Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 14 September 2017

::National::

Petrol, diesel should come under GST

• Oil Minister DharmendraPradhanruled out any government intervention to disrupt the daily revision in petrol and diesel prices despite the Rs. 7.3 per litre spike since July, saying the reform will continue.

• Saying that many States had drastically increased value-added tax, he said, “It is high time that the GST Council considered bringing the petroleum products in the ambit of GST.”

• He, however, remained non-committal on cutting taxes to soften the blow of the relentless rise in prices since the government need to finance huge infrastructure and social projects has to be balanced with consumer needs.

• Terming the criticism of a spike in rates as unfair, he said the drop in prices for over a fortnight after the daily price revision was introduced has been ignored and only the “temporary” phenomenon of a rising trend was being highlighted.

• India relies on imports to meet 80% of its needs and so domestic fuel rates have been aligned to the movement of equivalent product prices in the international market since April 2002.

• Previously, the rates were changed every fortnight but since June 16 they are being revised daily, Mr. Pradhan said, adding that the daily revision immediately passes on the benefit of any reduction in international oil prices to consumers and avoids sharp spikes by spreading them in small doses.

56-year-old dispute between Andhra Pradesh and Odishacame to an end

• The 56-year-old dispute between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha over construction of a barrage at Neradi across the Vamsadhara River in Srikakulam district has come to a close with the Vamsadhara Water Disputes Tribunal (VWDT) granting permission for its construction. It also ordered the setting up of a supervisory committee to implement its decision.

• The tribunal, in its “final order and decision” issued in New Delhi, permitted Andhra Pradesh to construct the Neradi barrage and gave specifics about the right and left head sluices.

• The right head sluice should have a design capacity of 8,000 cusecs for meeting the requirements of Andhra Pradesh and the left head sluice for meeting the requirements of Odisha below Neradi Barrage.

• The order said that the capacity of the left head sluice should be intimated to Odisha and the cost of construction of the sluice should be borne by the beneficiary State.

• If in future Odisha decides to increase its ayacut, the cost of the proposed barrage should be shared between both the States, the tribunal ordered, in accordance with the agreement reached by the two States in 1962.

• The three-member tribunal with Justice Mukundakam Sharma declared the yield of the river at Gotta Barrage as 115 tmcft and said that both the States should share it equally.

• The tribunal also permitted Andhra Pradesh to construct a side weir (dam) , but put several conditions on the quantity and duration of drawal of water.

• Vamsadhara is an inter-State river originating in the Eastern Ghats near Lanjigarh of Kalahandi district in Odisha.

• The river forms a common boundary between the two States for 29 km and flows for 82 km in Andhra Pradesh until it empties into the Bay of Bengal at Kalingapatnam.

• The total catchment area of the basin is 10,830 square kilometres, with 8,926 sq km (82 %) in Odisha and the rest in Andhra Pradesh.

• Andhra Pradesh had proposed a barrage at Neradi entailing acquisition of 106 acres of land in Odisha territory in 1961.

• Odisha agreed to provide the land at that time.

• The tribunal ordered Odisha to acquire the required land and hand over the same to A.P.

The Hindu wins best news website award

• The Hindu Group has been awarded two golds and a silver at the South Asian Digital Media Awards at the WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) India 2017 conference in Chennai.
  www.thehindu.com won the gold award for the Best News Website. The Hindu ’s site, India’s oldest newspaper website, is fully responsive, adapting seamlessly to different devices and screen sizes.

• Designed by Itu Chaudhuri Design, the website’s navigation and information architecture is designed to help readers easily and intuitively access content. www.thequint.com and www.ndtv.com won the silver and bronze.

• Sportstarlive.com won the silver award in the Best in Lifestyle, Sports or Entertainment Website category. Entries were evaluated on criteria such as strong content quality, consistency in user experience, innovative design, use of multimedia and ease of navigation.

Ban pellet guns in Kashmir: Amnesty

• Amnesty International India asked the government “to prohibit firing pellet shotguns immediately in the Kashmir Valley.

• Releasing its report, ‘Losing Sight in Kashmir: The Impact of Pellet-Firing Shotguns’ in Srinagar, the human rights organisation highlighted the cases of 88 people “whose eyesight was damaged by metal pellets fired from pump-action shotguns used by the Jammu & Kashmir Police and the Central Reserve Police Force [CRPF] between 2014 and 2017”.

• Amnesty claimed that pellet victims “faced serious physical and mental health issues, including symptoms of psychological trauma”.

• Several victims, who were the primary breadwinners in their families, fear they will not be able to work any longer. Many have not regained their sight despite repeated surgeries

• It is unclear if the shotguns have been properly tested, or their effects and risks assessed, or whether there is even any protocol about how they must be used. The government of Jammu & Kashmir has done little to support those injured and disabled by this weapon.

• Amnesty claimed that 16 personnel from the J&K Armed Police “were treated for pellet injuries in Kupwara in 2016” and that the police and the CRPF refused to furnish information.

• The human rights organisation called for “prompt, independent and impartial civilians’ investigations into all incidents where the use of pellet-firing shotguns led to deaths or injuries to establish whether arbitrary or excessive force was used”.

• The report comes just two days after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh admitted in Srinagar that Pelargonic Acid Vanillyl Amide (PAVA) guns introduced to replace pellet shotguns had “failed to yield desired results”.

Workers to get unique number

• Every worker in the unorganised and organised sector will get a unique identification number that will make it easier for them to get benefits under different social schemes, the Union Minister for Labour and Employment, SantoshGangwar

• The idea of introducing a specific number for more than 40 crore workers of the unorganised sector was part of the labour reforms the NDA government had announced soon after it came to power. All the prominent labour unions have been invited to Delhi for consultations on labour reforms, he added.

• The idea of a unique number to workers sounds good on paper but there should be some basis to a proposal like this. The government already has sufficient data about the 4.15 crore subscribers of the Employees’

• Provident Fund Organisation. But so far it has been unable to allot unique numbers to all of them. How then does it plan to go about providing unique numbers to the 45 crore workers in the unorganised sector? This does not sound like a sincere.

• The ministry is working towards compressing 44 labour laws into four codes – one each for wages, industrial relations, social security, and one for occupational safety, health, and working conditions.

NGOs on strict vigilance

• The Home Ministry has sent notices to over 1,200 NGOs, asking them to validate the designated bank accounts in which they receive foreign contribution, failure of which will invite punitive action.

• The list includes Sri Ramakrishna Math, Ramakrishna Mission, Indore Cancer Foundation Charitable Trust, Coimbatore Christian Charitable Trust, Delhi School Of Social Work Society, Hindu Anath Ashram and Madani DarutTarbiyat.

• In a circular, the Ministry said all NGOs registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) should receive foreign donations in a single designated bank account.

• A number of such organisations have not validated their foreign contribution designated accounts, causing problems for the banks to comply with the FCRA provisions that they [banks] report to the Central government within 48 hours of such receipt or utilisation of foreign contribution.

• These associations are required to validate their foreign designated accounts and also the utilisation accounts immediately and send the details, including the bank branch, code, account number, IFSC code and so on through FC 6 form which is available on https://fcraonline.nic.in,

• Non-compliance may lead to penal actions as per FCRA 2010.

• The Modi government, which has tightened the rules for NGOs, has already cancelled the registration of more than 10,000 of them in the past three years for alleged non-filing of annual returns as mandated in the FCRA.

• In addition, licences of more than 1,300 NGOs were not renewed or were closed in the recent past for allegedly violating various provisions of the FCRA.

• Nearly 6,000 NGOs have been asked to open their accounts in banks having core banking facilities.

Election commission says plea against NOTA not valid

• The Election Commission has told the Supreme Court that a plea by a Gujarat Congress leader challenging the use of None of the Above (NOTA) option in the Rajya Sabha polls in the State is not maintainable.

• Seeking dismissal of the plea filed by Congress chief whip in the Gujarat Assembly ShaileshManubhaiParmar, the EC said that from January 2014, biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha have been held in many States and the NOTA option has been given since then.

• It is submitted at the outset that the present writ petition is not maintainable before this court as the contents of the said writ petition do not disclose the violation of any fundamental right of the petitioner or any other person for that matter

• The poll panel also said the petition was an “abuse of the process of law and a waste of precious judicial time of this court.”

• The top court had on August 3 agreed to examine the constitutional validity of the NOTA provision in the Rajya Sabha polls saying the issue needed to be debated.

• From January 2014, biennial elections to Rajya Sabha have been held in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 covering all states and 25 by-elections to Rajya Sabha have also been held. It is pertinent to point out herein that the NOTA option was a part of every Rajya Sabha elections held since 2014

• It referred to the constitutional provisions and said that any election to the Rajya Sabha can only be called into question by way of an election petition only.

• The provisions of NOTA in the ballot papers for the elections to the council of states has been made by the EC to effectuate this right of electors guaranteed to them under the said section 79(A) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951

NIRF ranking exercise from next year

• The Centre has set the ball rolling for a more comprehensive ranking of higher educational institutions in the next round of the National Institutional Ranking Framework in 2018.

• The idea: instead of institutions choosing to take part in the exercise, they are being auto-registered through a large online database the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) portal of institutions available with the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

• The institutions, however, have to provide details like patents, publications, research projects and campus placements that are not available on the portal.

• The NIRF begun in 2016 ranks higher educational institutions in India on the basis of a variety of parameters. The idea is to be able to gauge their relative standing and also help students make informed career choices.

• The 2016 and 2017 NIRF lists reflected the ranks of only those institutions that had taken part in the exercise. The number was about 3,300 in 2017.

• Among universities, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore was ranked first and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi was second.

• Miranda House in Delhi was ranked India’s best college. Many top colleges like St. Stephens College, Delhi; Hindu College, Delhi; Delhi School of Economics; Ramjas College, Delhi; and Hansraj College, Delhi, did not take part in the exercise. With the changed process, such institutions will be part of the next year’s list.

• With this, the number of institutions that will figure in the NIRF exercise is expected to jump three-fold to at least 10,000

Income limit raised for creamy layer

• The ‘creamy layer’ ceiling for OBC reservation has been raised to Rs. 8 lakh per year.

• It has now been decided to raise the income limit from Rs. 6 lakh to Rs. 8 lakh per annum for determining the creamy layer among the Other Backward Classes.

• In 1993, the limit was kept at Rs. 1 lakh. It was raised thrice to Rs. 2.5 lakh in 2004, Rs. 4.5 lakh in 2008 and Rs. 6 lakh in 2013.

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on August 23 announced that the Union Cabinet had been formally apprised of the decision to increase the limit for Central government jobs.

• Mr. jaitley had said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hinted in Assam that the bar defining creamy layer would be raised.

• These measures are part of the government’s efforts to ensure greater social justice and inclusion for members of the Other Backward Classes

::INDIA AND WORLD::

INDIA-JAPAN

• Highlighting common ‘strategic interests,’ Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who arrived in Ahmedabad, said India-Japan ties will shape the Asia-Pacific region.

• Mr. Abe will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the India-Japan annual summit, when both sides will firm up military and strategic ties.

• Both India and Japan place importance on the universal values and strategic interests that we commonly share. Both countries are major Asian democracies and global powers and I’m determined that Japan and India will lead the way towards peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region and the world

• The visit of Mr. Abe is significant in view of the (now-resolved) weeks-long standoff between India and China at the Doklam plateau of Bhutan when China’s belligerent rhetoric indicated a negative turn in ties.

• Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe kicked off his two-day visit to the home State, Gujarat, of his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, by holding a grand 8-km roadshow in an open-roof vehicle from the airport to Sabarmati Ashram. Mr. Modi accompanied Mr. Abe and his wife on the trip.

• The Prime Minister took the guests on a tour of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram for nearly 20 minutes, and showed them, among other Gandhi memorabilia, the spinning wheel at Hridaykunj.

• Mr. Modi presented the couple with a copy of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography and a statue of the famous three wise monkeys.

• This was the first time Mr. Modi went on a joint roadshow with the head of a country in his home State, which goes to the polls in two months.

• Mr. Abe was given a Guard of Honour, following which artists performed a folk dance, showcasing the cultural traditions of Gujarat and other States. They visited the iconic Sidi Saiyyed Mosque, a Gujarat Sultanate era monument known for its intricate stone lattice works on its walls.

• For the first time, Mr. Modi too visited the landmark monument, which is often identified with Ahmedabad’s rich and diverse heritage, and pointed out the designs and architecture.

• Mr. Modi and Mr. Abe will lay the foundation stone for the ambitious Ahmedabad-Mumbai high-speed train project to be built with nearly 80% funding from Japan.

• Subsequently, they will attend the annual India-Japanese Business Summit at the Mahatma Mandir convention centre in Gandhinagar where over a dozen MoUs will be inked between Japanese firms and the Gujarat government.

• The External Affairs Ministry said that the high point of the visit was the joint inauguration of the high-speed rail project and bilateral security dialogue.

• The two leaders will review the recent progress in the multifaceted cooperation between India and Japan under the framework of their ‘Special Strategic and Global Partnership’ and will set its future direction.

• The two countries have signed a host of agreements on Wednesday to further cooperation in science and technology, including research into stem-cells for making bone-marrow transplants more accessible.

• The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) already has an India-Japan cooperative programme that has Christian Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, and Kyoto University, Japan, as participants.

• Though the DBT and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have been collaborating in these areas, they renewed the agreement for five more years on Wednesday.

• The aim of the programme is to develop infrastructure and expertise for India to be a competitive force in regenerative medicine and induced pluripotent stem cell biology. The focus of the collaboration is on developing treatments for sickle-cell anaemia, Beta thalassemia and brain disorders, and creating a haplobank relevant to Indian populations.

• A haplobank refers to a specially maintained collection of embryonic cells that can, in theory, be directed to become any kind of cell and thus progenitor of replacement organs.

• Reports suggest that Japan is likely to take up the sale of ShinMaywa US-2 amphibian aircraft that India has been eyeing for the past few years. The other major discussion is likely to be over the India-Japan nuclear ties which have acquired a new broader scope after Japan ratified the deal.

Indo-Russian war games in October

• India and Russia have begun discussions to work out the modalities for their first tri-service military exercise to be held in October. It will also be India’s first bilateral military exercise with any country involving all three services.

• The Indra exercise is scheduled from October 19 to 29. The Final Planning Conference (FPC) will be held from September 12 to 15 in Russia. All logistical issues and modalities will be finalized.

• In April, the two countries decided to upgrade Indra from an individual service exercise into an integrated tri-service.

• The aim of the exercise is to carry out joint exercises for suppression of international terrorist activities under the United Nations mandate

• The Army will send about 350 soldiers from the infantry, artillery and armoured streams.

• While the soldiers will take with them infantry weapons, ammunition, radio sets and related equipment, the issue of taking T-72 tanks and other heavy equipment will be decided in the FPC.

• The Navy is fielding two ships, a stealth frigate, INS Satpura , and an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvette, INS Kadmatt , along with two on-board helicopters. The naval component is likely to include an ASW component, the details of which are awaited.

• The Air Force, which flies a large number of Russian aircraft, is likely to share fighter jets of the host. Details of contingent and other support elements would be decided in the planning conference.

• This will be an opportunity for India to synergise jointness between its services and see how other countries function jointly. The headquarters of the Integrated Defence Staff under the Defence Ministry is leading the exercises from the Indian side.

::SCEINCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

GM mustard varieties

• Slamming activists for spreading “misinformation” on genetically-modified (GM) mustard, India’s premier association of agricultural scientists has said that India has a “narrow” pool of mustard varieties.

• That India had over 9,000 varieties of mustard and was the “centre of origin and diversity (of mustard) ” was among the key arguments made by PrashantBhushan in the Supreme Court, as part of a petition by activist Aruna Rodrigues.

• Earlier a Supreme Court-appointed Technical Advisory Committee had also recommended a stay on GM mustard citing the breadth of India’s genetic diversity in mustard and that introducing it would lead to “irreversible” contamin- ation.

• Contrary to GM basher’s propaganda that very high diversity is available in Indian mustard scientific analysis has shown that the Indian gene pool of mustard is very narrow as a consequence, in spite of extensive efforts by our plant breeders there is very little impact of pure-line breeding on mustard yields in recent years says a report by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), a 600-member body of agricultural scientists.

• In June, a 230-member quorum of the NAAS had passed a resolution unanimously supporting the commercial release of Dhara Mustard Hybrid 11 (DMH-11), a transgenic food crop that had been cleared by the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) for commercial release.

• Though there were wild-related species, these were largely untenable for commercially extracting oil, he added. Unlike in wheat, for instance, where the male and female can be crossed to make a wide genetic range of hybrid seeds, mustard is a self-pollinating plant that isn’t amenable to such crossings.

• DMH-11 uses a combination of genes from a soil bacterium that makes mustard amenable to hybridisation. The NAAS also refuted claims that non-GM varieties of rapeseed (a sister species of mustard and an oilseed) in Europe out-yielded GM varieties grown in Canada.

::INTERNATIONAL::

A step to rebuild Aleppo by Russia

• Chief of Russia’s Chechnya region, offered to repair the damage that the ancient mosque sustained in ferocious clashes four years ago,.

• A fund named after Mr. Kadyrov’s father Akhmat has already transferred the estimated $14 million needed to fund the mosque’s restorations.

• Syria’s second city was battered by four years of fighting between rebels in the east and government forces in the west, until an evacuation deal at the end of 2016 brought it under regime control.

• In September 2015, Moscow began carrying out air strikes that have allowed Syrian troops to retake swathes of territory including Aleppo. Now that it is back under government control, Russia appears keen to help rebuild it.

• Allies like Russia and Iran have stepped in to fill the void.

• Syria signed a memorandum of understanding with Tehran for the provision of five gas units to help generate electricity and restore power to Aleppo.

• The delivery including 2,000 tonnes of metal water pipes and hundreds of kilometres of high-voltage cables was being transported by train to a port in southern Russia for onward shipment to Syria.

• And within the city, Moscow has dispatched its military police to prevent looting and mainta

Pakistani author made it to Man Booker shortlist

• Arundhati Roy’sThe Ministry of Utmost Happinesswas not among the six finalists for the top literary award

• A tale on the global migration crisis by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid has made it to the Man Booker Prize shortlist, alongside works by American authors Paul Auster ( 4321 ), Emily Fridlund ( History of Wolves ) and

• George Saunders ( Lincoln in the Bardo ), and British authors Ali Smith ( Autumn ) and Fiona Mozley ( Elmet ).

• The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , Arundhati Roy’s first novel in 20 years, that was on the Booker longlist is out of the race.

• The authors who made it to the shortlist include some of literature’s biggest names alongside newcomers such as Ms. Mozley, whose powerful book on a family’s struggle to “retain its self-sufficiency as the old ways succumb to the bland greed of the new normality” made it a “timeless” and “timely” tale in the view of the judges.

• From its inception, the prize was only open to Commonwealth, Irish, and South African, and, later, Zimbabwean citizens; in 2014, the eligibility was widened to writers of any English language novel.

• Three South Asian writers Ms. Roy, Mr. Hamid and Kamila Shamsie had made it to the long list announced in July. At the time, the judges described The Ministry of Utmost Happiness , which made the long list twenty years after Ms. Roy’s The God of Small Things won the award, as a “rich and vital book” that came from the “bowels of India”.

• Born in Lahore, Mr. Hamid is the author of three other novels, Moth Smoke , The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia , as well as a collection of essays Discontent and Its Civilizations .

Argentina gives Israel WW II documents

• Argentina has given Israel thousands of documents from the Second World War during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

• The digital documents delivered by Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri include nearly 1,40,000 secret files and photographs from 1939-1950. They include letters, telegrams and reports that were digitised by Argentina and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

::ECONOMY::

BPCL is mulling a merger with GAIL, Oil India

• Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), India’s second largest state-owned oil marketer is mulling a merger with GAIL (India), India’s largest gas distributor, and Oil India, the country’s second largest explorer, to create an integrated energy giant after the Centre approved the merger of rival Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd. (HPCL) with ONGC.

• BPCL, which got Maharatna status, has written to the petroleum ministry about its ambitious plan and is waiting to hear back from the government.

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had set the ball rolling on the merger of state owned oil firms in his 2017 budget speech when he seplt out the government’s intent to create integrated public sector ‘oil majors’ to match the performance of global oil firms and domestic private sector firms.

• BPCL plans to invest Rs. 1.08 lakh crore over the next five years, of which Rs. 45,000 is aimed at investments in petrochemicals alone to get better margins.

• While BPCL’s market capitalisation was Rs. 1,08,538 crore, GAIL and Oil India had market capitalisation of Rs. 34,456 crore and Rs. 24,483 crore respectively.

• ONGC with revenue of Rs. 77,908 crore and profit of Rs. 17,890 crore in the last financial year would, post its merger with HPCL, end up as an entity with revenue of about Rs. 2.9 lakh crore.

Translate app updated by Google to break language barrier

• Google unveiled several updates to its Translate App in an effort to bring down language barriers. It said users in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi can experience offline translations and instant visual translation in their preferred language.

• Google Translate has also added support for conversation mode in regional languages including Tamil and Bengali. This feature lets users have a bilingual conversation with someone, simply by talking to the Google Translate app.

• India is among the top four countries globally using Google Translate which translates over 140 billion words every day. More than 400 million people in India used the Internet. But the vast majority of India’s online content is in English, which only 20% of the country’s population speaks.

• The Translate app already lets the user use camera mode to snap a photo of English text and get a translation for it in these languages. Now, with Word Lens feature, Google has taken it to the next level, letting users instantly translate text using their camera.

• The company said now it was way easier for speakers of local Indian languages to understand English street signs in the city or decide what to order from a restaurant menu.

• Word Lens is powered by machine learning, using computer vision to distinguish between letters on an image. The company said with Google Translate, users can easily turn their phone into a powerful translation tool, whether for studies, business, travel or work. Offline support enables Indian language users to translate a word or sentence even when they are not connected to the Internet.

Ericsson files insolvency cases against RCom

• Ericsson India Private Limited (Ericsson) has filed an insolvency case against Reliance Communications Ltd. in the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to recover dues totalling Rs. 1,155 crore.

• Confirming the development, an Ericsson spokesperson said in an emailed reply to a query from The Hindu,“Ericsson can confirm that the company has filed an insolvency petition against Reliance Communications in the National Company Law Tribunal in India.

• Ericsson has done this as a last resort in order to resolve an issue regarding debt that Reliance owes to Ericsson for services provided under a contract. As the legal process is ongoing, we don’t have any further comments at this point.

• Ericsson, an unsecured operational creditor, has been trying to retrieve its dues from the debt-laden Reliance Communications and its subsidiaries.

• Ericsson has filed petition under IBC provisions against the company for recovery of an amount of Rs. 491.41 crore. Ericsson has also filed similar petitions against Reliance Infratel Limited and Reliance Telecom Limited, subsidiaries of the company, for recovery of an amount of Rs. 534.75 crore and Rs. 129.34 crore respectively,” RCom said in a statement. The Anil Ambani-led telecom company added that it intends to challenge the petitions.

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