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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 26 October 2020

::NATIONAL::

Plea in supreme court challenging validity of minority religions

A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court, seeking a transfer of all pending petitions before various high courts challenging the validity of the Centre's 26-year-old notification declaring five communities -- Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsees -- as minorities.
"Denial of minority rights to real minorities and arbitrary and irrational disbursement of minority benefits to majority infringes upon the fundamental right to the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth," the plea said.
In his petition, the petitioner said Hindus, who are a majority community according to national data, are a minority in several north-eastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir.
The definition of "minority", according to Article 29-30 of the Constitution, has left leakages in the hands of the State, which shall be misused and are being misused for political benefits, the petition said, adding that the minority status be granted to Hindus in states where the number of the community members has decreased.
The plea has sought the minority status for Hindus in six states and two Union territories, where the number of the community members has fallen according to census 2011.
"Their minority rights are being siphoned off illegally and arbitrarily to the majority population because neither the Centre nor the state governments have notified Hindus as a 'minority' under the National Commission for Minorities Act. Therefore, Hindus are being deprived of their basic rights," the plea has said.

CVC asks government organisations to bring in systemic improvements

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked all government organisations to identify and implement systemic improvements, an official statement said on Sunday. This is among the initiatives planned by the CVC during the vigilance awareness week that begins from Tuesday.
The Commission has also desired that all organisations focus on internal (housekeeping) activities which are to be taken up in campaign mode as part of the vigilance awareness week.
This includes improvement of internal processes, time bound disposal of work and systemic improvements leveraging technology, the statement issued by the personnel ministry said.

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::ECONOMY::

SEBI chairman sees positive recovery across capital markets

Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman Ajay Tyagi has said that recovery is being seen in capital markets, across the board.
Virtually addressing the CII Financial Markets Summit, Mr.Tyagisaid, not just large-caps and heavyweight stocks but midcap and smallcap stocks have recovered.
He said, the regulator’s timely decisions to contain volatility during the pandemic helped the markets, adding that the board will continue to remain vigilant to all eventualities.
The SEBI Chief further informed that more than 3.8 crore rupees have been raised in debt markets, a 25 per cent rise as compared to last year.
Mr.Tyagi added that almost 90 per cent of NSE stocks have yielded positive returns this year. He also dwelt upon making the corporate bond market more robust and strengthening the Investor Protection Fund.

Government imposes stock limit to check onion price rise

The Government has said it has taken steps to moderate prices and availability of onion in the country. Briefing media in New Delhi, Consumer Affairs Secretary LeelaNandan said, a stock limit has been imposed on the onions with effect from today which is 25 Metric Tonnes for Wholesalers and 2 Metric Tonnes for Retailers for a period up to 31st December 2020.
She added, in order to moderate the price rise, the government took a pre-emptive step by announcing a ban on onion export on the 14th of last month so as to ensure availability to domestic consumers at reasonable rates, before the expected arrival of Kharif onion.
The Secretary said, the retail price rise has moderated to some extent, but recent reports of heavy rainfall in the onion growing districts of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have created concerns about damage to Kharif crop.
She said, the developments on the weather front have contributed to the sharp increase in onion prices. Ms Nandan said, to tide over the present situation, the government has stepped up disposal of onions through the built up buffer stock of one Lakh Metric Tonne from the Rabi onion-2020.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Bangladesh brings in no mask no service policy

The Bangladesh government has decided that no service will be provided to people who don’t wear masks. The cabinet meeting Chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decided that no one will be allowed to enter offices without the mask.
It decided that all offices must install notice boards saying ‘no mask, no service’ in order to control the spread of COVID 19 virus in the country.
Briefing media after the Cabinet meeting in Dhaka, the Cabinet Secretary KhandakerAnwarul Islam said, people at all public and private offices, social institutions, haat-bazars, shopping malls, other establishments, educational institutions, mosques or other places of worship throughout the country must use mask in view of the coronavirus pandemic.
Involving community leaders in the campaign to wear masks, the Cabinet Secretary said that the government has also talked to the Islamic scholars and religious leaders to publicise this at all mosques through the Imam.

U.S allies welcomes Israel-Sudan deal

Sudan and Israel agreed on Friday to normalise relations, in a U.S.-brokered deal to end decades of hostility that was widely welcomed but stirred Palestinian anger.
The announcement makes Sudan, technically at war with Israel since its 1948 foundation, the third Arab country to forge diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in the last two months.
“HUGE win today for the United States and for peace in the world,” U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted.Other U.S. allies, including Germany, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, welcomed the deal as a boost to stability in the West Asia.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders strongly condemned the deal, echoing their rejection of Israel’s normalisation accords with the UAE and Bahrain signed in Washington last month.
“The State of Palestine expressed today its condemnation and rejection of the deal to normalise ties with the Israeli occupation country which usurps Palestinian land,” president Mahmoud Abbas’s office said in a statement.

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::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Scientists create superconductivity at room temperature

Starting from hydrogen sulphide, infamous for its rotten-egg smell, a group of researchers at University of Rochester, Intel corporation and University of Nevada in the U.S. have created a material that is superconducting at 15 degrees Celsius. That is, it shows zero resistance to the flow of electricity through it.
Such a material would have hitherto unheard of applications from power supplies to quantum computers. The only caveat is that it needs ultrahigh pressure of about 2 million atmospheres to achieve this transition, putting off any thoughts of application to the future. The research, published in Nature, has sparked off animated discussions in the world of physics.
In 2015, a breakthrough happened when a group led by M.I. Eremets managed to apply pressure on hydrogen sulphide and get a superconductor at 200 kelvin (minus 73 degrees Celsius). Prof. Baskaran adds, “It was followed by superconductivity in few more hydride superconductors. Until recently, the record holder was Lanthanum superhydride (LaH10). Its Tc is about 250 K, which is room temperatures in polar regions!”.
Commenting on the high pressure that was needed to create this material, Ranga P. Dias, from the University of Rochester and the corresponding author of the paper, says in an email to The Hindu that the pressure they needed was 267 Gigapascals, or 2.6 million atmospheres.
They achieved this by squeezing a tiny volume of the substance between the jaws of a diamond anvil. “We have broken many diamonds. It’s very challenging to keep this material to very high pressure because of the hydrogen diffusion,” he reveals.

::SPORTS::

TanmaySrivastava announces retirement from cricket

Batsman TanmaySrivastava, who was part of India’s Under-19 World Cup winning team in 2008, announced retirement from all forms of cricket on Saturday, saying he has found new dreams and bigger aspirations to work towards.
Srivastava played 90 First Class matches and scored 4,918 runs, with 10 centuries and 27 fifties.In the 2008 U-19 World Cup in Malaysia, he was the tournament’s leading scorer with 262 runs.

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