Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 June 2019

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 10 June 2019

::NATIONAL::

Vice president wants revamping of education with futuristic skills,knowledge and attitude

•   The Vice President of India, Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu has called for the revamping of our entire education system to equip our youth with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required for the 21st century. He was inaugurating the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Sri Satya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, in Bengaluru today.
•   The Vice President asserted that education is one of the major catalysts of growth and added that nations prosper only when its citizens become educated. Quoting the Kothari Commission’s report of 1964-68 which laid down the country’s education policy, Shri Naidu said that the destiny of our country shaped in our classrooms.
•   Referring to the draft National Education policy 2019 that covers a whole range of issues in great detail, the Vice President spoke about the need to aim for excellence and equity and strikes a balance between the national needs and ethos and the need to prepare our students to be among the best in the global context.
•   Shri Naidu called for a pragmatic language policy in which mother tongue and other languages are given due importance in order to help our youth excel in a multilingual world.
•   Highlighting India’s improving literacy rate, the Vice President said that in the next few years, we must ensure that our population can read, write, compute, articulate and participate with greater self-confidence in the developmental processes.
•   Stating that India is today a knowledge-based economy, the Vice President said that we cannot afford to have a mediocre or qualitatively sub-optimal system of education, if we are to thrive in this rapidly changing world. He called for a much larger number of educational institutions that focus on all round development of an individual’s personality. ‘The head, hand and heart must develop simultaneously’, he added.

Search continuous for missing AN-32 aircraft

•   Indian Air Force on Sunday continued search for the missing An-32 aircraft. In a tweet, Air force said, the weather in the area was poor and adversely hampered the search by aerial platforms.
•   Helicopters and transport aircraft could carry out very limited operations due to low clouds and rain in the area. However, ground teams have continued the search in full force.
•   The ground teams have made considerable headway into the search area, which has been progressively expanded based on inputs from multiple sources. Search on ground will continue through the night.
•   Meanwhile Aerial search operation to trace the missing transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force could not be undertaken for the second consecutive day on Sunday due to bad weather in remote Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh.
•   However, ground troops continued their search for the missing aircraft in the mountainous area for the seventh consecutive day. “No search and rescue operation could take place on Sunday due to bad weather and low clouds,” a Shillong-based spokesperson of the Indian Air Force said.

::ECONOMY::

India plans to promote MSME’s in developing nations

•   India today pitched for promoting micro, small and medium enterprises, MSMEs in developing countries as they are important for employment and income generation.
•   This was emphasised by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal at a session on ''Promotion of Trade and Investment that contribute to Sustainable and Inclusive Growth' at G20 nations meet in Japanese city Tsukuba.
•   Mr. Goyal stressed that there is a need to support MSMEs in developing countries to spur job creation and promote trade in a sustainable manner.
•   The Minister added that supporting greater participation of MSMEs in developing countries are also crucial for jobs and income generation. He also said that free trade and investments will benefit developing countries when they remain development centric.
•   MSMEs contribute around 45 per cent in India's exports, about 25 per cent to the GDP from service activities and over 33 per cent to the manufacturing output of India.
•   Meanwhile, at the sidelines of the G20 meet, the commerce minister held series of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from various countries, including the UK, Japan, Spain, Korea and South Africa and discussed ways to increase trade and investments.
•   With Japan, he also discussed issues related with a proposed mega free trade agreement Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

India urges to solve tax issues of offshore digital companies

•   India has called upon the G-20 countries to urgently fix the issue of taxing profits made by digital economy companies in countries where they do not have significant physical presence.
•   Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman addressed the two-day meeting of the G-20 Finance Ministers and central bank Governors at Fukuoka in Japan yesterday.
•   In a statement, the Finance Ministry said, as offshore digital companies such as Facebook, Google and Netflix have little presence in India, taxing their profits is not possible. This prompted the government to roll out equalization levy as a tax deducted at source on payments made to them by Indian firms with effect from June 2016.
•   The statement said, the aim is to bring offshore companies with significant economic presence in India into the tax net to address the shortcomings in taxing the digital economy.
•   However, India opposed attempts by developed countries to formulate an e-commerce policy outside the World Trade Organization framework. The meeting of G-20, grouping of developed and developing countries, concluded yesterday.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

EU ready to renegotiate Brexit deal

•   British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said, German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that the European Union would be willing to renegotiate the Brexit deal.
•   Hunt is one of nearly a dozen Conservatives to replace Theresa May as party leader and UK Prime Minister. He said, he spoke with Ms Merkel last week and was convinced changing Ms May's agreement.
•   Hunt did not specify if he was referring to the legally binding withdrawal agreement, which the EU has repeatedly insisted cannot be re-opened, or to the accompanying political declaration on future relations, which could be revisited.
•   Ms May had agreed the package with the EU last year but British lawmakers rejected it three times, forcing her to delay Brexit twice - the latest extension being to 31st October.

UAE adopts national strategy for wellbeing2031

•   The UAE Cabinet on Sunday adopted the National Strategy for Wellbeing 2031 during its meeting at the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi.
•   One of the most important initiatives is the development of the first 'National Wellbeing Observatory' to support the policymaking process.
•   It will monitor a number of indicators of wellbeing in the UAE, submit regular reports to the UAE Cabinet, propose training programmes for government employees, and launch of the Academy of Wellbeing future generations, in addition to the formation of a National Wellbeing Council to manage and coordinate the national strategy.
•   Chaired by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, the National Strategy for Wellbeing 2031 aims to make the UAE a world leader in quality of life through a number of strategic objectives and initiatives.
•   It also aims to promote an integrated concept of wellbeing, thus supporting the vision of the UAE Vision 2021 and the UAE Centennial 2071.
•   The Strategy is based on a national framework of three main levels - individuals, society and the country.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Study reveals early death risk for gene edited babies

•   The first babies whose genes were reportedly altered to help them fend off HIV infection are more likely to die younger, says a study.
•   According to an analysis by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, the genetic mutation that a Chinese scientist attempted to create in twin babies born last year is associated with a 21% increase in mortality in later life.
•   The researchers scanned more than 4,00,000 genomes and associated health records contained in a British database, U.K. Biobank, and found that people who had two mutated copies of the gene had a significantly higher death rate between ages 41 and 78, than those with one or no copies.
•   Previous studies associated two mutated copies of the gene, CCR5, with a fourfold increase in the death rate after influenza infection, and the higher mortality rate to susceptibility to death from the flu. But the researchers said there could be any number of explanations, since the protein that CCR5 codes for is involved in many functions.

::SPORTS::

Lewis Hamilton Canadian Grand Prix

•   Lewis Hamilton secured a record-breaking seventh win at the 2019 Canadian Grand Prix yesterday after Sebastian Vettel was penalised for dangerous driving.
•   During the race, both Vettel and Hamilton were engaged in a head-to-head battle when the former ran across the grass accidentally, in the process squeezing the Britsh driver when he re-joined the track.
•   The incident led to the stewards awarding a five-second race time penalty to the German driver. Ferrari will appeal against the decision over the five-second penalty given to Vettel which costed him the race.

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