Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 02 September 2019

::NATIONAL::

Centre assures that NRC-excluded will not detained or excluded from enjoying benefits

People left off the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are not “stateless” and will continue to enjoy all the rights as before till they exhaust all the remedies available under the law, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Sunday.
It said exclusion from the NRC has no implication on the rights of an individual resident in Assam and that they will not be deprived of any rights or entitlements which they have enjoyed before.
The NRC has been prepared to identify Indian citizens living in Assam since March 24, 1971 or before.
Out of 3.3 crore applicants, over 19 lakh people were excluded from the final NRC published on Saturday.“Exclusion from the NRC has no implication on the rights of an individual resident in Assam.
“For those who are not in the final list will not be detained and will continue to enjoy all the rights as before till they have exhausted all the remedies available under the law,” MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.
“Through the District Legal Service Authorities, the government has provisioned to extend legal aid to the needy. The State of Assam has assured provision of free legal assistance to any person excluded from the list and who is unable to afford such legal assistance. This is to enable people, especially the disadvantaged sections, to have access to the best possible legal assistance,” he stated.
He said that the updating of NRC is a “statutory, transparent, legal process” mandated by the Supreme Court.

UIDAI to issue Aadhar cards to NRI’s soon

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has said its systems will be ready within three months to offer the facility of issuing Aadhaar cards to NRIs with Indian passports without the mandatory 180 days waiting period, as announced in the Budget.
UIDAI systems are being readied for the facility and necessary legal measures are to be notified soon, UIDAI CEO Ajay BhushanPandey told PTI.UIDAI systems will be tuned to offer the facility within three month’s time, he said.
In her Budget speech on July 5, Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman had said: “I propose to consider issuing Aadhaar card for Non-Resident Indians with Indian Passports after their arrival in India, without waiting for 180 days.”
Meanwhile, the UIDAI — which has made operational two more AadhaarSevaKendras (ASKs) in Bhopal and Chennai after the fourth centre in Hisar was launched recently — is confident of meeting its target of opening 114 such centres across the country in the coming months.
The UIDAI is setting up AadhaarSevaKendras — similar to the concept of Passport SevaKendras — covering 53 cities across the country at an estimated project cost of ₹300-400 crore.
These Aadhaar centres, meant to facilitate enrolment, updation and other activities, are UIDAI’s own and operate in addition to thousands of centres currently being run by banks and post offices, as well as in government premises (offering similar Aadhaar services)

::ECONOMY::

Finance ministry assures zero job loss post bank merger

Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman has categorically said the proposed merger of banks would not lead to any job losses.
Talking to reporters in Chennai today, she said not even a single employee would be removed following the amalgamation. She dismissed reports of job loss due to the merger, saying it is absolutely ill-informed.
NirmalaSitharaman on Friday unveiled a mega plan to merge ten public sector banks into four. It is aimed at creating stronger lenders of global scale. However, some of the bank unions are agitated fearing loss of jobs.

Ms Sitharaman sought to reassure the unions, saying it is not an anti-staff move.

Asked whether there was any slowdown in the economy, the Finance Minister said the government was responding to it sectorally, based on their requirement.
She said the government responds to every sector of the Indian economy when it approaches for solutions. To a query about the automobile industry seeking a GST rate cut, NirmalaSitharaman said it should be decided by the GST Council.

Talks on roadmap on growth of MSME’s held

Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises and Road Transport & Highways NitinGadkari said today, the MSME and Khadi Village Industries Commission (KVIC) together contributes 29th pc to country’s growth and 40 pc to the export. They have also jointly given employment to around 11 crore people.
He added that it is their mission to generate another 5 crore new jobs and policies are being framed accordingly. He was delivering talk on “Roadmap for Growth of MSME’s” held during the business summit titled “Globalizing Brand ‘Khadi’ - the Pride of India” in Mumbai.
The Minister also spoke about promoting Khadi, mechanising its production to match other cloth productions, and thus generating more employment for poor people through it.
The Minister of State for MSME Pratap Chandra Sarangi spoke about ways in which Khadi production can be increased thus meeting the target of generating Rs. 10,000 croreturnover in the coming five years.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Pakistan raises Kashmir issue at South Asian speaker’s summit

India today strongly hit out at Pakistan after Islamabad tried to raise the Kashmir issue during the fourth South Asian Speakers’ summit which began in the Maldives capital, Male.
Deputy Chairman of RajyaSabha, Harivansh strongly objected to raising of the internal matter of India and rejected the politicisation of the forum, by raising issues which are extraneous to the theme of the summit.
Calling Pakistan to end cross-border terrorism and all kinds of state support to the same, he said this needs to be done in the interest of regional peace and stability.
He asserted India’s stand that terrorism is the biggest threat to the entire humanity in the world today, adding that a country that perpetrated a genocide of its own people has no moral right to speak.
The two-day Speakers' meeting being hosted at the Majlis building in Malé, focuses on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. India is being represented by LokSabha Speaker Om Birla and other senior officials.
The agenda of Summit includes panel discussions on equal pay, youth employment, nutrition, food security and delivering the Paris agreement on climate change. The summit is due to end with the adoption of the Malé Declaration, with a summary of conclusions and recommendations.

Russia to train Indian astronauts for Gaganyaan

India and Russia are stepping up cooperation in the space sector with Moscow extending help in 4-5 critical areas of India’s ambitious manned mission to space, Gaganyaan.
This includes training of Indian astronauts at Russian facilities beginning later this year, sources at the Indian Embassy in Moscow said.
“There are certain critical aspects India and Russia are cooperating. In some instances we are taking their help because they have huge experience in human space flight. There are some cases where Russia is helping us adapt their technology to Indian requirements. So it will essentially be an Indian spacecraft and this of course reduces time and the margins of error,” an embassy source told.
Observing that the difference between space launches and human launches is that “space launches tend to aim for the optimum, human launches aim for perfection,” the source added that India sees Russia as a “reliable, long-term partner” with great experience in human space flight over the last 50 years.
“A special ISRO unit will be established in the embassy in Moscow to facilitate increased cooperation between India and Russia in view of the Gaganyaan programme,” the source added.
ISRO Chairman Dr. K. Sivan had stated earlier that they began work on the manned mission in 2004 and many of the critical technologies required have already been validated through various tests.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Filter based kits developed for Tb diagnosis and drug resistance testing

To address the TB diagnostic challenges, a multi-institutional team has developed three cost-effective kits that improve the sensitivity of smear microscopy, enable transport of sputum samples at ambient temperature without using bio-safe containers, and extract DNA for diagnosing drug-resistant TB.
The three kits are — TB Detect, TB Concentration & Transport, and TB DNA Extraction.
The TB Detect kit is for diagnosis using LED fluorescence microscopy, while the TB Concentration &Transport, and the TB DNA Extraction kits together are for detection of drug-resistance.
The TB Detect kit helps increase the positivity of LED fluorescence microscopy by about 5%, while the TB DNA Extraction kit allows the detection of drug-resistant TB bacteria with a high level of sensitivity.
The liquefied sputum containing the TB bacteria then comes in contact with a highly porous, plastic membrane filter underlain by multiple fibrous pads kept at the base of the filter device. While the sputum gets sucked by the fibrous pad due to capillary forces, the bacteria remain on the membrane.
Diagnosis of drug-resistant TB is carried out only at central laboratories, and so samples have to be transported. The TB concentration & transport kit now makes it easy and simple to transport samples transport it in sealed covers at ambient temperature making containment at low temperature redundant. This is because the bacteria are killed using a disinfectant.
The kit for TB diagnosis was tested at the TB Hospital, Ambala and the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases (NITRD), Delhi using 1,190 samples. The kit for diagnosing drug-resistance was tested on 148 samples at NITRD and THSTI.

::SPORTS::

Yashaswini wins gold at ISSF worldcup

Young shooter Yashaswini Singh Deswal won gold in the women's 10meter Air Pistol event at the ISSF World Cup at in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil last night. With the win, she has also secured an Olympic quota for India.
This is India's ninth quota in shooting for 2020 Tokyo Games. World no.1 OlenaKostevych of Ukraine claimed the silver, while Serbia's JasminaMilavonovic bagged the bronze.