Friday, February 07, 2020

Daily Current Affairs, 07th February 2020

1) Janasevaka scheme launched by Karnataka Government

•To ensure the home delivery of the government services, Karnataka Government has launched a scheme “Janasevaka“. The scheme is initially launched in a few municipal corporation wards to ensure home delivery of various services. The services includes senior citizen identity and health cards, and ration cards and other 53 services. The scheme will be successfully implemented with the help of 11 departments. Through the launch of the “Janasevaka” scheme, Karnataka government aims to make the lives of the citizens of Karnataka easy.

•The scheme aims to ensure the timely delivery of government services to the people of Karnataka with the help of innovative and efficient management systems.

2) ‘Pink City’ becomes certified UNESCO World Heritage City

•Jaipur “The Pink City” has been certified by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as the World Heritage site. The certification was done by the UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay during an event held in Jaipur, Rajasthan. As part of certification, the World Heritage City certificate was handover by UNESCO Director General to Minister of Urban Development Shanti Dhariwal.

•The certification of Jaipur “The Pink City” as the World Heritage site is expected to boost the tourism sector of the state of Rajasthan and also intends to the development of Western Rajasthan for tourism with the support of UNESCO.

3) Britain’s Prince unveils children’s protection fund for India

•Britain’s Prince Charles has unveiled a new children’s protection fund for India as part of British Asian Trust. The charity founded by him in 2007 to fight poverty in South Asia. American singer Katy Perry as the ambassador of the new fund.

•Indian philanthropist Natasha Poonawalla has made a multimillion-pound pledge in support of the fund, which she will chair, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIIF) is set to match fund everything raised up to GBP 25 million to develop the largest anti-trafficking fund in South Asia.

•The main areas of focus for the British Asian Trust’s Children’s Protection Fund will cover child sexual abuse, child labour and trafficking, and its aim would be to develop school safety nets through child-friendly village models.

4) “Central Asia Business Council” launched in New Delhi

•The “Central Asia Business Council” was launched in New Delhi. The event was organized by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and addressed by India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar. This was the first instance when the business chambers of all five Central Asian states i.e. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, were brought together by India to push trade and investment partnership.

•The Central Asia Business Council is a common platform for the sharing of ideas and the transformation of goodwill into practical outcomes and seeks to form a India-Central Asia Development Group. The India-Central Asia Development Group will work to boost the trade by assessing the feasibility of air corridors between India and Central Asia. On the basis of mutual interest, the council has prioritized sectors to work upon. These sectors include pharmaceuticals, agro-processing, energy, urban infrastructure and transport, education and many other sectors.

5) Lucknow hosts 5th India-Russia Military Industrial Conference

•Lucknow hosted the 5th India-Russia Military Industrial Conference. The India-Russia Military Industrial Conference was attended by over 100 Russian and over 200 Indian industry leaders. The conference was held on the sidelines of the Defence Expo 2020 taking place in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Indian & Russian companies signed Memorandum of Understanding under the Make in India initiative and will boost the high level strategic and real technological partnership between the two countries.

•The MoUs were signed for the production of different defence equipment like parts of T-72, T-90, ASW Rocket launchers, radar systems and 3D modeling. The Indian companies includes BHEL, Bharat Dynamics Limited and the Russian companies include Vista control from Indian side and INVERSIA, UVZ and BEML Ltd. signed the MoU.

6) 22nd International Seafood Show begins in Kochi

•The 22nd edition of India International Seafood Show (IISS) begins in Kochi, Kerala. The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, in association with the Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI), is organized this event.

•The theme of this year’s seafood show is “Blue Revolution- Beyond Production to Value Addition”.

•IISS 2020 will highlight the technological advances and sustainable practices followed in the seafood processing sector in India. Indian seafood processors have to make their mark in the sustainable league with the cooperation from the fishing and farming sectors. Over 200 exhibitors, 350 stalls and more than 5000 delegates, including foreign delegates, are expected to attend the event. The biennial show returns to Kochi after 12 years and will provide a platform for Indian exporters and overseas importers of Indian marine products to interact. The 21st edition of IISS was held in Goa in January 2018.

7) RBI to conduct “Financial Literacy Week 2020”

•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will conduct the “Financial Literacy Week 2020” from February 10 to February 14, 2020. The theme of the Financial Literacy Week 2020 is “Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)”. This year India’s central bank is focusing on the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The Financial Literacy Week 2020 will aim to aware people about the formalisation, collateral free loan, discounting of receivables, rehabilitation of stressed units and timely repayment.

•RBI has advised the banks to circulate the information and create awareness among its customers and general public. A centralized mass media campaign will also run by the RBI during the month of February 2020 to broadcast essential financial awareness messages to MSME Entrepreneurs.

•Financial Literacy Week (FLW) is being conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) every year since 2016 to disseminate financial education messages on a particular theme across the country.

8) Rishabh Pant becomes brand ambassador of JSW Steel

•Jindal South West (JSW) Steel has appointed Indian cricketer Rishabh Pant as its brand ambassador. Pant will help promote JSW’s steel products which include Colouron+ colour-coated sheets and JSW Neosteel TMT bars, for a three year period.

9) IOC signs 1st term contract for Russian crude oil

•Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and Russian Rosneft signed 1st term contract for importing 2 Million Metric Tonnes of Urals grade crude oil to India for the year 2020. India is the 3rd largest Energy Consumer in the world, India imports globally 83% of oil to meet its oil need. India has to enlarge its sources for oil imports away from the Middle East oil-producing countries.

•India made a strategy to expand its oil source India’s strategy for Diversification (Importing crude oil from non-OPEC countries) and the term contract is also under the part of the strategy.

The HINDU Notes – 07th February 2020

the hindu notes

VisionIAS 16:05

📰 Rates to fall despite RBI’s status quo

Repo rate kept unchanged at 5.15%

•The six-member Monetary Policy Committee of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at a meeting on Thursday decided to keep the interest rates unchanged in the wake of a rise in inflation but emphasised that there would be space for rate reduction.

•This is the second straight policy review meeting when the rates had been kept unchanged. RBI reduced the rates by 135 bps between February and October 2019 before pressing the pause button in the December policy review.

Unanimous decision

•Thursday’s decision was unanimous among all the six members of the MPC.

•RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das acknowledged that the market had factored in status quo.

•“While this decision may be on expected lines, and perhaps widely discounted, it’s important not to discount RBI”, he said.

•“It has to be kept in mind that the central bank has several instruments at its command that can be deployed to address the challenges that the economy currently faces in terms of the sluggishness in the growth momentum,” he said.

•Two specific measures were taken by the central bank that could ease lending rates further. One, it opened a window to extend Rs 1 lakh crore to the commercial banks at the repo rate, which is 5.15%. Second, banks have been exempted from maintaining the cash reserve ratio - which is 4% of the net demand and time liabilities now - for home, auto and MSME loans that are extended from January 31 to July 31.

•“... it is an effort to ensure better monetary policy transmission,” Mr. Das said, explaining the objective behind the move.

•The GDP growth for the next financial year is projected at 6%, in the range of 5.5-6% in the first half of the FY21 and and 6.2% in Q3. The growth projection for the current financial year was 5%.

📰 India to study air corridors with Central Asian countries

RBI’s 6th Bi-monthly Monetary Policy 2019-20 released: RBI keeps repo rate unchanged at 5.15%

VisionIAS 08:12

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee has released its 6th Bi-monthly Monetary Policy 2019-20. The Reserve Bank of India’s MPC has decided to keep the policy repo rate unchanged to 5.15%. The MPC has also decided to maintain the accommodative stance of monetary policy to revive growth, while ensuring that inflation remains within the target.

THE HINDU NEWSPAPER IMPORTANT ARTICLES 07.02.2020

the hindu articles

VisionIAS 08:10

NATIONAL

Rates to fall despite RBI’s status quo

Omar, Mehbooba booked under Public Safety Act

India, African countries resolve to fight terror

India to work with Russia on copters

Centre persists with ‘toothless’ pharma codes

Panel suggests steps to curb child porn

SC directive irks Rajya Sabha

SC bats for just compensation in accident cases

SC reserves order in Sabarimala review case

OPINION

Does the Budget do enough in providing a stimulus to growth?

Listening to the call of the informal

Complicating the tax regime further

Reducing custodial deaths

On the front foot

For a data firewall

Journalism in the time of an outbreak

Bhutto’s plan to bomb Trombay

BUSSINESS

RBI opts for long-term repos, CRR exemption to lower rates

‘Rs. 1 lakh-cr. infusion will enable banks cut rate’

RBI extends deadline for one-time debt recast for MSMEs

Rate-sensitive stocks gain after RBI policy

Daily Current Affairs, 06th February 2020

Vision IAS

VisionIAS 07:55

1) International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation: 6 February

•International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female is observed globally on 6 February. This day is sponsored by the United Nations for their efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.

•2020 Theme: Unleashing Youth Power

•Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons and is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights, the health and the integrity of girls and women. Girls who undergo female genital mutilation face short-term complications such as severe pain, shock, excessive bleeding, infections, and difficulty in passing urine, as well as long-term consequences for their sexual and reproductive health and mental health.

2) Union Cabinet clears the setting up of Major Port at Vadhavan

•The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its in-principle approval for setting up a new Major Port at Vadhavan near Dahanu in Maharashtra. The new Major Port will be established on the basis of land lord model. The projected cost of the Vadhavan Port is over Rs 65,000 crore. After the development of this new Major Port at Vadhavan in Maharashtra, India is expected to enter the list of countries with top 10 container ports in the world.

•For the implementation of the project, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be formed along the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) which will act as the lead partner with equity participation of 50% or more. This SPV will be responsible for the development of the port infrastructure, including construction of breakwater, reclamation with the establishment of connectivity to the hinterland. All the business activities will take place under the public private partnership (PPP) by private developers.

3) 5 IIITs to get the status of Institution of National Importance

•The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved to bestow the status of Institution of National Importance to the five Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs). The status will be provided with the inception of the Indian Institutes of Information Technology Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The bill will provide the status of Institutions of National Importance to the remaining five IIITs along with the existing 15 IIITs in PPP mode. The 5 IIITs in PPP mode includes IIITs in Bhopal, Raichur, Bhagalpur, Agartala and Surat.

4) To fight novel coronavirus World Health Organisation calls for USD 675 million

•Geneva-based WHO has called for 675 million US dollars in donations for a plan to fight the novel coronavirus. This announcement was made by the Director-General of WHO Tedros Adhanom in Geneva. They are launching a strategic preparedness and response plan and requesting 675 million dollars to fund the plan for the next three months. 60 million US dollars of the funds would be for WHO operations while the remainder would go to countries requiring assistance to guard against the deadly virus.

•World Health Organisation was sending 500,000 masks and 40,000 respirators to 24 countries from its warehouses in Dubai and Accra. Director-General of WHO also hailed a 100 million dollar donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced earlier.

What is Coronavirus?

•Coronaviruses are known to be a broad family of viruses, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “Human coronaviruses commonly cause mild to moderate illness in people worldwide. Two newer human coronaviruses, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, have been known to frequently cause severe illness. As per reports, the outbreak in Wuhan, China has been linked to a large seafood and animal market, suggesting a possible zoonotic origin to the outbreak”

•Coronavirus which is causing pneumonia-like illness is spreading rapidly around the globe. Although China is reportedly taking measures to contain the outbreak in the country as it has lockdown millions of people in the Hubei province but the disease as spread to other countries where cases have been reported recently. According to the Washington Post, cases have been confirmed in France, South Korea, Japan, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan and Canada.

5) Atal Innovation Mission starts “series of innovation demo days”

•Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog has begin a series of innovation demo days. The series aims to unite the stakeholders of the food processing and agriculture sector in India. The innovation demo days will act as a platform where start-ups, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), entrepreneurs, corporate partners and sector academics are brought together to be spectator of government-funded innovations.

Inaugural event of series of innovation demo days:

•The first innovation demo day was held in New Delhi bringing together Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare at Atal Incubation Centre (AIC)- Entrepreneurship & Management Process International (EMPI) Business school. The event featured the exhibition of more than 30 govt-funded/supported technologies which are related to food processing and agriculture. Out of the 30 govt-funded/supported technologies, 12 technologies were spectated in detail by the budding innovators and researchers to the stakeholders from the agriculture and food processing ecosystem. The exhibition was followed by a networking session.

6) Donald Trump acquitted of all impeachment charges by US Senate

•The United States President Donald Trump has been acquitted of all impeachment charges. The US Senate has acquitted President Trump on two articles of impeachment that are the abuse of power and obstruction to Congress. The Republican-majority Senate voted 52-48 to acquit him of abuse of power and 53-47 to acquit him of obstruction of Congress.

•Donald Trump is only the third US leader ever placed on trial, he readily defeated the effort to expel him from office for having illicitly sought help from Ukraine to bolster his 2020 re-election effort.

7) Romania’s pro-EU government falls after 3 months

•Romania’s pro-European government collapsed in a parliamentary no-confidence vote after only 3 months in office. A total of 261 of 465 MPs voted in favour of a motion against the minority government led by Ludovic Orban. The move was triggered by Orban’s attempt to change the law for local elections. Orban had wanted to reintroduce a two-round voting system but the change will no longer be implemented.

8) President of India presents International Gandhi Awards for Leprosy 2019

•The President of India, Ram Nath Kovind has presented the International Gandhi Awards for Leprosy for the year 2019 to Dr N.S. Dharmashaktu under the Indian nomination (individual) category and the Leprosy Mission Trust under the institutional category in New Delhi.

•The annual award has been instituted by Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation to recognise the work of individuals and organisations who have worked tirelessly to fight this disease and the prejudices associated with it. The award has been launched to commemorate the compassion that Gandhiji possessed and service he rendered towards people afflicted with leprosy.

9) Fitch forecasts India’s GDP growth at 5.6% for Financial Year 2021

•Fitch Ratings has estimated India’s GDP growth of 5.6% in the next FY21 in its India Economic Outlook. This forecast is lower than the projection made by the government’s Economic Survey. For the current fiscal 2019-20 (FY 20), GDP is projected at 4.6%. Fitch has also estimated that in the fiscal year 2022, government debt will remain 70% of total GDP.

10) Prime Minister of India sets target at DefExpo of 5 billion dollar USD in upcoming 5 years

•Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi has stated that NDA government set a defense export target of 5 billion dollars in the upcoming five years. The export of defense equipment from India was about 2,000 crore rupees. In the past 2 years, it has gone up to 17,000 crore rupees.

•In the upcoming five years, the target is defense export of 5 billion US dollars (approx 35,000 crore rupees). The 11th edition of the mega defense event is being held in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The theme of this event is “India: The Emerging Defence Manufacturing Hub”. The five-day DefExpo is being attended by 38 defense ministers and top executives of 172 foreign defense majors and 856 Indian companies in Lucknow.

The HINDU Notes – 06th February 2020

the hindu notes

VisionIAS 07:30

📰 PM pitches for boost to defence exports

‘Start-ups and MSMEs will be given emphasis’

•India became the world’s largest arms importer as it did not utilise its capacities to full potential after Independence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated on Wednesday and asserted that India was looking to achieve defence exports worth Rs. 35,000 crore in the next five years.

•“Post Independence, we did not use our defence opportunities and abilities to the full potential. Our policies and strategies remained focused on import. India thus became the largest arms importer in the world,” Mr. Modi said at the inaugural of the 11th Defexpo. After 2014, the government had undertaken several policy reforms, he pointed out.

•Mr. Modi talked about India turning into a manufacturing hub for military platforms and noted that defence manufacturing had found new energy. “In the last two years, defence exports worth Rs. 17,000 crore has been achieved; it is up from Rs. 2,000 crore in 2014,” he said.

•A long-term integrated defence plan was being conceptualised with emphasis on start-ups and Micro, Medium and Small Enterprises (MSMEs). Two hundred defence start-ups were likely to come up to give a push to indigenisation. “Defence manufacturing will not only make us self-reliant but also ensure we are prepared to help friendly countries in the region if required,” he said.

•Mr. Modi declared that India’s ambitions in the defence sector were not directed against anyone. “India has been a trustworthy partner of peace.”

•Mr. Modi also spoke about the importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

•He said his government had created a road map to increase its usage in the defence sector.

📰 Bill to resolve disputed income tax cases introduced in LS