Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 22 July 2022

SSC CGL Current Affairs

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 22 July 2022

::NATIONAL::

Droupadi Murmu elected 15th President of India

Droupadi Murmu was elected India's 15th president on Thursday after she defeated opposition's Yashwant Sinha with an impressive margin. The first tribal president, also the youngest president in the history of India, will be the new resident of the Rashtrapati Bhavan after she takes the oath on July 25. Outgoing President Ram Nath Kovind's tenure will end on July 24. According to reports, he will move into a post-retirement bungalow on 12 Janpath.

Here are 10 things to know about the President of India's salary, perks and retirement benefits

The salary of the Indian president is ₹5 lakh per month. It was raised in 2016 by 200% from ₹1.5 lakh.
Once a president retires, he or she gets a pension of ₹1.5 lakh. The spouses of presidents get secretarial assistance of ₹30,000 per month.
The president gets free housing and medical care and ₹1 lakh annually for office expenditures.

President poll result hints at waning impact of Opposition

Rashtrapati Bhavan is the official residence of the President of India. It has 340 rooms and a floor area of 2,00,000 square feet.
The president has two official retreats where he or she can go on vacation. One is in Shimla's Mashobra the other is in Hyderabad's Bolarum.
The president gets to travel free by train and plane anywhere in the world.
The president gets a custom-built Black Mercedes Benz S600 (W221) Pullman Guard. A heavily armoured stretch limousine is also reserved for the president's official visits.
The details of the President of India's cars are never revealed because of security reasons. Also, these cars do not have a licence plate and instead display the national symbol.
The President's Bodyguard is responsible for the security of the President of India.
Apart from the pension, there are some other post-retirement benefits for the President of India, including one furnished rent-free bungalow, two free landlines and a mobile phone, fiver personal staff, ₹60,000 a year for the expenses of the staff, and free travel with a companion by train or air.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Dinesh Gunawardena sworn in as Sri Lanka's new PM

Senior Sri Lankan lawmaker Dinesh Gunawardena was sworn in on Friday as the new prime minister, his office said, a day after the swearing-in of a new president as the Indian Ocean nation grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades.
The event came just hours after security forces raided a protest camp on government grounds in the main city of Colombo and cleared part of it, with at least nine arrests, as the new administration moves to crack down on protesters.
A former minister from the Podujana Peramuna party, Gunawardena took the oath of office in the presence of Wickremesinghe, seated in front of uniformed military officers in a room packed with lawmakers and officials.
The rest of the cabinet is expected to be sworn in later on Friday.
Sri Lanka's crisis, the result of economic mismanagement and the fallout of conflict in Ukraine, sparked months of mass protests and eventually forced then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.
Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency while seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

::ECONOMY::

Govt launches 3 schemes to strengthen MSMEs in pharmaceutical sector

The government launched three schemes to strengthen Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the pharmaceutical sector.
Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya noted that the schemes envisage technology upgradation, setting up of common research centres and effluent treatment plants in clusters for the pharma MSMEs.
Small companies should be able to upgrade their facilities to global manufacturing standards, he said.
The chemicals and fertilisers ministry rolled out the schemes under the banner of 'Strengthening Pharmaceuticals Industry' (SPI).
"I believe the pharma MSME industry will greatly benefit from the schemes. The new schemes have many benefits that will go a long way in making the Indian pharmaceutical industry, Atma Nirbhar, more resilient and future-ready," Mandaviya, who heads both health as well as chemical and fertilisers ministries, said.
SIDBI will be the project management consultant for implementing the scheme.
The Pharmaceutical Technology Upgradation Assistance Scheme (PTUAS) would facilitate pharmaceutical MSMEs with proven track record to upgrade their technology.
The scheme has provisions for a capital subsidy of 10 per cent on loans up to a maximum limit of Rs 10 crore with a minimum repayment period of three years or interest subvention of up to 5 per cent (6 per cent in case of units owned by SC/ST) on reducing balance basis.
Similarly, Assistance to Pharma Industries for Common Facilities Scheme (API-CF) would strengthen the existing pharmaceutical clusters' capacity for sustained growth. It provides for an assistance of up to 70 per cent of the approved project cost or Rs 20 crore, whichever is less.

::Science and tech::

String theory: NASA Mars rover discovers mystery object

The bundle of debris was first spotted July 12 by the rover's front left hazard avoidance camera -- but when Perseverance returned to the same spot four days later, it was gone.
A tangled object discovered by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover has intrigued space watchers, leaving some musing tongue-in-cheek about the quality of Italian dining on the Red Planet.
But the most plausible explanation is more prosaic: it's likely remnants of a component used to lower the robotic explorer to the Martian surface in February 2021.
"We have been discussing where it's from, but there's been speculation that it's a piece of cord from the parachute or from the landing system that lowers the rover to the ground," a spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told AFP.
"Note that we don't have confirmation that it's one or the other," he added.
The bundle of debris was first spotted July 12 by the rover's front left hazard avoidance camera -- but when Perseverance returned to the same spot four days later, it was gone.
It was probably carried away by wind, like a piece of a thermal blanket that might have come from the rocket-powered landing system, which was spotted last month.
The accumulating trash left behind by Perseverance is considered a small price to pay for the rover's noble scientific goals of searching for biosignatures of ancient microbial life forms.
And these items may one day become valuable artifacts for future Mars colonists.
"In a hundred years or so Martians will be eagerly collecting up all this stuff and either putting it on display in museums or making it into 'historical jewelry,'" tweeted amateur astronomer Stuart Atkinson.

::Sports::

CWG: Focus on Sindhu but doubles key to India retaining mixed team gold

Star shuttlers, including P V Sindhu, will chase individual gold medals but doubles would also under the spotlight as India would aim to retain the mixed team title and continue their consistent run at the Commonwealth Games.
Ever since Dinesh Khanna claimed India's first badminton medal -- a bronze at the quadrennial event in 1966 -- the country has accumulated 25 medals, including seven golds, riding on individual brilliance.
In the last edition at Gold Coast, Indian players were on fire, claiming an unprecedented six medals, including two gold.
In the individual event, the coveted yellow metal will again be a target not only for double Olympic medallist Sindhu but also for world championships silver and bronze medallists Kidambi Srikanth and Lakshya Sen respectively.