Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 26 February 2017

:: National ::

Prime Minister reassured the people of Manipur

Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to reassure the people of Manipur that there was nothing in the Naga Peace Accord — signed by his government with the NSCN-IM in 2015 — that would go against the interests of the State.
Mr. Modi’s assurance follows Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh's statement, asking why the precise terms of the agreement have been kept “secret” by the Centre.
Mr. Modi said, “Is it not the State government's duty to maintain supply of essential commodities? As per the Constitution, this is the responsibility of the Manipur government and the police.
“We will not let the blockade continue once our government comes to power in the State,” the Prime Minister said. He accused the Congress of instigating people as well as paying those who organise bandhs.
Mr. Modi added that a government that kept people hungry to win polls did not have the right to rule even for a minute.
Mr. Modi defended the November demonetisation drive, saying his government was bringing out hidden money from 70 years of loot in the country and criticised Congress leaders for speaking against him after the note ban.
Accusing the Congress of keeping the north-east underdeveloped, Mr. Modi hailed the region for producing talented sportsperons, who could be groomed well with training.

NASA to put astronauts on test flight of the deep space capsule Orion

The U.S. space agency said it is considering putting astronauts on an upcoming test flight of the deep space capsule Orion as it aims to orbit the Moon.
Orion is being built with an eye to one day ferrying astronauts to Earth’s neighboring planet, Mars, perhaps by the 2030s.
Until now, the Orion test flight known as Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) was scheduled for 2018 and was expected to be unmanned.
But NASA’s acting administrator Robert Lightfoot asked on February 15 for the space agency to study the feasibility of putting people on board, and the findings of that study are expected in the coming months.
The capsule will be propelled to space atop a rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which is currently being developed. NASA has described it as the “most powerful rocket in the world”.
The space capsule also aims to “stay in space longer than any ship for astronauts has done without docking to a space station and return home faster and hotter than ever before.”
The study is evaluating the pros and cons of adding two crew members, and could possibly delay the EM-1 mission until mid-2019.
The current plan is to send astronauts on Orion’s second flight, EM-2, an eight-day mission in 2021.

About 30-35% of the annual crop yield in India gets wasted because of pests

About 30-35% of the annual crop yield in India gets wasted because of pests, according to P.K. Chakrabarty, assistant director general (plant protection and biosafety) of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
He said that among such pests, nematodes (microscopic worms many of which are parasites) had recently emerged as a major threat to crops in the country and they caused loss of 60 million tonnes of crops annually.
He also said that such large-scale crop-loss was having an adverse effect on the agricultural biosafety which was “paramount to food security.”
“Nematodes, consisting of roundworms, threadworms and eelworms, are causing loss of crops to the tune of almost 60 million tonnes or 10-12 % of crop production every year,” said Mr. Chakrabarty.
The Dean of Indian Council of Agricultural Research HS Gaur expressed his apprehension about the spread of nematode in the country.
Citing the instance of a particular kind of nematode which affected plants such as potatoes and tomatoes, he said the Potato Cyst Nematode was first discovered in the Nilgiris and had now spread to various parts of the country.

India targets eliminating measles and controlling congenital rubella syndrome

Buoyed by the elimination of polio six years ago and maternal and neonatal tetanus and yaws in 2016, India has set an ambitious target of eliminating measles and controlling congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), caused by the rubella virus, by 2020.
While two doses of measles vaccine given at 9-12 months and 16-24 months have already been part of the national immunisation programme, it is the first time that the rubella vaccine has been included in the programme.
Since the rubella vaccine will piggy-back on the measles elimination programme, there will be very little additional cost.
According to the WHO, “a single dose of rubella vaccine gives more than 95% long-lasting immunity.” All children aged nine months and 15 years will be administered a single dose of the combination vaccine.
Measles is highly infectious and is one of the major childhood killer diseases. Of the 1,34,000 measles deaths globally in 2015, an estimated 47,000 occurred in India.
The introduction of the second dose of the measles vaccine and an increase in vaccine coverage have led to a sharp decline in deaths in India — from an estimated 1,00,000 deaths in 2010 to 47,000 in 2015.
Unlike measles, rubella is a mild viral infection that mainly occurs in children. But a woman infected with the rubella virus during the early stage of pregnancy has a 90% chance of transmitting it to the foetus.
The virus can cause hearing impairments, eye and heart defects and brain damage in newborns, and even spontaneous abortion and foetal deaths. Of the 1,10,000 children born with CRS every year globally, an estimated 40,000 cases occur in India alone.
With the target set for 2020 to eliminate measles and control CRS, there is a compelling need to create a solid wall of immunity in all children up to 15 years in one go at the earliest.
That can be achieved only if immunisation is carried out in a campaign mode by targeting 410 million children nationwide within 18 months. About 465 million doses will be required.
Since the Pune-based Serum Institute of India is the only manufacturer of the vaccine, the measles-rubella vaccination campaign is being introduced in phases. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Goa and Lakshadweep are covered in the first phase.
The entire country will be covered in four phases in 18 months. Following the campaign, two doses of the combination vaccine will become a part of the national immunisation programme.
All children will receive the vaccine free at 9-12 months and 16-24 months of age.
According to the WHO, elimination of measles will help to achieve Sustainable Development Goal’s target 3.2, which aims to end preventable deaths of children under 5 years by 2030.

India’s only active volcano is active again

India’s only active volcano — the Barren Island volcano — in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is again spewing lava and ash, according to a team of scientists from the Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).
They chanced upon it as part of an ocean expedition in January. While this may evoke apocalyptic images, scientists who have seen the fulmination say it’s fairly benign.
During the daytime, they saw ash clouds, but after sundown, red lava fountains spewed from the crater into the atmosphere and hot lava streamed down the slopes.
The Barren Island, about 140 km from Port Blair, is a tourist destination and surrounded by waters ideal for scuba diving and is home to a wide variety of aquatic life.
The 354-metre-high island is the emergent summit of a volcano that rises from a depth of 2,250 m. The small, uninhabited 3-km-wide island contains a roughly 2-km wide caldera (a volcanic crater) with walls 250-350 metres high.
Historically, the first record of the volcano’s eruption dates back to 1787. It was known to have erupted at least five times over the next 100 years. Then there was silence for a century.
In 1991, it spewed so massively that smoke billowed out for about six months. Ever since, there have been eruptions every two-three years, the last in February 2016.
All of these recorded eruptions lie on the lowest end of the so-called Volcanic Explosivity Index that ranks volcanoes from 1-8 based on the quantity of volcanic material spewed and the strength with which it does so. The latest eruption was a mere ‘2’ on the scale.
However, detailed studies have shown that the volcano first erupted 1.6 million years ago and sits on a 106-million-year-old crust.
However benign this may seem, the renewed volcanic activity over the past few decades has some scientists worried about the amount of unreleased pressure stored in the continental plates that support the volcano.
An eruption in 2005 was linked to the previous year’s Indonesia-Sumatra earthquake that triggered the destructive tsunami that ravaged India’s southern coast.

Govt wants scientists to more focus on ‘science for the benefit of the people’

Asserting that Indian scientific laboratories had state-of-the-art facilities and were not inferior to any laboratory in the world, Union Minister of Science and Technology has called upon scientists to be more focussed on ‘science for the benefit of the people.’
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear that science should be for the benefit of the people and scientists should work towards achieving the objective.
In the last two years, the ministry was trying to change the overall perception and outlook of the scientists in CSIR and other departments and has been asking them to be more people-centric, he said.
India has emerged second after China in the world in terms of scientific research and exhorted the scientists to ensure that their findings and innovations were translated into action and converted into benefits for the people.
He said the cost-effective handheld soil testing kits for the farmers would go a long way in revolutionising the agriculture sector and improve the lifestyle of the farming community.
The kit, which would be made available to the farmers for a few hundred rupees, would help them obtain the results of soil tests in a few minutes with the help of an app compared to the existing waiting time of 15 days, he said.
Lots of good things were happening at CSIR-CECRI and most of the things done here actually impacted the day-to-day lives of the common man and that was the beauty of it, he said.
He said India had scientific collaborations with more than 80 countries in the world and powerful collaborations with 44 countries such as the US, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, South Korea and Israel on very important research subjects.
In Nano technology, India has emerged number three in the world and in space, ISRO has recently created a world record by sending more than 100 satellites in one go, he said.
Some of the countries which had negative impression on India’s space programme had sent more than 90 of their satellites using Indian launch vehicles and this was the very positive development, Mr. Vardhan said.

:: Business and Economy ::

The Indian Railways is mulling a new metric to measure its performance

The Indian Railways is mulling a new metric to measure its performance. This comes at a time when it is staring at a five-year high for the operating ratio by the end of this fiscal year.
The Railways formed a committee of executive directors from its budget, finance efficiency and research departments last week to look at some of the best corporate practices and suggest a new financial ratio.
The financial performance of the Indian Railways is measured in operating ratio which is expected to be at a five-year high of 94.9% in 2016-17.
Till December this year, the Railways’ operating ratio in 2016-17 stood at 109% which is expected to improve by March this year. This means, the Railways spent Rs. 109 to earn Rs. 100 from April-December 2016.
A lower ratio means better efficiency. The ratio touched 91.3% in 2014-15 and has only been lower in other years in the 5-year period.
The committee has been asked to submit its report within a month, adding that it may also hire a private agency to help with a new performance indicator.
The Railways’ finances took a hit this financial year due to the Seventh Pay Commission’s pay hike recommendations, Railway Ministry officials said.

Social Security Agreement ratified between India and Germany

India and Germany have ratified the Social Security Agreement (SSA), which will come into force from May 1 this year, to help promote more investment flows between the two countries.
The SSA will also integrate the provisions of the 2008 social insurance pact that exempts detached workers of the two countries from making social security contributions in either countries so long as they were making such contributions in their respective countries.
“The new agreement establishes the rights and obligations of nationals of both countries and provides for equal treatment of the nationals of both countries.
The requirements to be entitled to a pension can be met by aggregating the periods of insurance completed in India and Germany, whereby each country pays only the pension for the insurance periods covered by its laws.
The period of posting will be up to 48 calendar months,” the ministry said.

:: Science and Technology ::

African black rhinoceros face risk of extinction

As the value of rhinoceros horn touches $65,000 per kg, poaching has begun to drive the African black rhinoceros to “the verge of extinction” - not just by reducing its population size, but by erasing 70% of the species’ genetic diversity.
Genetic variation is the cornerstone of evolution, without which there can be no natural selection, and so a low genetic diversity decreases the ability of a species to survive and reproduce.
Two centuries ago, the black rhinoceros – which roamed much of sub Saharan Africa – had 64 different genetic lineages; but today only 20 of these lineages remain, says the paper.
The species is now restricted to five countries, South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. Genetically unique populations that once existed in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Mozambique, Malawi and Angola have disappeared.
The origins of the ‘genetic erosion’ coincided with colonial rule in Africa and the popularity of big game hunting.
From the second half of the 20th century, however, poaching for horns has dramatically depleted their population and genetic diversity, especially in Kenya and Tanzania.
The paper calls for “a complete re-evaluation of current conservation management paradigms” for the black rhinoceros.
Greater the genetic diversity, the better is the population's ability to respond to pressures such as climate change and diseases.
“Thus the loss of so much evolutionary potential in the black rhino is worrying for its future adaptability.”