Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 29 October 2015

:: International ::

Bidhya Devi Bhandari: elected Nepal’s first female president

A Communist campaigner whose fight for democracy brought about the end of a 240-year Hindu monarchy in Nepal has been named as the nation’s first female President.
Bidhya Devi Bhandari, who is largely credited with ensuring that a third of politicians in Nepal are now women, was deputy leader of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), and had lobbied for the new constitution to require that either the president or vice-president be a woman.
Nepal has been trying to shift from a male-dominated society, where women are mostly limited to working at homes or on farms, to one in which women have equal opportunities and legal rights.
As a close ally and party colleague of the Prime Minister, Khadga Prasad Oli, Ms Bhandari had been considered the favourite for the largely ceremonial job.
Ms Bhandari said her election marked a first step toward assuring the new constitutional “guarantees of equality” are fulfilled.
Last week, Onsari Gharti Magar was elected as the parliament’s first female Speaker.
Ms Bhandari took up politics in her teens, later marrying a fellow Communist, Madan Bhandari. Ms Bhandari has been a leading political figure since 1993 when her husband was killed in a car accident.
Ms Bhandari replaces President Ram Baran Yadav, who was elected in 2008 for a two-year term that was extended when efforts to draft a new constitution stalled over seven years. “My entire interest will be the betterment of the country,” she told reporters.
“I will complete my responsibility towards the country and the people.”

Obama weighed patrol to counter China

The U.S. naval challenge to China's territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea this week came after months of frustration within the Pentagon at what some defense officials saw as unnecessary delays by the White House and State Department in approving the mission.
As early as mid-May, the Pentagon was considering sending military aircraft and ships to assert the principle of freedom of navigation around China's artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago after Defense Secretary Ash Carter requested options to respond to their rapid construction.
That patrol eventually took place on Tuesday when the USS Lassen, a guided-missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, triggering an angry rebuke from China and threatening to ratchet up tensions between the world's two biggest economies.
An intense, prolonged internal U.S. debate over the patrol revealed by Reuters' reporting appears to contradict Washington's insistence that it was simply another routine freedom-of-navigation operation.
The months leading up to the patrol allowed Beijing to harden its stance and, according to some U.S. officials and security experts, blew the operation out of proportion.
Washington's caution also caused disquiet among some military officials in Japan and the Philippines, both U.S. security allies, feeding concerns that China's ambitions in the South China Sea would go unchecked.
The Pentagon and U.S. military officials had been ready for months to carry out patrols, but ran into "repeated stalling" from the White House and State Department, said one U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity.

How Indonesia’s Fires Are Choking the World

More than 100,000 land and forest fires in Indonesia have engulfed the country in a hazardous smoke, leading to an environmental and public health crisis that has affected every element of society in this sprawling Southeast Asian nation.
Tens of thousands of people have been declared victims of respiratory conditions because of the smoke and the fires alone are now emitting as much carbon dioxide on any given day as emitted by the entire U.S. economy in the same time period.
Widespread fires are nothing new in Indonesia, where farmers regularly burn forests and peatlands to make way to produce palm oil, a key ingredient in a variety of food and consumer products, but experts say the scale of the damage is worse than it has been in a decade.
This week Indonesian President Joko Widodo cut short his trip to the U.S. to deal with the problem.
A top concern for Widodo upon his return will be protecting the health of his country’s 250 million people. Air quality conditions have worsened dramatically in recent days with air pollution far exceeding levels deemed healthy by public health officials.
The particulate matter concentration (PM10)—which measures small solid or liquid pollutant particles in the atmosphere—was 1,357 micrograms per cubic meter air in the region of Palangkaraya, one of the worst hit areas, according to the Jarkata Post.
There is no perfectly safe level of PM10 exposure, but the U.S. Environmental Protect Agency says particulate pollution shouldn’t exceed 150 micrograms per cubic meter for 24 hours in any given community.
More than half a million people have been treated for respiratory illness in six affected provinces, according to numbers from the country’s national disaster agency.

:: Business ::

Videocon launches world’s first LED hybrid TV cum PC priced at Rs 39,990

Videocon, in partnership with Microsoft Corporation, today launched Windows 10 powered world’s first LED hybrid TV cum PC at a starting price of Rs 39,990. The TV, which can also work as a personal computer, will be available in the market next month.
Dhoot said the company expects to have at least 5 per cent sales of H2 period coming from the Windows operated TV and three per cent from the Android operating sets.
He added that the company would launch the larger screen sizes of 55 and 65 inches along with one small size of 24 inches by the end of this year after getting the response from the market.
Videocon, which has a network of around 55,000 point of sales, would initially introduce it to around 60 stores located in the upmarket areas and to other places in a phase wise manner.
The company has priced 40 inch and 32 inch Windows operated panels at Rs 52,990 and Rs 39,990, respectively.

:: Sports ::

A guide to the FIFA presidential candidates

The FIFA presidential election on Feb. 26 will be a 7-man race. For now, at least.
FIFA signed off Wednesday that seven of the eight entries filed valid nominations from at least five of FIFA’s 209 member federations. Former Trinidad and Tobago player David Nakhid was excluded because one of his five also supported another contender.
The next step is approval of official candidates within about two weeks. That will come from FIFA’s election committee led by Domenico Scala.
Scala’s three-man group will decide after getting results of integrity checks by the FIFA ethics committee. Each candidate must also show an active football role for at least two of the past five years.
Still, Scala’s announcement next month won’t be the last word on candidacies.
Vetting of Michel Platini is on hold until his FIFA ethics case is resolved.