Daily Current affairs - June 28th, 2017 for all competitive exams
The Finance Ministry’s former Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu has taken
over as President of the International Economic
Association (IEA). He will hold the office for a
term of three years.
- The IEA was founded in 1950 as a
Non-Governmental Organization, at the instigation of
the Social Sciences Department of UNESCO.
No interim orders on Aadhaar:
SC
The Supreme Court refused to
pass an interim order against the Centre’s notification making Aadhaar
mandatory for availing benefits of social welfare schemes, with the government
assuring it that no one would be deprived of welfare for want of this
identification.
- The court was hearing three separate petitions
challenging the government’s notification.
WHO for use of devices to test
multiple diseases
The World Health
Organization (WHO) released new advice to countries, recommending the use of
multi-disease testing devices for Tuberculosis, HIV and Hepatitis.
- A single device called the GeneXpert can be used to
diagnose TB and HIV infections, and quantitatively measure HIV and
hepatitis C viral loads.
- India recently procured 600 GeneXpert machines for
the National Tuberculosis programme.
- The WHO is recommending use of these
state-of-the-art portable machines the size of a microwave oven, which can
run molecular tests. However, most countries do not use them for
multi-disease testing.
Netherlands backs UNSC, NSG bids
The Netherlands has backed India’s early entry into the NSG and other
multilateral export control regimes, and supported the country’s bid for a
permanent UN Security Council seat.
- The Netherlands’ support came after Prime Minister
Narendra Modi held talks with his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte.
- The Netherlands also expressed its support for
India’s membership to Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group.
EU slaps a record €2.4 bn fine
on Google
The European Commission has
fined Google €2.42 billion ($2.7 billion) for breaching EU anti-trust rules
- The decision comes less than a year after European
Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestagershocked the world and
Washington with an order that iPhone manufacturer Apple repay €13 billion
in back taxes in Ireland.
US to Declare China as Among World’s Worst Human
Trafficking Offenders
The United States is set to declare China as among the world’s worst offenders in human
trafficking and forced labor, placing it alongside
countries the U.S. has long disparaged — Iran, North Korea and Syria.
- China has been listed as a Tier 3 human trafficking
and forced labor offender, the lowest ranking. In 2016, China was placed
in Tier 2 “watch list” deserving special scrutiny in the last year.
- According to the US, Beijing was not doing enough to
curb “state sponsored forced labor,” and did not meet “minimum standards”
for fighting human trafficking, even though it was making progress.
Uranus’ Unusual Rotation Creates Light Switch Effect
NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has discovered that
Uranus’ magnetosphere – the region defined by the icy planet’s magnetic field
and the material trapped inside it – gets flipped on and off like a light
switch every day as it rotates along with the planet.
- The finding showed that magnetosphere is ‘open’ in
one orientation, allowing solar wind to flow into it.
- It is later “closed”, forming a shield against the
solar wind and deflecting it away from the planet.
Water exists as two different liquids
Scientists at Stockholm University have discovered two phases of water with
large differences in structure and density.
- The results are based on experimental studies using
X-rays.
- In this study, the researchers investigated whether
liquid water can have low- and high-density forms.
Jaitley holds meeting on bitcoins
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley recently held an inter-ministerial meeting to
examine risks related to virtual currencies (VCs) like bitcoins. Although
several issues concerning bitcoins were discussed, no decision was taken.
- Bitcoins were in news recently after a massive
global ransomware attack WannaCry hit systems in over 100 countries.
- The cyber criminals demanded a fee of about USD 300
in crypto-currencies like bitcoin for unlocking affected devices.
- Bitcoin is a virtual currency that can be used to
move money around the world quickly and with relative anonymity, without
the need for a central authority, such as a bank or government.
Ganguly included in BCCI
Special Committee
Rajeev Shukla, a former
vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), will head a
newly-formed seven-member Special Committee, as decided at Monday’s Special
General Meeting (SGM), to suggest a way forward for implementing the
administrative overhaul prescribed in the Supreme Court order on July 18 last
year.
- Besides Rajeev Shukla and BCCI acting secretary
Amitabh Choudhary, who will be the convener of the meeting, the committee
will include former India captain Sourav Ganguly (Bengal), T.C. Mathew
(Kerala), Naba Bhattacharjee (Meghalaya), Jay Shah (Gujarat) and Anirudh
Chaudhry, the BCCI’s treasurer.
- The formation of the committee is, in a way, a first step by the BCCI for almost a year since the Supreme Court pronounced the judgement.
