Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 08 November 2019

::NATIONAL::

Principal secretary holds meeting on cyclone bulbul with affecting states

The Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Dr. P. K. Mishra, held a high-level meeting with the Chief Secretaries and representatives of Odisha, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar Islands on Thursday to review their preparedness to deal with the situation arising out of cyclonic storm Bulbul.
Dr Mishra advised officials to take all possible measures to ensure that there is no human casualty, and loss to property is minimised. He also assured of all necessary Central assistance.
The Director General of India Meteorological Department gave a detailed forecast on cyclone Bulbul. He informed that coastal Odisha is likely to witness a wind speed of 70 to 80 kilometres per hour gusting upto 90 kilometres per hour tomorrow accompanied by heavy to very heavy rain.
Similar situation is likely to prevail in coastal West Bengal on Saturday. He said sea conditions will be very rough and advised fishing operation to be completely suspended.
The Chief Secretaries informed about precautionary measures taken in the coastal regions and said that they are monitoring the situation in the districts round-the-clock. Fishermen have been advised not to venture into the sea and those in the sea have been advised to return.
The Director General of National Disaster Response Force informed that NDRF teams are fully prepared. The Indian Coast Guard is also on .

Indian justice report submits worrying facts

Maharashtra topped the list of India's first-ever ranking of states on justice delivery among the 18 large and mid-sized states.
Maharashtra is followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu, while among the small states Goa topped the list followed by Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, according to the India Justice Report (IJR) prepared by Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Daksh, TISS-Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
The report stated that vacancy was an issue across the pillars of the police, prisons, and the judiciary, with only only about half the states having made the effort to reduce these over a five-year period.
The report said that by 2017, women are also poorly represented in these pillars with only seven per cent representation in Police, 10 per cent as prisons staff on 2016 and about 26.5 per cent of all judges in the High Court and subordinate courts (2017-18).
It also pointed out that the prisons in the country were over occupied at 114 per cent, where 68 per cent are undertrials awaiting investigation, inquiry or trial.
It also highlighted that over the period of five years, Maharashtra and West Bengal showed the greatest intention to improve their capacities, followed by Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab, while among the small states Goa, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh topped the table.
The report also pointed out that there was a very poor representation of women in both police and judiciary. States do not even meet the minium standard of 33 per cent while Chandigarh has the best representation of women in police at 18 per cent.

::ECONOMY::

Govt. plans to open up national procurement portal to private players

The government plans to open up the national online procurement portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) to government contractors and private entities but only for bulk buying.
Officials said the government plans to expand the mandate of the GeM to include these two categories. Currently, GeM allows only government departments and public sector units to buy from the portal.
At present, the National Public Procurement Portal is Section 8 Company registered under the Companies Act, 2013, for providing procurement of goods & services required by Central & State Government organizations.
The marketplace is also working on an online seller and buyer rating mechanism which will allow sellers to avail working capital loans where the cost of capital is linked to the performance and rating of sellers.
More than 3,000 startups are already registered on GeM and they have received orders amounting to Rs 522 crore till date. An official said the marketplace also working with the rural development ministry, state government emporia and development commission, Handicrafts, to on board self-help groups and artisan clusters on the platform, he said.

Govt.might impose anti subsidy duty on copper wire imports from four nations

India may impose anti-subsidy duty for a period of five years on copper wire rods from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam after concluding a probe that these imports have impacted domestic players.

The commerce ministry's investigating arm Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) in September last year started a probe into an alleged subsidisation of exports of 'continuous cast copper wire rods' by these four countries.
In the probe, the DGTR has concluded that the products have been exported to India from these countries at subsidised prices.
The petitioners had alleged that the producers/exporters of the goods in these countries have benefitted from the "actionable subsidies" provided at various levels by the governments of these countries.
The period of investigation was 2017-18 (12 months). It also covered the data of 2014-17.
Countervailing or anti-subsidy duty is a country-specific duty which is imposed to safeguard domestic industry against unfair trade subsidies provided by the local governments of the exporting nations.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Bangladesh to deport more than 10000 foreigners without valid documents

Government of Bangladesh will deport around 11,000 foreigners staying in the country without valid documents.
The announcement was made today in Dhaka by the Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM MozammelHaque following a meeting of the cabinet committee on law and order.
He said that intelligence agencies have identified such people but they don't have money to return to their respective countries.
He said that issue becomes complicated as some of the countries whose nationals have overstayed in Bangladesh don't have their embassies in the country and some others are not serious in taking them back.
MozammelHaque said that government will allocate money to send them back to their respective countries.
During the briefing Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that these foreign nationals enter Bangladesh on various grounds but overstay even after expiry of their visas.
He also asked the house owners not to rent out their houses to foreign nationals without confirmation of their genuine addresses.

British PM promises to end parliamentary paralysis over Brexit soon

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson today said if he wins next month's general election, he would end the paralysis in Parliament over Brexit and take the UK out of the European Union in January.
He met Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, marking the official start of the election period in the run-up to the December 12th poll.
Today's dissolution ended the shortest parliamentary session since 1948, with the Commons having met for only 19 days since the state opening on October 14.
While the election has already been approved by the MPs, the Queen still has to sign a royal proclamation confirming the end of the last Parliament.
The 28-member EU has agreed to extend the Brexit deadline until 31st January next year.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Asian conference on Emergency medicines held in New Delhi

The 10th Asian Conference of Emergency Medicine (ACEM) was inaugurated by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu in New Delhi. The conference will be held from 7-10 November 2019. This is the first time that the biennial conference is being held in India.
The conference intends to aim at lectures, discussions and talks on affordable emergency care for all sections of the society, bridging gaps in healthcare and creating a positive impact on society.
Over 2000 emergency medicine experts from over 32 distinct nations are participating in the conference. Eight keynote speakers, including a specialist in emergency and injury or trauma-care from the World Health Organization (WHO) will also speak at ACEM 2019.
It is organized by Asian Society for Emergency Medicine (ASEM) and Society for Emergency Medicine India (SEMI) in support of other organizations to build strategies for emergency care across Asia.
There is a also need to develop programs and manuals to train citizens in emergency first aid procedures like Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). This could help in saving a life while waiting for emergency services.
Emergency Medicine experts must also collaborate with government in developing standardized treatment manuals for all hospitals dealing with emergency and trauma cases in the country.
The Government of India has made it mandatory for all medical college hospitals to have full-fledged Emergency Departments by 2022 with an aim to improve trauma care.

::SPORTS::

Rohit Sharma becomes first Indian to play 100 T20s

Stand-in skipper Rohit Sharma today became the first Indian man and second in world cricket to complete 100 T-20 Internationals.
He reached the milestone when he led the team in the second match against Bangladesh at the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium. Shoaib Malik with 111 games from Pakistan is the only player to have played more than 100 T20 Internationals.
Rohit is currently the top-scorer in this format with 2452 runs with regular skipper ViratKohli second in the list with an aggregate of 2450 runs. Rohit has scored the runs at a strike-rate of 136.67 with four hundreds and 17 half-centuries.