Daily Current Affairs - Civil Services - 09-01-2020

Useful compilation of Civil Services oriented - Daily Current Affairs - Civil Services - 09-01-2020

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• SECTION 1 - TEN NEWS HEADLINES

1. Trump backs away from further conflict after Iran hits U.S. troops - U.S. President Donald Trump said that Iranian missile strikes on bases in Iraq had not harmed any U.S. troops stationed there and damage was minimal, an outcome he said showed Tehran wanted to prevent an escalation into conflict. Iranian forces fired missiles at military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq, saying it was in retaliation for the killing in a U.S. drone strike of powerful Iranian commander QassemSoleimani on January 3.
2. Ukrainian plane crash in Iran kills all 176 on board; no hint of foul play - A Ukrainian airliner crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran killing all 176 on board, mainly Iranians and Canadians. Search and rescue teams were combing through the smoking wreckage of the Boeing 737 flight from Tehran to Kiev but officials said there was no hope of finding anyone alive. The vast majority of the passengers on the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) flight were non-Ukrainians, including 82 Iranians and 63 Canadians.
3. DU students march against JNU violence - Thousands of Delhi University students took to the streets in support of JNU students and teachers, who were brutally beaten by masked attackers, and also demanded the scrapping of the CAA-NRC-NPR regime. As demands for bringing the masked perpetrators to justice continued, the stand-off in JNU is expected to continue with the Central government showing no indication of removing Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar from the post as demanded by students.
4. Bihar shelter home girls alive: CBI to apex court - Thirty-five girls believed to have been murdered in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sexual abuse case had been found to be alive, the CBI told the Supreme Court. Allegations about the ‘murders’ had first surfaced last year in the statements of girls rescued from the shelter home run by kingpin Brajesh Thakur in Bihar. The CBI had also found that the names of these had mysteriously disappeared from the balikagarh (girls’ home). In March 2019, the agency told the court that 35 girls with identical or similar names had indeed lived in the shelter home at one point of time or the other. Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal, for the CBI, said the agency had tracked each and every one of the 35 girls.
5. Cabinet nod for FDI in coal mining - The Union Cabinet approved an ordinance to amend two laws to ease mining rules, enabling foreign direct investment in coal mining. At a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister NarendraModi, the ordinance to amend the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, and Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015, was approved, Parliamentary Affairs and Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi said at a press conference.
6. Re-grassing is mandatory after mining, rules SC - The Supreme Court ordered that mining lease holders should be held responsible for re-grassing mined areas, so that biodiversity gets a second chance in these scarred landscapes. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde ordered the government to include re-grassing of mined areas as a mandatory condition in every mining lease, environmental clearance and mining plan across the country. Environmental issues caused by mining include erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water by chemicals from mining processes, and the effects persist for years, the court was told.
7. ‘2019 was 7th warmest year since 1901’ - Though the rise in average temperatures over India in 2019 was the lowest since 2016, according to a report from the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the year that went by was the 7th warmest, since record-keeping commenced in 1901. During the year, the annual mean surface air temperature was +0.36C above average (defined as the mean temperature from 1980-2010). The highest warming observed over India was during 2016, 0.71C above the mean. While 2018 was the 6th warmest in India with 0.41C above the mean, 2017 was 0.55C warmer. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the rise in global mean surface temperature during 2019 (January to October) was +1.10C.
8. We will end U.S. presence in West Asia : Iran-Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the ballistic missiles strikes Iran launched at U.S. troops in Iraq earlier in the day was a “slap in the face” of America.Iran launched over a dozen missiles at al-Asad and Erbil military bases in Iraq that house U.S. troops in retaliation for the killing of top Iranian General QassemSoleimani by the U.S.The attack emboldened Iran’s allies in Iraq, who ramped up threats to avenge top Iraqi paramilitary commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was killed with Soleimani.
9. 10,000 camels to be killed in drought-hit Australia - Snipers took to helicopters in Australia to begin a mass cull of up to 10,000 camels as drought drives big herds of the feral animals to search for water closer to remote towns, endangering indigenous communities. It comes after Australia experienced its hottest and driest year on record in 2019, with the severe drought causing some towns to run out of water and fuelling deadly bushfires that have devastated the country's southeast.The five-day cull in the AnanguPitjantjatjaraYankunytjatjara (APY) Lands — home to about 2,300 indigenous people in the north-west of South Australia — is the first in the State.
10. Mutual funds’ asset base slips 2% in Dec. -The mutual fund industry saw its asset base slip by 2% to Rs. 26.54 lakh crore at December-end, primarily on account of outflow from debt-oriented schemes, including liquid funds. The 44-player industry logged all-time high assets under management (AUM) of Rs. 27.04 lakh crore at November-end, as compared to Rs. 26.54 lakh crore by the end of last month, representing a decline of 2%, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi). Mutual fund houses witnessed an overall outflow of Rs. 61,810 crore last month as compared to an inflow of Rs. 54,419 crore in November.

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• SECTION 2 - DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

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• 1. CONSTITUTION AND LAW

Re-grassing is mandatory after mining, rules SC.

1. The Supreme Court ordered that mining lease holders should be held responsible for re-grassing mined areas, so that biodiversity gets a second chance in these scarred landscapes.
2. A Bench led by Chief Justice of India S. A. Bobde, hearing a case of environmental violations by Odisha miners, ordered the government to include re-grassing of mined areas as a mandatory condition in every mining lease, environmental clearance and mining plan across the country.
3. Environmental issues caused by mining include erosion, formation of sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, and contamination of soil, groundwater and surface water by chemicals from mining processes, and the effects persist for years, the court was told.
4. The government was ordered to file an action taken report in three weeks. The Bench also directed the government to devise methods to ensure compliance by mining lease holders. The cost of re-grassing the mined area and wherever damage was caused would be entirely borne by the licence holder.
5. The mandatory re-grassing would be in addition to the other conditions imposed on the licence holder in the mine closure plan, to restore biodiversity.
6. It is a significant order that could help increase availability of cattle fodder which will help India meet the rising demand for milk. Pasture-land has been shrinking in the country – from 14,810 hectare in 1966 to 10,258 hectares in 2017.
7. Earlier, by its 2017 judgement in the Odisha mining case, the top court had imposed a fine of Rs. 19,174.83 crores on mining leaseholders for environmental and forest clearance violations. It had also directed the Centre to revisit the ‘National Mineral Policy, 2008’ as it was then almost a decade old.

“We see no reason why the area which has been mined should not be restored so that grass and other vegetation, including trees, can grow in the mining area for the benefits of animals. We are of the view that this can be achieved by directing the Union of India to impose a condition in the mining lease and a similar condition in the environmental clearance and the mining plan to the effect that the mining lease holders shall, after ceasing mining operations, undertake re-grassing the mining area and any other area which may have been disturbed due to their mining activities and restore the land to a condition which is fit for growth of fodder, flora, fauna, etc.”
- the Supreme Court held in a four-page interim order in the case Common Cause v Union of India 

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• 2. ECONOMY

GDP growth rate of India for 2019-20 estimated at 5%; was 6.8% in 2018-19 - Government of India.

Per-capita monthly income of India up by 6.8% to Rs. 11,254 during 2019-20 - Government of India.

Second National GST Conference held in New Delhi for streamlining GST system.

Export Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) raised $1 billion through an overseas bond sale to execute regular activities.

Group of Ministers (GoM) led by Home Minister Amit Shah approved Expression of Interest (EoI) as well as the share purchase agreement for Air India's privatisation.

Apparel Export Promotion Council of India (AEPC) appointed. A. Sakthivel appointed as its new Chairman.

CCEA approves strategic disinvestment of equity shareholding of 4 central PSUs (MMTC, NMDC, MECON, BHEL) and 2 Odisha government PSUs (IPICOL and OMC) in NeelachalIspat Nigam (NINL).

CCEA approved 1656 km North East Gas Grid project of Indradhanush Gas Grid having an estimated cost of Rs. 9265 crore

Appointment - M. Nagaraj appointed CMD of PSU Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO).

SBI launched 'residential builder finance with buyer guarantee' (RBBG) scheme aimed at improve homebuyers' confidence.

936km long TurkStream line for transporting natural gas from Russia to Turkey inaugurated.
 

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• 3. ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

India Meteorological Department (IMD) Report Jan. 2020 - Extreme weather in India claimed over 1,500 lives in 2019, 7th warmest year since 1901.

1. Though the rise in average temperatures over India in 2019 was the lowest since 2016
2. 2019 was the 7th warmest, since record-keeping commenced in 1901
3. 11 out of 15 warmest years were during the recent past fifteen years (2005-2019)
4. During the year, the annual mean surface air temperature was +0.36C above average (defined as the mean temperature from 1980-2010).
5. The five warmest years on record are 2016 (+0.71C), 2009 (+0.541C), 2017 (+0.539C), 2010 (+0.54 C) and 2015 (+0.42C).
6. The main contributors to the warming this year were temperatures in the pre-monsoon (March-May) and monsoon seasons (June-September).
7. The trend of temperature is not declining trend. The only pattern is that global warming is raising average temperatures globally, as well as in India.
8. The rise in global mean surface temperature during 2019 (January to October) was +1.10C.
9. 2019 was also characterised by high rainfall, which was 9% over what is normal for a year. This was due to the monsoon rains (June-September) being 10% over its normal, and the northeast monsoon rains being 9% over its normal.
10. 1,562 people died due to extreme weather events -- avalanches floods, heat wave and thunderstorms.
11. Bihar was the most adversely affected state during the year, which reported about 650 lives due to heavy rain and floods, heat wave, lightning, thunderstorm and hailstorm.
12. Year saw eight cyclonic storms formed over the Indian seas. Arabian Sea contributed five out of these eight cyclones against the normal of one per year, which equals the previous record of 1902 for the highest frequency of cyclones over the Arabian Sea.

Climatic Condition	Number of Deaths
Heavy rain and flood-related incidents	850
Heatwave conditions	350
Lightning and thunderstorm	380

 

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• 4. FOREIGN AFFAIRS

US-Iran Relations – 

Iran designates US armed forces and Pentagon as ‘terrorist entities’
Iran: Killed 80 US Terrorist. Trump: All safe

India-Pakistan Relations - Parliament of Pakistan (National Assembly and Senate) passed bills to give extension to Army chief GeneralQamarJavedBajwa for three years.

Europe - Pedro Sanchez of Spanish Socialist Workers' Party took oath as Prime Minister of Spain.

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• 5. GOVERNMENT SCHEMES

No news in this section today.

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• 6. MISCELLANEOUS

Sports - Ladakh won 7th National Ice Hockey Championship Women trophyin Leh

Accidents and Natural Disasters - Kiev bound Ukraine International Airlines aircraft crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran killing all 176 people.

Arts and Literature - 
Selfie museum called Selfie Kingdom (TSK) inaugurated in Dubai.
JasbinderBilan won 2019 Costa Children's Award in UK for ‘Asha and the Spirit Bird'. 

Obituary – 
Acclaimed painter and sculptor Akbar Padamsee dies in Coimbatore at 91. He has also won Padma Bhushan and Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship earlier.

Former commander of the Army's Western Command Lt. Gen P N Hoon passed away in Chandigarh at the age of 90. 

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• 7. POLITY

Appointments – harkhand MuktiMorcha (JMM) MLA RabindraNathMahato unanimously elected as the Speaker of the Jharkhand Assembly.

Cabinet Approvals - Cabinet approved conferring institution of national importance (INI) status to the cluster of Ayurveda institutions at Gujarat Ayurved University campus, Jamnagar.

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• 8. SOCIAL ISSUES

Awards and Honours – Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar confered the first 'Antarrashtriya Yoga Diwas' awards to 30 media organizations.

Inauguration - Facial recognition technology installed at Bengaluru, Manmad and Bhusawal stations as test cases to identify and nab criminals.

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• 9. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

NASA discovered an Earth-sized world within the habitable range of its star.

1. The planet hunter satellite of NASA - Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered an Earth-sized world within the habitable range of its star, which could allow the presence of liquid water.
2. Another first for the TESS is its discovery of a world orbiting two stars.
3. The potentially habitable planet, named "TOI 700 d," is relatively close to Earth - only 100 light years away.
4. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth, is just over four light years away.
5. The discovery was later confirmed by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
6. A few other similar planets have been discovered before, notably by the Kepler Space Telescope, but this is the first discovered by TESS, which was launched in 2018.
7. TESS stabilizes on one area of the sky to detect whether objects - planets - pass in front of stars, which causes a temporary drop in the stars' luminosity. This allows TESS to infer the presence of a planet, its size and orbit.
8. Star TOI 700 is small, about 40 percent of our Sun's size and only about half as hot.
9. TESS discovered three planets in orbit, named TOI 700 b, c and d. Only "d" is in the so-called 'Goldilocks zone', not too far from and not too close to the star, where the temperature could allow the presence of liquid water.
10. TOI 700 d is about 20 percent larger than Earth and orbits its star in 37 days. It receives 86 percent of the energy that Earth receives from the Sun.
11. The three simulations of the planet –

1. In one simulation, the planet is covered in oceans with a "dense, carbon-dioxide-dominated atmosphere similar to what scientists suspect surrounded Mars when it was young."The planet is tidally locked to TOI 700, meaning that one side always faces the star, in the same way that Earthlings never see the "dark side" of the Moon.
2. This synchronous rotation meant that, in another model, one side of the planet was constantly covered in clouds.
3. A third simulation predicted an all-land world, where winds flow from the planet's dark side to its light one.

107th Edition of Indian Science Congress (ISC) started in Bengaluru.

1. Introduction - The 107th edition of ISC took place from January  3rd to 7th  2019 at University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK Campus in Bengaluru. Theme of Indian Science Congress 2020 was ‘Science and Technology: Rural Development’. PM N. Modi who was on a two-day visit to Karnataka addressed and inaugurated the event on January 3.
2. Objective - The 107th Indian Science Congress aims to bridge the gap between farmer and tech-developers. Many of the innovations have helped in enhancing market access, crop productivity and diversifying rural livelihood profiles. However, the gap between the farmers and innovators has resulted in only partial exploration of the benefits.
3. Significance - The 107th Indian Science Congress will provide the desired platform to the farmers who introduced innovations in agriculture.

Key Features –  

1. Over 15,000 delegates, including scientists from India and 24 other countries attended the ISC.
2. The Indian Science, Technology and Engineering Facilities Map (I-STEM) website was launched to help researchers from all over India to gain access to all equipment from any university, college or laboratory.
3. 9th Women Science Congress held where women scientists and researchers batted for some of the issues that to make the work environment more conducive for women like better childcare facilities, safer laboratories and more funding for research projects.
4. Importance of communication and outreach programmes was on the agenda on the third day.
5. Pride of India-Science Expo-2020 held during the event.
6. Farmers Science Congress held during the event.
7. Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) is a premier scientific organisation of India with headquarters at Kolkata, West Bengal.
8. The association started in the year 1914 in Kolkata and it meets annually in the first week of January. It has a membership of more than 30,000 scientists.

Facts, Charts and Rankings

HENLEY PASSPORT INDEX

1. Japan has topped Henley Passport Index while Afghanistan is last (107th).
2. Japanese citizens can enter 191 countries while Afghan nationals can only travel to 26 countries without a visa.
3. A country’s ranking is based on the number of countries its holders can enter without prior visa approval.
4. Visit the link for complete ranking – 

https://www.henleypassportindex.com/assets/2020/Q1/HENLEY%20PASSPORT%20INDEX%202020%20Q1%20INFOGRAPHIC%20GLOBAL%20RANKING_191219.pdf

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• SECTION 3 - MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions)

Solve the online quiz given, right now. Check scores, and relative performance!

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