and economic crisis. In this scenario, the Centre will contribute to cutting edge research, knowledge-building and capacity building in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, through applied research and development activities.
The Centre will act as a driving force to train and launch top quality programs to disseminate advanced knowledge and promote Digitisation, Analytics, and IoT Application and Decision Support Systems through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications and Digital Twin and Control towers, to strengthen the monitoring and analysis of complex logistics operations.

::SCIENCE AND TECH::

Moon crater named after Matthew Henson

The International Astronomical Union has named a crater at the Moon’s south pole after the Arctic explorer Matthew Henson, a Black man who in 1909 was one of the first people to stand at the very top of the world. The proposal to name the crater after Henson came from Jordan Bretzfelder, an Exploration Science summer intern with the Lunar and Planetary Institute, in Houston, TX, which is a member of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, headquartered at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
"Creating an inclusive community and achieving equity in the sciences begins by recognizing the contributions of people from all backgrounds," said Bretzfelder, who is a PhD student at the University of California Los Angeles. "It felt like a disservice that Henson hasn’t been appropriately recognized for his contributions to polar science, and I'm proud to be a part of rectifying that."
In NASA's missions , putting the diverse backgrounds of humanity at the forefront of space exploration is a core part of the agency's values. Located between Sverdrup and de Gerlache craters at the south pole of the Moon, Henson Crater is in the same region the Artemis program aims to land the next slate of lunar explorers, which will be selected from NASA’s increasingly diverse astronaut pool.
NASA’s Artemis program provides a cornerstone both to study planetary processes and to create the infrastructure to advance human exploration at the Moon and then Mars – a fitting continuation of the incredible journeys Earth explorers like Henson took over a century ago.
Bretzfelder spent her internship working with David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Institute, mapping out potential landing sites for future Artemis missions at the Moon's south pole with collaborating students Indujaa Ganesh of the University of Arizona, NanditaKumari of Stony Brook University, and Antonio Lang of the State University of New York at Buffalo.

::SPORTS::

Struggling Barcelona held to draw again in Spanish league

Barcelona's ongoing crisis keeps getting worse, with the team unable to win on the field and the club's players, coach and president growing increasingly at odds.
Barcelona was held to a 0-0 draw by Cádiz in the Spanish league, extending its winless streak to three matches and adding pressure on Coach Ronald Koeman.
Koeman a day earlier surprisingly read from a prepared statement in the pre-match news conference and downplayed the team’s chances of winning titles this season.
Players didn't hide the fact they were not on the same page.