Daily Current affairs - September 14th, 2017 for all competitive exams
The Global Human Capital Index for the year 2017 has been released by WEF.
- The Global Human Capital Index 2017 ranks 130
countries on how well they are developing their human capital on a scale
from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) across four thematic dimensions and five
distinct age groups to capture the full human capital potential profile of
a country.
- India has been placed at a low 103 rank, the lowest among BRICS economies. India
also ranks “among the lowest in the world” when it comes to the employment
gender gap, but has fared well when it comes to development of skills
needed for the future with a rank of 65 out of total 130 countries
surveyed.
Home Ministry team to study risks faced by border
villages
The home ministry will set up an expert group to look into the problems
people living in villages along the Line of Control (LoC) face. The study group
will look at ways to improve lives of cross-border ceasefire violation victims.
- The study group is expected to come up with
suggestions to not only increase the safety and security of the border
residents but also to look at ways of making funding in Border Are a
Development Programmes effective.
Income limit raised for creamy
layer
According to an official
order issued on September 13, The ‘creamy layer’ ceiling for OBC reservation
has been raised to Rs. 8 lakh per year.
- In 1993, the limit was kept at Rs. 1 lakh. It was
raised thrice — to Rs. 2.5 lakh in 2004, Rs. 4.5 lakh in 2008 and Rs. 6
lakh in 2013.
- Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on August 23
announced that the Union Cabinet had been formally apprised of the
decision to increase the limit for Central government jobs.
Plea against NOTA not valid,
says EC
The Election Commission has
told the Supreme Court that a plea by a Gujarat Congress leader challenging the
use of None of the Above (NOTA) option in the Rajya Sabha polls in the State is
not maintainable.
- The poll panel also said the petition was an “abuse
of the process of law and a waste of precious judicial time of this
court.”
- The top court had on August 3 agreed to examine the
constitutional validity of the NOTA provision in the Rajya Sabha polls
saying the issue needed to be debated.
- The provisions of NOTA in the ballot papers for the
elections to the council of states has been made by the EC to effectuate
this right of electors guaranteed to them under the said section 79(A) of
the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
India will soon grant citizenship to Chakma, Hajong
refugees
The Centre will soon grant citizenship to nearly one lakh Chakma and Hajong
refugees, who came from the erstwhile East Pakistan five decades ago and are
living in camps in the northeast.
- In 2015, the Supreme Court had directed the Central
government to grant citizenship to the Chakma and Hajong refugees, mostly
staying in Arunachal Pradesh.
- Chakmas and Hajongs were originally residents of
Chittagong Hill Tracts in the erstwhile East Pakistan. They left their
homeland when it was submerged by the Kaptai dam project in the 1960s.
Mouse deer released in Amrabad Reserve for the first time
In a novel and unique initiative attempted anywhere in the country, the
Telangana State Forest Department has re-introduced the endangered ‘mouse deer’
into the forests of Nallamalla in Amrabad Tiger Reserve.
- The release of these mouse deer into the protected
enclosure of 2.4 hectares is aimed at improving the biodiversity. The
Amrabad Tiger Reserve was chosen because these animals were earlier
wandering in this area.
- The deer will gradually be weaned-off externally
supplied food. Afterwards if they get a clearing by the field biologists,
they will be released from their enclosure into the wild.
Haryana okays start-up policy
Haryana State Cabinet has
approved a start-up policy to develop Haryana as an innovation hub by
supporting new-age companies and entrepreneurial talent.
- The policy is aimed at attracting investments to the
tune of Rs. 1,500 crore in the incubation and start-up ecosystem in
Haryana, facilitating venture capital funding of a minimum of Rs. 200
crore and encouraging, facilitating and incubating at least 500 start-ups.
Indo-Russian war games in Oct.
India and Russia have begun
discussions to work out the modalities for their first tri-service military
exercise to be held in October. It will also be India’s first bilateral
military exercise with any country involving all three services.
- In April, the two countries decided to upgrade Indra
from an individual service exercise into an integrated tri-service.
- The aim of the exercise is to carry out joint
exercises for suppression of international terrorist activities under the
United Nations mandate
India needs data safety
reforms: UN
United Nations’ Resident
Coordinator in India Yuri Afanasiev has said, India needs regulatory reforms to
protect people against fraud and misuse of data by unscrupulous elements.
- Current protocols for encrypted data transfer, from
money to medical records, to be shared between many companies, people and
institutions have raised questions on how this data will be stored and
accessed.
- These concerns warrant regulatory reforms that
protect against fraud and misuse, especially for those with low digital
literacy.
All set for NIRF ranking exercise next year
The Centre has set the ball rolling for a more comprehensive ranking of
higher educational institutions in the next round of the National Institutional
Ranking Framework in 2018.
- The idea is that, instead of institutions choosing
to take part in the exercise, they are being auto-registered through a
large online database — the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE)
portal — of institutions available with the Ministry of Human Resource
Development.
- The institutions, however, have to provide details
like patents, publications, research projects and campus placements that
are not available on the portal.
- The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)
was approved by the MHRD and was launched in September, 2015. This
framework outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the
country. The methodology draws from the overall recommendations and
broad understanding arrived at by a Core Committee set up by MHRD, to
identify the broad parameters for ranking various universities and
institutions.
Pakistani writer makes it to
Booker shortlist
A tale on the global
migration crisis by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid has made it to the Man Booker
Prize shortlist, alongside works by American authors Paul Auster
( 4321 ), Emily Fridlund ( History of Wolves ) and George
Saunders ( Lincoln in the Bardo ), and British authors Ali Smith
( Autumn ) and Fiona Mozley ( Elmet ).
- The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy’s
first novel in 20 years, that was on the Booker longlist is out of the
race.
The Hindu wins best news
website award
The Hindu Group has been
awarded two golds and silver at the South Asian Digital Media Awards at the
WAN-IFRA (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers) India 2017
conference in Chennai.
- www.thehindu.com won the gold award for the Best
News Website. The Hindu’s site, India’s oldest newspaper website, is
fully responsive, adapting seamlessly to different devices and screen
sizes.
- On behalf of examsportalhub, we congratulate The Hindu group.
