Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 29 December 2021

::National::

Training material on LGBTQIA+ pulled for review: NCERT to HC

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has informed the Madras high court that the training material on the LGBTQIA+ community for teaching staff was taken down after being uploaded on the website because they had not followed a due procedure of review and not due to any external pressure.
The Union ministry of social justice and empowerment also informed the court that they are “actively working” towards setting up at least one GarimaGreh in every state and union territory for destitute transgender persons.
Under the GarimaGreh scheme, the transgender persons get a secure living space and care.
Justice N AnandVenkatesh was hearing the case on December 23 pursuant to his landmark judgment passed on June 7 to ensure that the transgender community, including those in consensual relationships, was protected from various quarters, including police harassment. The case pertained to a lesbian couple moving court seeking protection as they were in a consensual relationship and complained of being harassed by their parents who had filed FIRs with local police saying that their daughters were missing.
In its response the educational body has said that the Department of Gender Studies, NCERT, proposed a programme, tiled ‘Development of Training Material for Teacher and Teacher Educators on Transgender Concerns in School Education’, which was approved by the Councils’ Academic and Programme Advisory Committees.
A draft was ready in July. “As an academic exercise, every material developed by the NCERT undergoes various stages before being finalised and put in public domain,” the extract from NCERT’s response says, adding that every material is tried out with the target groups, reviewed by different stakeholders, inviting comments and suggestions on the draft.

Printed Study Materials for IBPS, SBI Bank Exam

::International::

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai can be questioned in privacy lawsuit, judge rules

Plaintiffs who accused Alphabet Inc's Google of unlawfully tracking their internet use while on "Incognito" browsing mode can question Chief Executive SundarPichai for up to two hours, a California federal judge has ruled.
In the lawsuit filed in June 2020, users accused Google of illegally invading their privacy by tracking internet use while Google Chrome browsers were set in "private" mode.
The plaintiffs are arguing that Pichai has "unique, personal knowledge" of issues relating to the Chrome browser and privacy concerns, a Monday court filing showed.
Google spokesman José Castañeda told Reuters the new requests were "unwarranted and overreaching".
"While we strongly dispute the claims in this case, we have cooperated with plaintiffs' countless requests ... We will continue to vigorously defend ourselves," Castañeda said.
Pichai in 2019 was warned that describing the company's Incognito browsing mode as "private" was problematic, yet it stayed the course because he did not want the feature "under the spotlight," according to a court filing in September.
Google has earlier said it makes clear that Incognito only stops data from being saved to a user's device and is fighting the lawsuit.
The Alphabet unit's privacy disclosures have generated regulatory and legal scrutiny in recent years amid growing public concerns about online surveillance.

::Economy::

India's real GDP likely to maintain 9% growth rate in FY22, FY23: Report

The Indian economy grew at 8.4 per cent in the second quarter of the current fiscal, as against a growth of 20.1 per cent in the April-June quarter.
"We are maintaining our forecast of a 9 per cent GDP expansion in FY2022, with a clear K-shaped divergence amongst the formal and informal parts of the economy, and the large gaining at the cost of the small.
"Looking ahead, we expect the economy to maintain a similar 9 per cent growth in FY2023," domestic rating agency Icra Ltd Chief Economist AditiNayar said in the report.
She expects the percentage of double-vaccinated adults to rise to 85-90 per cent by March 2022.
While the announcement of booster doses and vaccines for the 15-18 age group is welcome, it remains to be seen whether all the existing vaccines would offer adequate protection against the new Omicron variant to avert a third wave in India, Nayar said.
In any case, fresh restrictions being introduced by several states to curb the spread of COVID-19 may temporarily interrupt the economic recovery, especially in the contact-intensive sectors in Q4 FY2022, she added.
Nayar, however, expects the expansion in FY2023 to be more meaningful and tangible than the base effect-led rise in FY2022.
"Based on our assumptions of the GDP growth, if the COVID-19 pandemic had not emerged vs. the actual shrinkage that occurred in FY2021 and the expected recovery in the next two years, the net loss to the Indian economy from the pandemic during FY2021-23 is estimated at Rs 39.3 lakh crore, in real terms," she said.
The available data for Q3 FY2022 does not offer convincing evidence that the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC's) criteria of a durable and sustainable growth recovery has been met, to confirm a change in the Monetary Policy stance to neutral in February 2022, the rating agency said.

Rail rake shortage hurts steel delivery of Odisha, Karnataka steel mills

With rail rakes getting diverted to serve thermal coal power plants, domestic steel companies in Odisha and Karnataka are facing outbound rail rake shortage leading to steel markets remaining unserved amid the ongoing peak season.
“There is a more than 50 per cent shortage of (outbound) rail rakes for the last two months now. We used to get about 7 rakes per day but now we get just about 2-3 rakes,” V R Sharma, managing director at Jindal Steel, told Business Standard.
Naveen Jindal-led Jindal Steel & Power has its plant at Angul, state-owned Steel Authority of India (SAIL) at Rourkela and three of Tata Steel plants at Kalinganagar, Jamshedpur and Angul, all located in Odisha.
“Due to rake shortage, delivery of finished goods to mainly northern markets has been severely affected. Markets of Rajasthan, Ludhiana, Punjab are not getting the material on time when it is the demand season now,” Sharma added.
“There are warehouses at the plant as well as customer locations but they have certain capacity. With material not getting lifted on time, storage and evacuation is becoming a problem leading to logistical hurdles,” said sources at Angul steel plant in Odisha.
Queries sent to Tata Steel remained unanswered.
Industry officials said talks with railways are on for the normalisation of rake supply to steel plants.
According to rail ministry officials in the know, the movement of rail rakes in the country is still done at the directives of a High Level Empowered Committee (HLEC) under the chairmanship of cabinet secretary. This committee was set up with the intent of resolving the stress in thermal power plants due to a perceived coal shortage earlier this year. "There seems to be a problem of rake shortage for the non-power sector till last week. There is no such issue right now. The HLEC prioritizes movement of rakes to thermal power plants in a bid to ensure that there is no shortage and a future power crisis is averted," an official aware of the operations told Business Standard.

::Science and tech::

China develops AI 'prosecutor' that can press charges with ‘97% accuracy’

China has been making rapid advancements in the technology field. And now, Chinese scientists have claimed that they have developed a machine that can charge people with crime using artificial intelligence. This is the world’s first such machine.
The AI “prosecutor” can charge people with over 97 per cent accuracy, the researchers further claimed, adding that it works on verbal description.
The machine was built and tested by the Shanghai Pudong People’s Procuratorate, the country’s largest and busiest district prosecution office, reported South China Morning Post.
Project’s lead scientist told local media that the machine has been created to reduce the current workload of prosecutors. "The system can replace prosecutors in the decision-making process to a certain extent," Professor Shi Yong, the lead scientists of the project, was quoted as saying by one of the publications.
It can also identify “dissent” against the state, the researchers further claimed.
Explaining how the computer programme works, the scientists said that it can press charges based on 1,000 human-generated case description texts.
The cases given to the AI machine during training involved credit card frauds, gambling crimes, dangerous driving, theft and obstruction of official duties, according to South China Morning Post.
The researchers are now hoping that their machine can soon replace prosecutors in the “decision-making” process to certain extent. With more training, it will become perfect in recognising more types of cases and pressing charhes accordingly.

::Sport::

PankajAdvani won the National Billiards title 2021

Ace cueist PankajAdvani defended his national billiards title -- his 11th in the tournament -- after he defeated his PSPB teammate DhruvSitwala 5-2 in a best of nine games final. Advani responded with breaks of 56 and 46 to restore parity at 1-1 after Sitwala's breaks of 64 and 42 late on Monday evening.
Sitwala, displaying excellent in-offs, pots and cannons, surged ahead by pocketing the third game with a sizeable break of 84. He was on course to even wrest the fourth game after he compiled a wonderful effort of 101, but a costly lapse by him gave a window of opportunity to Advani.
Composing himself, in a superb rally the maestro chalked up a classy break of 127 to snatch the game and draw level once again at 2-2.
Then Advani struck a purple patch, cajoling and nursing the balls at the top of the table to craft identical unfinished breaks of 150 in the fifth and sixth games to run up a crucial 4-2 games lead.
Not giving up, Sitwala put up a tremendous show of skill, patience and temperament to strike a break of 134, but sadly, when in prime position he could not hold the balls together to give another chance to Advani after a sequence of safety exchanges.