Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 02 October 2020

SSC CGL Current Affairs

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 02 October 2020

::NATIONAL::

SC asserts states cannot declare slowdown as public emergency

The State cannot declare the slowdown caused by the pandemic a “public emergency” to curtail the rights of people, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
The pandemic had not resulted in an “internal disturbance” of a nature that posed a “grave emergency” whereby the security of India was threatened, it said.
A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud observed that the sweeping powers of the State to declare a public emergency could only be wielded in case of “threat to the security of India or a part of the territory must be caused by war, external aggression or an internal disturbance”.
The verdict dealt with blanket notifications issued by the Gujarat government denying factory workers overtime wages during the lockdown by invoking its powers of declaring a public emergency under Section 5 of the Factories Act.

Centre claims over 99% of Indian cities as open defecation free

Government today said that more than 99 per cent of the cities across the country have become Open Defecation Free, ODF. Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry today celebrated six glorious years of Swachh Bharat Mission - urban and organised a webinar on ‘Swachhatake 6 saal, Bemisaal.
He said this spirit of Jan Andolan and Jan Bhagidari is exemplified by the SwachhSurvekshan 2020 in which over 12 crores of citizens have participated in the survey. The Minister said, when Swachh Bharat Mission- urban was launched in 2014, it was with the vision of achieving Clean India by 2nd October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation.
Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary, DurgaShanker Mishra said, from a position of zero ODF states and cities in 2014, more than 97 per cent of Indian cities have now become ODF.

::ECONOMY::

Finance ministry grants permission for additional grants to 2 states

Union Finance Ministry has granted additional borrowing permission to Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh for successfully undertaking reforms in the Public Distribution System (PDS) and Ease of Doing Business. This will make an additional amount of seven thousand 376 crore rupees available to these states.
In view of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the Union Government had in May this year allowed additional borrowing limit of up to two per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) to the states for the current financial year.
This made an amount up to four lakh 27 thousand 302 crore rupees available to the states. One per cent of this additional borrowing limit is subject to implementation of four specific state-level reforms, where weightage of each reform is 0.25 per cent of GSDP.
Andhra Pradesh has now become the first state in the country to successfully undertake Ease of Doing Business reforms as well and has therefore become eligible to raise an additional amount of two thousand 525 crore rupees through Open Market Borrowings.
GST collections indicate economic recovery
Ministry of Finance has said that the gross Goods and Services Tax, GST revenue collection in the month of September stood at 95 thousand 480 crore rupees. The revenue collection in September is the highest so far during this fiscal.
Out of total GST collection, Central GST is 17 thousand 741 crore rupees, State GST is 23 thousand 131 crore rupees, Integrated GST is 47 thousand 484 crore rupees and Cess is 7 thousand 124 crore rupees.
The Ministry in a statement said, the total revenue earned by Central Government and the State Governments after regular settlement in the month of September is over 39 thousand crore rupees for CGST and 40 thousand 128 crore rupees for the SGST.

::INTERNATIONAL::

EU takes legal action against U.K over Brexit bill

The European Union took legal action against Britain on Thursday over its plans to pass legislation that would breach parts of the legally binding divorce agreement the two sides reached late last year.
The EU move underscored the worsening relations with Britain, which was a member of the bloc until January 31. Both sides are trying to forge a rudimentary free trade agreement before the end of the year, but the fight over the controversial U.K. Internal Market Bill has soured relations this month.
EU leaders fear that if the U.K. Bill becomes law, it could lead to the re-imposition of a hard land border between Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain, and EU member Ireland, and erode the stability that has underpinned peace since the 1998 Good Friday accord.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Researchers develop sutures with nano fibre yarns

A team of researchers at IIT Madras is ready with a prototype of suture thread made of nanofiber yarns that is bio-absorbable and can deliver a higher load of antibiotics and/or therapeutics at the site itself.
The suture material uses nanofibers woven as yarn using certain specific techniques, and the strength can be varied depending on the target tissue (skin, muscle, cartilage), explains Rama S. Verma of the Stem Cell and Molecular Biology laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras. Each strand has a good tensile strength, besides degrading rapidly and mimics the collagen fibrils of body tissues, he adds.
Several innovations globally in suture material have advanced infection control and achieved in some cases, better recovery among patients, even as other options such as staples, glues and strips have become available.
Nanofiber yarns are thread-like structures formed by twisting together hundreds of nanofibers, Prof. Verma explains. The way the nanofibers mimicked the collagen fibril sparked the idea in a lab that primarily works on scaffold-based tissue engineering to create thread like structures by twisting nanofibers together using custom-made machinery.

::SPORTS::

NRAI puts off coaching camp approved by SAI

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) has agreed in principle for the coaching camp for core Olympic probables at the Dr.Karni Singh Shooting Range here. However, the camp which was scheduled to start on October 5 for rifle and pistol shooters has been postponed by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).
Since the shooting range was already in operation, and some of the shooters including the Olympic probables were using it, it was a matter of procedural sanction for the camp.