Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 27 July 2017

::National::

Major turmoil in politics of Bihar

• The ruling coalition in Bihar collapsed with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar submitting his resignation to Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, saying indirectly that his tenure was no longer tenable as Tejashwi Yadav, had not responded to his demand for an explanation.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately hailed Mr. Kumar’s uncompromising stand on corruption, and the BharatiyaJanata Party extended support to the JD(U) to form the next government.

• With the JD(U) and the BJP unwilling to face a mid-term poll, the BJP late in the evening handed over to the Governor a letter extending support to Mr. Kumar.

• In all likelihood, Mr. Kumar will take oath as Chief Minister of the National Democratic Alliance government with the BJP in the new coalition.

• However, the RJD indicated it would not give up without a fight. Mr. Tejashwi Yadav tweeted that as the single largest party, it would also stake claim to form the government.

• The Governor accepted the resignation and asked him to continue as the acting CM. According to Mr. Kumar, he tried his utmost in the last 17 days to find a way out.

Govt says Privacy is a qualified fundamental right

• The Centre told the Supreme Court that privacy was indeed a fundamental right, but a “wholly qualified” one.

• This led a nine-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar to sum up Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal’s submission thus: “You are saying that right to privacy is a fundamental right. But not every aspect of it [privacy] is a fundamental right. It depends on a case-to-case basis.”

• The acknowledgement from the Centre came after several hours of walking on the very brink of conceding that right to privacy is a fundamental right.

• Earlier, the court kept prodding Mr. Venugopal to make the government’s position clear.

• At one point, Chief Justice Khehar even said that the reference to the nine-judge Bench could be closed if the Centre agreed that privacy was a fundamental freedom.

• The Attorney General explained to the Bench that the government did not consider privacy to be a single, homogenous right but rather a “sub-species of the fundamental right to personal liberty and consists of diverse aspects. Not every aspect of privacy is a fundamental right.”

• Some aspects of privacy were expressly defined in the Constitution, while some were not. Mr. Venugopal said there was a “fundamental right to privacy. But this right is a wholly qualified right.”

People living with thalassaemia, sickle cell anaemia can look for better treatment

• People living with thalassaemia, sickle cell anaemia and other haemoglobin disorders can now look forward to better screening and treatment, based on the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry’s new policy.

• The Ministry recently released a policy on the Prevention and Control of haemoglobinopathies in India.

• Supported by the National Health Mission, Blood Cell and the RashtriyaBalSwasthyaKaryakram, the guidelines provide for screening of pregnant women during antenatal check-up, pre-marital counselling at college level and one-time screening for variant anaemia in children.

• Thalassaemia and sickle cell anaemia are the most frequently encountered ‘rare blood disorders’ in the country and impose a significant economic burden on families.

• The policy aims at creating treatment protocol benchmarks, to improve the quality of life of patients.

• It is also a guide on prevention and control, which includes antenatal and prenatal testing to reduce the incidence of live haemoglobin disorder births (currently pegged at 10,000-15,000 live births a year).

• Using public health awareness programmes and education, it highlights various haemoglobinopathies. The guidelines include the creation of a national registry to plan future patient services.

• The registry will also collect useful data, such as the location of patients to identify areas of high concentration, ethnicity or other characteristics, age distribution, records of deaths and their cause.

• Since not more than 20% of patients can afford treatment, the government should ensure that all patients get it free.

• Such free treatment is given in States such as Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and Karnataka besides Delhi, and others should follow suit. All chelation drugs should be made available free because one drug does not suit all.

• The policy, however, makes no reference to carrier testing for relatives of patients.

• There is more awareness about the condition now, especially after the Indian Council of Medical Research took up screening of 50,000 antenatal mothers and 50,000 college students a few years ago.

Scientists are planning to chase the shadow of the moon using NASA’s research jets

• In a first, scientists are planning to chase the shadow of the moon using NASA’s research jets during the upcoming total solar eclipse in the U.S., in order to capture the clearest ever images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

• Amir Caspi of the Southwest Research Institute in the U.S. and his team will use two of NASA’s WB-57F research jets to follow the darkness across the U.S. on August 21.

• Taking observations from twin telescopes mounted on the noses of the planes, Mr. Caspi will capture the clearest images of the Sun’s corona to date and the first-ever thermal images of Mercury, revealing how temperature varies across the planet’s surface.

• The total solar eclipse provides a rare opportunity for scientists to study the sun, particularly its atmosphere.

• As the moon completely covers the sun and perfectly blocks its light during an eclipse, the typically faint corona is easily seen against the dark sky.

• The vantage point on th planes provides distinct advantages over ground-based observations, researchers said.

• The corona is heated to millions of degrees, yet the lower atmospheric layers like the photosphere — the visible surface of the sun — are only heated to a few thousand degrees. Scientists are not sure how this inversion happens.

• One theory proposes micro explosions, termed nanoflares — too small and frequent to detect individually, but with a large collective effect — might release heat into the corona.

• No one has yet directly seen nanoflares, but the high-resolution and high-speed images to be taken from the WB-57F jets might reveal their effects on the corona.

• The two planes, launching from Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, will observe the total eclipse for about three and a half minutes each.

• By flying high in the stratosphere, observations taken with telescopes on board will avoid looking through the majority of Earth’s atmosphere, greatly improving image quality.

::India and World::

Palestine believes Israel’s closeness to India could be the reason for recent problem

• India’s friendly ties with Israel could ‘interfere’ with the ongoing Israel-Palestinians conflict over the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, said the envoy of Palestine.

• The Ambassador, Adnan Abu Al Haija, termed Israel’s latest security measures in Al Aqsa compound a ‘religious war’ and said Palestine expected a “positive attitude” from the Indian government.

• “India’s present government is friendly to Israel. Previous governments were also close to Israel but this government is particularly so. India’s friendly ties with Israel could interfere with the present situation in Jerusalem,” said the envoy.

• “The Al Aqsa mosque is an Islamic place of worship. Jerusalem is a city of three religions and we respect all religions.” He said

• He, however maintained that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Israel which excluded a visit to the Palestinian territory did not impact ties between two sides.

• The envoy said Israel had been trying to disturb the sanctity of the Al Aqsa mosque for a long time but for the first time since 1967 has begun the Judaisation process of the site which is holy to both Muslims and the Jewish.

::International::

European Union and US target each other over Russian sanctions

• The European Union hit out at the United States after an overwhelming vote by the House of Representatives to impose new sanctions on Russia left President Donald Trump facing a tough call.

• The package, which targets Russia, Iran and North Korea, “tightens the screws on our most dangerous adversaries in order to keep Americans safe,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said after it passed on Tuesday by 419 votes to three.

• It now heads to the Senate before Mr. Trump faces the tricky choice of whether to veto the Bill, opposed by the White House and considerably constrains his ability to lift the penalties.

• While Moscow and Tehran raised the prospect of retaliation over any fresh punitive measures, the EU also warned it was “ready to act to protect European interests” if the legislation hit dealings with the Russian energy sector.

• The U.S. Bill was the result of a congressional compromise aimed at punishing the Kremlin for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and intervening in Ukraine.

• Key among the provisions is one that handcuffs Mr. Trump by complicating any unilateral efforts to ease sanctions against Moscow in future.

• Despite initially opposing the Bill, Mr. Trump appears to have few options in the face of near-total consensus in Congress, with a decision likely due by mid-August.

• But even if Mr. Trump were to veto the legislation, Congress would likely be able to overcome such a blockage with a two-thirds majority in each chamber.

• Moscow responded angrily, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov insisting Washington had been warned “dozens of times” that any new sanctions would “not go unanswered.”

• “The authors and sponsors of this Bill are taking a very serious step towards destroying the possibilities for normalising relations with Russia,” he told.

::Business and Economy::

Pressure is mounting on India to open up its public procurement market

• Pressure is mounting on India to open up its more than $300 billion-worth public procurement market under the proposed mega Free Trade Agreement (FTA) called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

• Public/government procurement broadly refers to the process by which government, its agencies/departments and State-owned enterprises procure goods and/or services only for their own use, and not for sale/resale commercially.

• An increasing number of countries including China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand as well as a few from the 10-member ASEAN bloc including Singapore and Malaysia, were pushing for binding commitments to mutually liberalise government procurement markets.

• Incidentally, 16 countries agreed to constitute a Working Group on government procurement to take forward negotiations on the topic and include it as a separate chapter in the final agreement.

• The maximum extent that India could go to, is to agree to ensure transparency and cooperation in government procurement matters (including information exchange and sharing of knowledge) as part of the RCEP agreement.

• Though RCEP member countries including Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore may not have a “PSU culture” as such, they had norms that indirectly made it difficult for foreign firms, including from India, to take part in their public procurement process.

• Countries like China, Japan and South Korea, may outwardly have an open procurement market, but make it difficult for foreign firms to participate by phrasing requirements in local language.

• This ensures that domestic firms with a grasp over the local language get to submit the documents on time, unlike foreign firms who get hit by the language barrier.

• India is not a signatory to the Government Procurement Agreement within the WTO framework because it wants to retain its policy space to meet its development needs through public procurement process.

• In May, the Indian government had brought out a policy providing preference in government procurement to local goods and services suppliers.

• This was to push the ‘Make In India’ initiative, ensure greater flow of capital and technology into domestic services and manufacturing, and in turn, boost job creation locally as well as promote small enterprises.

• Then in June, it came up with an order restricting or excluding from public procurement tenders in India, the firms from those nations where Indian suppliers are not allowed to participate and/or compete in government procurement process.

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