Daily Current Affairs - Civil Services - 20-01-2020

Useful compilation of Civil Services oriented - Daily Current Affairs - Civil Services - 20-01-2020

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• SECTION 1 - TEN NEWS HEADLINES

1. EPF Act - Benefits should extend to contractual employees: SC– The Supreme Court has observed that contractual employees engaged by a company, who draw their wages/salary directly or indirectly from the company, are entitled to the benefit of provident fund under the Employee’s Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Act, 1952.
2. Centre for tougher law against sexual harassment at work – The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Home Minister Amit Shah, which was constituted to strengthen the legal framework to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace, has finalised its recommendations. The recommendations, which include addition of new provisions to the Indian Penal Code, will be put up for comments from the public. The #MeToo movement had significantly impacted debate on this sensitive topic.
3. Reserve Bank of India –The Reserve Bank of India bought 7.5 tonnes of gold towards the end of 2019, making its gold reserves swell to 625.2 tonnes. In 2019, there was debate whether RBI was selling a part of its gold holdings. RBI clarified it was not, and trading in gold was a regular feature.
4. 146 endangered Irrawaddy dolphins sighted in Chilika – Odisha Forest Department officials, wildlife experts and researchers sighted 146 endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in Chilika Lake, which boasts of the highest single lagoon population of the aquatic mammal in the world. The dolphin census was simultaneously taken up in Chilika and off Odisha coast.
5. Trump’s defence team terms impeachment charges ‘brazen’– President Donald Trump’s legal defence team strenuously denied that he had committed impeachable acts, denouncing the charges against him as a “brazen and unlawful” attempt to cost him re-election as House Democrats laid out in meticulous detail their case that he should be removed from office. Trump is embroiled in a controversy over Ukraine issue, where he allegedly pressured the President to investigate Joe Biden’s son’s dealings.
6. Libya summit seeks end to fighting – World leaders made a fresh push for peace in Libya at a summit in Berlin, in a desperate bid to stop the conflict-wracked nation from turning into a “second Syria”. Libya has been in turmoil ever since the NATO forces attacked it in 2011. The then ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi was killed October 2011.
7. Rozgar Sangi – Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel launched an employment mobile app ‘Rozgar Sangi’ to connect employment providing institutions and skilled trained youth. Employment generation is a big political issue in a slowing economy.
8. Harry, Meghan to drop titles, retire as working royals – Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle will no longer be working members of Britain's monarchy and they will pay their own way in life as they embark on an independent future, Buckingham Palace said.
9. Sheikh Hasina says India’s citizenship law is unnecessary – India’s new law to grant citizenship to the minority communities of Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan is not necessary, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said. In a newspaper interview, she said PM Narendra Modi had assured her that the NRC was India’s internal matter and it would not affect her people.Within India, rising pro- and anti-protests on the CAA issue has brought the world’s attention to India, right when the economy is slowing down.
10. Ahead of holiday, China gears up to contain virus outbreak – China will step up efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays. With 17 new cases of the virus having been confirmed, fears have risen that the virus could spread to other countries.Coronaviruses are species of virus belonging to the subfamily Coronavirinae, and are enveloped viruses with a positive-sense single-stranded RNA genome and with a nucleocapsid of helical symmetry. The virus has now spread to Beijing, alarming the authorities.
    
     

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• SECTION 2 - DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

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• 1. CONSTITUTION AND LAW (Prelims, GS Paper 2, Essay paper)

1.1 EPF Act - Benefits should extend to contractual employees: SC

• Context - The Supreme Court has observed that contractual employees engaged by a company, who draw their wages/salary directly or indirectly from the company, are entitled to the benefit of provident fund under the Employee’s Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Act, 1952. 
• Details - A Bench of Justices U.U. Lalit and Indu Malhotra has held that employees who draw wages or salaries directly or indirectly from a company are entitled to provident fund benefits under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Act. The judgment came on the basis of a petition filed by M/s Pawan Hans Limited, a government company which provides helicopter support services to the oil sector for its offshore exploration operations, services in remote and hilly areas, and charter services for the promotion of tourism.
• Pawan Hans Ltd. – The government of India holds 51% shareholding in Pawan Hans Ltd. and the remaining 49% is held by Oil and Natural Gas Company Ltd. 
• Company versus union - The company had filed the petition against its employees’ union, the Aviation Karmachari Sanghatana, which sought uniformity in service conditions among employees. Of a total workforce of 840 employees, the company had engaged 570 employees on regular basis, while 270 employees were engaged on “contractual” basis. The company implemented the PF Trust Regulations only with respect to the regular employees, even though the term “employee” had been defined to include “any person” employed “directly or indirectly” under the PF Trust Regulations.
• Conclusion - The contractual employees have been seeking parity with the regular employees, who are covered under the Pawan Hans Employees Provident Fund Trust Regulations. This will have a large material impact on most firms in India now.

1.2 Centre for tougher law against sexual harassment at work

• Context - The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Home Minister Amit Shah, which was constituted to strengthen the legal framework to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace, has finalised its recommendations. New provisions may be added to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) now. Changes to the existing laws on sexual harassment at the workplace would also be incorporated after the IPC overhaul.
• Background - The GoM was constituted first in October 2018 in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement after many women shared their ordeal on social media. It was reconstituted in July 2019 under Shah. The Women and Child Development Ministry had steered the Sexual Harassment of Women and Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act in 2013, applicable to all.
• Details - The other members are Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani.
• Rebooting of IPC - The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is working on another project to reboot the IPC. Several retired judges, legal luminaries and State governments are being consulted by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D).
• Vishakha Guidelines - The proposed amendments would be largely based on the Vishakha Guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in 1997, on which the 2013 Act was based. It made the employer responsible to prevent or deter acts of sexual harassment at the workplace.

1.3 Awards and Honours – 'cVIGIL' and 'Voter Helpline App' of Election Commission won ‘eGovernance Award of Excellence, 2019' provided by the Computer Society of India (CSI) – a Special Interest Group on e-Governance (CSI SIG e-Gov).

1.4 Appointments – Supreme Court retired judge Justice A. M. Sapre appointed as the chairman of ‘Committee on Road Safety’ formed by Supreme Court.

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• 2.1 ECONOMY (Prelims, GS Paper 3, Essay paper)

2.1 Reserve Bank of India - The Reserve Bank of India brought 7.5 tonnes of gold towards the end of 2019, making its gold reserves swell to 625.2 tonnes.

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• 3. ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY (Prelims, GS Paper 3, Essay paper)

3.1 146 endangered Irrawaddy dolphins sighted in Chilika

1. Happy sighting – Odisha Forest Department officials, wildlife experts and researchers sighted 146 endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in Chilika Lake, which boasts of the highest single lagoon population of the aquatic mammal in the world. The dolphin census was simultaneously taken up in Chilika and off Odisha coast. The Chilika Development Authority (CDA) is elated as the direct sighting of 146 dolphins meant that its population in the lake would stabilise well above 150. According to last year’s census, the Irrawaddy dolphin population in Chilika was 151. 
2. Direct sighting - Confidence stemmed from the fact that dolphins were colonising new areas, which had been freed from encroachments by prawn farming gherries. According to hydrophone monitoring carried out round the year in Chilika, the highest number of Irrawaddy dolphins (20-25) was moving around Rajhans, followed by the Magarmukh and Malatikuda areas.

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• 4. FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Prelims, GS Paper 2, Essay paper)

4.1 Trump’s defence team terms impeachment charges ‘brazen’

• Context - President Donald Trump’s legal defence team denied that he had committed impeachable acts, denouncing the charges against him as a “brazen and unlawful” attempt to cost him reelection as House Democrats laid out in meticulous detail their case that he should be removed from office.
• Details - In the first legal filings for the Senate impeachment trial, the dueling arguments from the White House and the House impeachment managers previewed a politically charged fight over Mr. Trump’s fate, unfolding against the backdrop of the presidential election campaign.
• Corrupt campaign - In a 46-page trial memorandum and a 60-page statement of facts, House impeachment managers asserted that beginning in the spring, Mr. Trump undertook a corrupt campaign to enlist a foreign government to help him win the 2020 election. He did so, Democrats argued, by pressuring Ukraine to publicly announce investigations of his political rivals, withholding as leverage vital military aid and a White House meeting for the country’s President.
• Concealed actions - The President then sought to conceal those actions from Congress, they said, posing “a serious danger to our constitutional checks and balances” by ordering administration officials not to testify or turn over documents requested by a House impeachment inquiry. 
• Broke no laws - The President’s lawyers did not deny any of the core facts underlying the charges, conceding that he withheld $391 million in aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine and asked the country’s President to investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. However, they said Mr. Trump broke no laws and was acting within his powers. They argued that he was not seeking political gain but working to root out corruption in Ukraine.

 4.2 Libya summit seeks end to fighting

• Context - World leaders made a fresh push for peace in Libya at a summit in Berlin, in a desperate bid to stop the conflict-wracked nation from turning into a “second Syria”.
• Details - The Presidents of Russia, Turkey and France joined other global chiefs at the talks hosted by Chancellor Angela Merkel and held under the auspices of the UN. The summit’s main goal is to get foreign powers wielding influence in the region to stop interfering in the war — be it through weapons, troops or financing. Leaders of both warring factions — strongman Khalifa Haftar and the head of Tripoli’s UN-recognised government Fayez al-Sarraj — were also in Berlin for the first such gathering since 2018. But pro-Haftar forces upped the ante ahead of the talks by blocking oil exports at Libya’s key ports, crippling the country’s main income source in protest at Turkey’s decision to send troops to shore up Mr. Sarraj’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).
• Flaring oil crisis - The flaring oil crisis underlined the devastating impact of foreign influence in the conflict, in which Mr. Sarraj’s GNA is backed by Turkey and Qatar while Mr. Haftar has the support of Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The UN hopes all sides will sign up to a plan to refrain from interference, and commit to a truce.

4.3  Britain's Prince Harry and his wife Meghan gave up their royal titles of Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

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• 5. GOVERNMENT SCHEMES (Prelims, GS Paper 2, GS Paper 3)

5.1 Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel launched employment mobile app ‘Rozgar Sangi’ to connect employment providing institutions and skilled trained youth.

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• 6. MISCELLANEOUS (Prelims, Various GS Papers)

6.1 Defence - National Youth Festival 2020

Appointments – Lieutenant General S. K. Saini appointed as new Vice Chief of Army Staff.

Test-fires – India successfully test-fired the 3,500 km strike range nuclear-capable K-4 submarine-launched ballistic missile off the coast of Andhra Pradesh.

6.2 Sports –

1. ‘Fit India Cyclothon' organised at Panaji, Goa as part of Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry’s 'Fit India Mission'.
2. Ashleigh Barty of Australiaa won women’s singles title at ATP-WTA Adelaide International tennis.
3. Union Minister Arjun Munda became President of suspended Archery Association of India (AAI).
4. Tata Mumbai Marathon organised at Mumbai, Maharashtra. Derara Hurisa of Ethiopia won men’s race in 2:08:09, women’s race won by Ethiopia’s Amane Beriso in 2:24:51.
5. Rome Ranking Series wrestling tournament – Four day event conclude on January 18. Vinesh Phogat (won gold in women’s 53 kg), Anshu Malik (silver in women’s 57 kg), Bajrang Punia (gold in men’s 65kg freestyle), Ravi Kumar Dahiya (gold in men’s 61kg freestyle), Gurpreet Singh (gold in men’s 82kg Greco-roman), Sunil Kumar (silver in men’s 97kg Greco-roman) and Sajan Bhanwal (bronze in men’s 77kg Greco-roman). 

6.3  Films, Culture and Arts – Appointments –

1. Former bureaucrat Nripendra Mishra appointed chairperson of the executive council of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML).
2. Classical singer Sunanda Patnaik passed away at the age of 85 in Kolkata. She was singer of Gwalior gharana. She won Sangeet Natak Academy Award of year 2012.

6.4  Accidents and Natural Disasters – Tropical Cyclone Tino batterd Fiji.

6.5  World Records – Khagendra Thapa Magar, who measured 67.08 cm and was verified by the Guinness World Records as ‘world’s shortest man who could walk’, died at 27 in Pokhara, Nepal.

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• 7. POLITY (Prelims, GS Paper 2)

7.1  Sheikh Hasina says India’s citizenship law is unnecessary

1. India’s new law to grant citizenship to the minority communities of Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan is not necessary, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said. She claimed PM Narendra Modi had assured her that the NRC was India’s internal matter and it would not affect her people. The statement is the first by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh since the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill was cleared by the Rajya Sabha on December 11, 2019. During the parliamentary debates, Home Minister Amit Shah referred to the persecution of the minority communities, mainly Hindus, in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and argued that these groups should get Indian citizenship.India has to tread cautiously with Bangladesh, given the geopolitical reality of the region (China courting that nation).

7.2  Events - Conference of CPA (Commonwealth Parliamentary Association) India Region being held at UP Assembly in Lucknow: January 16-19

7.3 Obituary – Ashwini Kumar Chopra, editor of Hindi newspaper Punjab Kesari and BJP MP from Karnal in Haryana in 2014-19, dies at 63 in Gurugram 

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• 8. SOCIAL ISSUES (Prelims, GS Paper 1, GS Paper )

8.1 Ahead of holiday, China gears up to contain virus outbreak –

1. China will step up efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays. With 17 new cases of the virus having been confirmed, fears have risen that the virus could spread to other countries. Three of the new patients are seriously ill.
2. The National Health Commission said that departments should work together for preventative measures. Many of China’s 1.4 billion people will travel domestically and abroad during the Lunar New Year break that begins next week, raising concerns about the virus spreading.
3. Wuhan’s health authority earlier confirmed 17 more cases of the virus in the city, bringing the total number of known patients there to 62.
4. It was reported on 20th Jan that the virus had reached capital Beijing. 

• 2019-nCoV is a new strain of coronavirus that has not previously been identified in humans
• Coronaviruses are a broad family of viruses, but only six (the new one is seventh) are known to infect people
• Scientists believe an animal source is "the most likely primary source" but that some human-to-human transmission has occurred
• Signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties

8.2 National Immunization Day observed on January 19. Nationwide programme to administer polio drops to children organized.

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• 9. SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (Prelims, GS Paper 3)

9.1 Students launched satellites using helium balloon

• Context - Twelve payloads consisting of satellites were launched using a helium-filled balloon by school students during the National Space Challenge-2020 (NNSC), organised by the National Design and Research Forum (NDRF) from the launchpad at the Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore. The balloon is expected to reach an altitude of 20 kilometres.
• National Payload Design Contest - To commemorate the Golden Jubilee of NDRF and the centenary year of Institution of Engineers (India), a national payload design contest for school students was announced on August 30, 2019. The contest was open to students from classes 8 to 12. Student teams of a maximum of 5 members each were encouraged to propose innovative payload ideas with the condition that it should not exceed 3.8 cubic cm in size and 50 grams in weight. Teams from about 250 schools across India participated in the initial round of the contest and the NDRF selected 12 teams from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Goa for the launch.

9.2 Events - Science Film Festival of India (SCI-FFI 2020) held at Panaji (Goa) from January 15 to 18.

9.3 Awards and Honours - Merck Young Scientist Award 2019 in Chemical Sciences awarded to Dr Sakya Singha Sen from National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune.

10. Facts, Charts and Rankings (Prelims)

10.1 Ranking – Ranking –Deloitte’s 2020 Global Automotive Consumer Study

• About 64% of Gen Z/Gen Y of India who already have a vehicle, are now questioning need to own a vehicle as opposed to 51% in 2019.

• Download pdf of the report from here –

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/manufacturing/us-2020-global-automotive-consumer-study-global-focus-countries.pdf

10.2 Daily dose of FIVE Facts -

1. India conducted night trial of Agni II missile on November 16, 2019. The missile has a range of 2000 km.
2. Government of India started the Visa-on-Arrival facility to nationals of United Arab Emirates from November 16, 2019.  
3. World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims was observed on November 17, 2019.
4. Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has begun its return journey from Asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometres from Earth.
5. Kiran Mazumdar - Shaw is the CMD of Biocon.

10.3 Chart of the day – A large part of World Economy depends on Mother Nature

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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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