Day by Day Current Affairs (June 27, 2018) | MCQs for CSS, PMS, NTS

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June 27, 2018

1. Punjab caretaker govt approves Rs693b budget for 4 months

• The Punjab caretaker government on June 26, 2018 approved Rs693 billion Budget for the period of four months under the Article 126 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
• Expenditure control steps approved | Focus on health, education sectors
• The Constitution authorises the Caretaker Cabinet to approve expenditure for up to the four months from the Provincial Consolidated Fund.
• Caretaker Minister for Finance Zia Haider Rizvi, said that 10 percent raise has been approved in basic pay with revision of house rent allowance on the lines of federal government budget. Similarly, 10 percent increase in pension has also been declared, he added.
• Caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Dr Hasan Askari presided over the provincial cabinet meeting, which gave approval to four month budget of the fiscal year 2018-19

2. FBR chief transferred amid bureaucracy shake-up

• The caretaker government on June 26, 2018 transferred some top bureaucrats at the Federal Board of Revenue, establishment division and information and interior ministries.
• More than 2,000 provincial bureaucrats have been reshuffled so far. The PML-N government during its five-year tenure had posted blue-eyed bureaucrats in the federal secretariat, but the interim government seems reluctant to make changes in the top bureaucracy.
• FBR chairman Tariq Mehmood Pasha, has been transferred and posted as statistics division secretary. He was replaced by Rukhsana Yasmin. Ms Yasmin became the first female head of this important tax department. Both will assume their new jobs from July 1
• According to notification issued by the Establishment Division, Rizwan Memon has been transferred and posted as secretary power.
• Former inspector general (IG) Islamabad Sultan Azam Taimuri has been posted as member of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta).
• All the four provincial chief secretaries, who had been awaiting posting, were given slots in the federal secretariat. Former chief secretary of Punjab retired Capt Zahid Saeed was posted as secretary National Health Services, Regulations; former chief secretary of Sindh Rizwan Memon as power division secretary; former chief secretary of Balochistan Aurangzeb Hague as establishment division secretary and former chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was posted as additional secretary (in charge), states and frontier region.
• Secretary Establishment Division Maroof Afzal has been posted as Industries and Production secretary, Yousaf Naseem Khokar as secretary interior, and Sanaullah Abbasi as IG Gilgit-Baltistan.
• Likewise, Sabir Ahmed has been directed to report to Establishment Division. The interim government has appointed Rukhsana Yasmin as FBR chairperson.
• Muhammad Ayub Sheikh is transferred and posted as secretary of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Division, Captain (retd) Arif Nawaz Khan will serve as secretary Narcotics Division, Squardon Leader (retd) Iqbal Mehmood has been directed to report to Establishment Division, according to the notification.
• Similarly, Muhammad Aamir Zulfikar Khan has been posted as director general (DG) National Highway and Motorway Police, Captain (retd) Zahid Saeed as secretary National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Division.
• Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera has been posted as secretary of Federal Education and Professional Training Division.

3. First visually impaired civil judge takes oath

• The country’s first visually impaired civil judge, Yousaf Saleem, on June 26, 2018 took oath of his office along with 20 other recently appointed judicial officers in Punjab.
• Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali administered the oath to the civil judges at a ceremony held at the Punjab Judicial Academy.
• The other civil judges who took oath included Sardar Umar Hassan Khan, Saba Qamar, Naseem Akhtar Naz, Maira Hassan, Qamar Abbas, Ehsan Nawaz, Muhammad Bilal, Muhammad Amir Sultan Kolachi, Muhammad Abbas, Sumaira Jabbar, Ali Raza, Muhammad Bilal Khan, Muhammad Tariq, Rasheed Khan, Obaid Hassan, Sana Afzal, Mansoor Ahmad, Allah Nawaz, Muhammad Zubair Sabir, Muhammad Javed Iqbal and Shaheen Noor.
• Lahore-based Saleem was initially denied the position of civil judge despite being a topper in the examination. Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar had taken notice of the matter and directed the Lahore High Court to review the case observing that a visually impaired person could become a judge provided he met other requirements.

4. Listing review begins at FATF

• The final plenary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which may take action against Pakistan for not doing enough to prevent terrorism financing, begins in Paris on June 27, 2018.
• The three-day final plenary meeting will begin on June 27 and the discussions will focus on `counter-terrorist financing,` said an FATF statement released in Paris where the week-long plenary meetings began on June 24.
• Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar is already in Paris to plead Pakistan`s case. Her delegation includes officials from the Federal Investigation Agency, State Bank of Pakistan, finance ministry and the Financial Monitoring Unit.

5. Brexit bill becomes law, allows UK to leave EU

• A bill enacting Britain`s decision to leave the European Union has become law after months of debate, the House of Commons speaker announced on June 27, 2018, to cheers from Eurosceptic lawmakers.
• Speaker John Bercow said the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which repeals the 1972 European Communities Act through which Britain became a member of the bloc, had been given the formal royal assent by Queen Elizabeth IL The bill transfers decades of European law onto British statute books, and also enshrines Brexit day in British law as March 29, 2019 at 11pm midnight Brussels time.
• Prime Minister Theresa May said the approval was a `historic moment for our country, and a significant step towards delivering on the will of the British people`, who had voted in a June 2016 referendum to exit the EU.
• The bill has undergone more than 250 hours of acrimonious debate in the Houses of Parliament since it was introduced in July 2017.

6. India most dangerous country for women with sexual violence rife: poll

• India is the world`s most dangerous country for women due to the high risk of sexual violence and being forced into slave labour, according to a poll of global experts released on June 26, 2018.
• War-torn Afghanistan and Syria ranked second and third in the Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of about 550 experts on women`s issues, followed by Somalia and Saudi Arabia.
• The only Western nation in the top 10 was the United States, which ranked joint third when respondents were asked where women were most at risk of sexual violence, harassment and being coerced into sex.
• The poll was a repeat of a survey in 2011 that found experts saw Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia as the most dangerous countries for women
• Pakistan ranked fifth on non-sexual violence, including domestic abuse

7. Two PAF pilots martyred as aircraft crashes

• Two pilots of the Pakistan Air Force were martyred when their FT-7PG aircraft crashed during landing at the PAF base Peshawar on June 26, 2018
• PAF reports with regret that FT-7PG aircraft, while recovering from a routine operational training mission, crashed during landing at Peshawar Air Base. Both the pilots embraced Shahadat in the tragic incident.
• The air headquarters has ordered a board of inquiry to determine the cause of incident.
• This is worth mentioning that PAF and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are jointly using the runway for defence and civil operations.

8. US Supreme Court upholds Trump travel ban

• The US Supreme Court on June 26, 2018 upheld President Donald Trump’s controversial ban on travelers from five mostly Muslim countries – a major victory for the Republican leader after a tortuous legal battle.
• In a majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court ruled 5-4 that the most recent version of the ban, which the administration claims is justified by national security concerns, was valid.
• “In short, the language… is clear, and the Proclamation does not exceed any textual limit on the President’s authority,” Roberts wrote.
• “The Government has set forth a sufficient national security justification to survive rational basis review. We express no view on the soundness of the policy.”
• The version of the travel ban at issue was the third iteration, and applies to travelers from North Korea and five mainly Muslim nations – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen – or about 150 million people. Certain officials from Venezuela are also targeted by the measure.

9. Prince William visits Israel Holocaust memorial

• Britain’s Prince William paid a visit to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on June 26, 2018.
• On the first official trip by a British royal to both Israel and the Palestinian territories, the prince wore a black Jewish skullcap as he rekindled the eternal flame and laid a wreath at the memorial as a youth choir sang.
• The 36-year-old, who is the second in line to the British throne, also toured the museum at the site perched on a forested hillside in west Jerusalem as part of a Middle East tour that began Sunday in Jordan.
• His visit comes at a particularly sensitive time after US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as capital of Israel, outraging Palestinians and sparking deadly clashes on the border with Gaza. Britain governed the region under a League of Nations mandate for almost three decades until Israel’s independence 70 years ago, and is still blamed by both sides for sowing the seeds of the ongoing conflict.
• William met with two Holocaust survivors, Paul Alexander and Henry Foner, who as children had escaped from Nazi Germany to Britain as part of the “Kinder transport” programme.

10. US defence chief visits China as tensions simmer

• US Defense Secretary James Mattis arrived in Beijing on his first ever visit to China on June 26, 2018, aiming to find room for military cooperation as security tensions between the two superpowers edge higher.
• With Washington and Beijing locked in an escalating trade war, and the Pentagon alarmed over China’s placement of weapons on disputed islands in the South China Sea, Mattis said he would seek areas where the two sides share interests, including persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal.
• Mattis is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe, for the first time as well as other top officials, to “take measure” of their views.
• The last time a US defense secretary visited China was four years ago, and communications between the two militaries need strengthening.
• In a statement ahead of the visit, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said they should “work together to make the bilateral military relationship an important stabilising factor in the relationship between the two countries.”