Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam - 23 July, 2014

Current Affairs For SSC CGL Exam

Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo, who won the hearts of Indonesians with his common man image, won Indonesia’s presidential election with 53 per cent of the vote.
The numbers were released shortly after his opponent, former general Prabowo Subianto, declared he was withdrawing from the contest, saying there was massive fraud during the election.

The Indian pharmaceutical industry, grappling with the addition of more than a 100 formulations in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), which caps the price of drugs grew in double digits in June 2014.
Further, domestic pharmaceutical companies grew 12.8 per cent while multinational (MNC) pharma players grew at 2.8 per cent during the month.
Indian companies grew 15.3 per cent in the non-NLEM category, MNC pharma firms grew at 5.8 per cent.
Due to price caps, profit margins will be reduced and ‘breathing space’ for the industry has been effectively reduced. Manufacturers are expected to re-work their portfolios to include controlled and non-controlled drugs.

The Civil Aviation Ministry has issued No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to six entities whose applications to start airlines in India were pending for long. These six — Air One, Premier Air, Zexus Air (all national), Turbo Megha, Air Carnival and Zav Airways (all regional).
At present, India has eight airlines — Air India, Jet Airways, Jet Lite, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Go Air, Air Costa and AirAsia India.
In 2005 three new airlines — Kingfisher Airlines, Go Air and SpiceJet (re-launched) — commenced operations. In 2006, IndiGo joined them offering low fares.
In the last two years, air fares have gone up by 20-25 per cent, and this has resulted in a stagnated growth. With the new players, fares will see a correction of 20-25 per cent, which will help the market to revive.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), recommended a Rs.2,400-crore project to connect India’s two major outlying island chains ;Andaman & Nicobar Islands (ANI) and Lakshadweep, with stable and strong cable-based networks to replace the satellite mode of transmission.
The move is expected to encourage more operators to run services in these island chains. At the same time, the regulator has recommended the retention of the satellite option.
for ANI, TRAI has suggested connecting 22 islands, which included 18 islands with a population of above 100 and four islands which have the presence of police, forest camps and tourists. Only 29 out of 576 islands in ANI are inhabited and 90 per cent of the population lives on just three islands — North, Middle and South Andaman Islands.
For Lakshadweep, TRAI has projected connectivity in ten inhabited villages. Here, 11 out of 36 islands are inhabited. Lakshadweep is part of the Kerala circle and only two operators — BSNL and Airtel operate services — as against eight in mainland Kerala.

Using NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, researchers have discovered an exoplanet with the longest known year.
The newly discovered Kepler-421b circles its star in 704 days. It is the longest period of revolution known yet for a planet outside of our solar system.

The unprecedented success achieved in the last edition in India would be hard to replicate this time after the dropping of a few disciplines, a 215-strong Indian contingent would nonetheless seek a top-five finish in the 20th Commonwealth Games.
India finished second behind Australia with a record 101 medal haul in New Delhi Games.
The Delhi CWG triggered an ascent in sports achievements with another record-breaking show in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou where India won 65 medals. Two years later, the country won six medals in London, almost half of the individual medals won in the entire Olympic history.
The Games will see 4,500 athletes from 71 nations of the erstwhile British empire compete for the top honours with superstar sprinter Usain Bolt of Jamaica and middle and long distance king Mo Farah of England expected to set the Hampden Park Stadium ablaze.
India, which has sent 215 athletes in 14 sports, will be hit hard by the scrapping of archery and tennis from Glasgow Games and the reduction in the number of medal events in shooting and wrestling. The country had won a combined 12 medals from archery and tennis in 2010 while bagging 14 medals from the 18 events dropped this time from shooting. Greco-Roman category in wrestling, from which India won eight medals in 2010, has also been done away with in Glasgow.