Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 9 August 2017

::National::

Justice Deepak Mishra to become 45th CJI

• The Centre cleared the file for appointment of Justice Dipak Misra as the 45th Chief Justice of India with effect from August 28.

• Justice Misra, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court after the present Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, who is retiring on August 27, will have a tenure of about 14 months till October 2, 2018.

• Justice Misra was elevated to the Supreme Court on October 10, 2011.He enrolled as a lawyer on February 14, 1977 and was appointed Additional Judge of the Orissa High Court in 1996.

• Justice Misra wrote history when he led the three-judge Bench which heard Yakub Memon, the sole condemned man in the Bombay blasts case, who came knocking on the Supreme Court’s door for reprieve in the early hours of the day he was hanged to death.

• Justice Misra is at present hearing a slew of important cases with far-reaching consequences.

Shia Central Waqf board for amicable settlement of Babri Masjid dispute

• The Shia board suggested that the court set up a committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge.

• Committee should comprise of two retired Allahabad High Court judges, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath or his nominee, a nominee of the Prime Minister, before which a representative each of the Shia Central Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akara and a Hindu sect.

• They shall make suggestions and proposals for an amicable settlement keeping in mind the “larger public interest.” It pointed out that there had unfortunately been no talks during the seven years the appeals were pending before the SC.

• The board proposed that the apex court give a time frame for the committee to submit its report besides scheduling its first meeting and venue.

• Mr. Rizvi said the “other sect of the Muslim community” has subjected him to threats on learning about the views of the Shia board. He said he had informed the U.P. government, which is taking steps for his security.

• According to him, the efforts of the Shia board for an amicable settlement would “usher in a new era for both the larger denominations to live in peace and harmony.”

• He said the High Court while portioning out one-third share in the area of the (demolished) Babri masjid to “Muslims” in its September 30, 2010 judgment had expressed hopes of an amicable settlement. The same view had also been expressed by the Supreme Court later on.

SC asks the Centre to reply to petition challenging validity of Art 370

• The Supreme Court asked the Centre to respond to a petition challenging the continuing validity of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution giving special autonomous status to the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

• A Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar, Justices A.K. Goel and D.Y. Chandrachud issued notice to the Centre on the petition filed by Vijayalakshmi Jha pointing out that Article 370 was a “temporary provision.”

• The petition, represented by advocate Anil Kumar Jha, asked the court to clarify if Article 370 was supposed to have lapsed automatically with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir on January 26, 1957.

• It asked whether the J&K Constitution, which neither got the mandatory assent or approval of the President of India, was valid at all.

• The petition pointed to clause (3) of Article 370, which said it was up to the President to declare whether the Article should cease to exist or continue to be operative.

• For this, the President would have required the recommendation of the Constituent Assembly of J&K. However the institution had been dissolved.

• Besides, the petition contended that the special autonomous status is violative of Article 1 of the Constitution which envisages that “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”

• It argued that the separate “Constitution of Jammu &Kashmir was never ratified by the President or the Parliament or satisfies Article 1 or the Preamble of the Constitution.”

• The petition asked the court to quash the ‘Delhi Agreement’ entered into between Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and Jawaharlal Nehru, representing J&K and the Indian government, respectively.The Centre has to file its reply in four weeks.

India will go from a data poor to data rich nation in three years

• India will go from a data poor to data rich nation in three years, Nandan Nilekani, chairman, EkStep, and former chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India, said.

• He spoke on the ‘strategic implications’ and ‘the right strategy’ to be adopted by the country to use the data for the public good. “It is not a technology issue, but a policy issue.

• There are three main components — data colonisation, privacy and a ‘winner takes it all’ approach.”

• The amount of data in the world today is equal to every person in the U.S. tweeting three tweets per minute for 26,976 years and every person in the world having more than 215 million high-resolution MRI scans a day. 2.7 zettabytes of data exists in the digital universe today.

• “There is a knowledge asymmetry when it comes to giving loans to the poor. Now with GSTN, Aadhaar and UPI, one can find out if a small businessman is worthy of being given a loan as his banks can digitally look at the performance of his business.

• The GSTN network will lay a large platform for businesses through its e-way bill and BharatBill payments. The Aadhaar will provide the base. India has a robust authentication structure in place, like PAN, which can safely authenticate a person. India is in a unique position.

• India is working on a paperless and cashless service delivery system that will enable the government, citizens and entrepreneurs to interact with each other through an open digital platform.

• The IndiaStack programme is the largest application programming interface that is being developed in order to enable 1.2 billion Indians to get access to goods and services digitally.

• Globally, more than 200 billion high definition movies, which would take a person 47 million years to watch, have been created and, according to estimates, the volume of business data worldwide, across all companies, doubles every 1.2 years.

• YouTube users upload 48 hours of new video every minute of the day. 571 new websites are created every minute of the day.

::International::

Average temp. in U.S. has risen rapidly since 1980

• The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval.

• The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now.

• It directly contradicts claims by President Donald Trump and members of his Cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.

• The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air.

• The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years.

• The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.30 degrees Celsius of warming over this century compared with today.

• The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius.

• A small difference in global temperatures can make a big difference in the climate: the difference between a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees Celsius, for example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs.

::Business and Economy::

SEBI concerned with the manner in which start-ups are being funded

• SEBI is concerned with the manner in which start-ups are being funded through unregulated entities and is examining the manner in which alternative fund-raising platforms and crowd-funding ventures can be regulated to bring in transparency and regulatory oversight in such deals.

• The regulator has recently formed a panel under T.V. Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys , to look into this issue and advise on ensuring that market disruption does not come at the cost of investor protection and market integrity.

• Incidentally, SEBI chairman Ajay Tyagi had recently met an industry delegation to discuss the matter as the regulator was concerned with the increasing number of such entities in the market.

• The Committee on Financial and Regulatory Technologies will, among other things, deliberate on financial technology solutions for “further widening and deepening of the Indian securities market” through traditional and alternative platforms, including peer to peer lending and equity crowd-funding.

• Interestingly, this comes in the wake of notices that the regulator has sent to many entities that act as platforms for funding start-ups or connecting them to the large investor community.

• While questioning the manner in which these entities help start-ups raise funds, the regulator has said that any violation would be “construed as organising an unrecognised stock exchange” and that SEBI would be “constrained to initiate action.”

• Under the current legal framework, issue of shares to more than 200 persons constitutes a public issue and needs SEBI approval. Earlier, the cap was 49 and was increased to 200 when the Companies Act was revised in 2013.

• Industry participants said that SEBI has a provision under Section 28 of Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act (SCRA) that allowed the regulator to recognise such alternative investment platforms.

• The start-up ecosystem has gained significance especially after the government's Make in India initiative and important departments including the Department of Economic Affairs and DIPP are pushing regulatory bodies to create an investor-friendly ecosystem for such ventures.

Parliamentary Standing Committee concerned over employees future

• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture sought details from the Centre on the disinvestment of Air India and Pawan Hans, flagging concerns over the employees’ future in both the public sector units.

• The Members of Parliament raised concerns over job security of the workers in both the PSUs.

• Senior civil aviation ministry officials told the Parliamentary panel members that the job security of the workers will be kept in mind during the disinvestment process of both the companies and that the modalities of the stake sale are being worked out at present.

• Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha had said in June that the commitment towards Air India’s employees will be duly honoured during the disinvestment process.

• The panel also flagged the issue of the huge debt of Air India. The national carrier has accumulated total debt of Rs. 48,876 crore till March 2017.

• It has been reporting continuous losses due to its high debt with its net loss at Rs. 3,728 crore in 2016-17 compared with Rs. 3,836 crore in 2015-16.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on June 28 gave its in-principle approval for the strategic disinvestment of Air India and its subsidiaries.

• Last year, the government had decided to sell its entire 51% stake in Pawan Hans Ltd (PHL), in which ONGC holds the rest. The Cabinet approval for deciding upon the modalities of its stake sale will soon be sought.

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