Current Affairs Assam – August 2018
( Covers all important Assam Current Affairs & GK topics for the month of August 2018 )
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August 24
India, China to work out new Defence pact
The Defence Ministers of India Nirmala Sitharaman met her Chinese counterpart Gen Wei Fenghe, who is on a bilateral visit to India from August 21 to 24, had met at Delhi, in their first high-level engagement since Wuhan, and the two nations agreed to work out a new bilateral memorandum of understanding on defence exchanges and cooperation to replace a pact signed in 2006.
The 2006 MoU signed by the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee with his Chinese counterpart envisaged “establishment of a mechanism to ensure frequent and regular exchanges between leaders and officials of the defence ministries and the armed forces of the two countries in addition to developing an annual calendar for holding regular joint military exercises and training programmes.”
New Delhi and Beijing have also agreed to enhance cooperation between armed forces relating to training, joint exercise and other professional interactions.
NASA to launch advanced Laser to track change in Earth’s ice
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will soon launch an advanced Laser satellite that will measure the change in Earth’s polar caps with very high accuracy.
NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) will be launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta II 7320-10C from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California.
It has been in the works for about 10 years. It is the second iteration of this satellite. The first one was much less precise laser and was decommissioned in 2010.
The satellite will measure the average annual elevation change of land ice covering Greenland and Antarctica to within the width of a pencil, capturing 60,000 measurements every second.
Melting ice sheets and glaciers is mainly caused by global warming. It is one of the primary reasons sea level is rising across the globe. Sea level rises an average of .3 centimeters per year. Antarctic ice loss has tripled since 2012, causing sea levels across the globe to rise faster now than ever before in history.
FACTFILE – ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite 2)
- A planned satellite mission for measuring ice sheet elevation and sea ice freeboard, as well as land topography and vegetation characteristics.
- ICESat-2 is a planned follow-on to the ICESat mission.
- It will be launched on 15 September 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, into a near-polar orbit with an altitude of approximately 496 km.
- The ICESat-2 mission is designed to provide elevation data needed to determine ice sheet mass balance as well as vegetation canopy information.
- It will provide topography measurements of cities, lakes and reservoirs, oceans and land surfaces around the globe, in addition to the polar-specific coverage.
- The ICESat-2 project is being managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The sole instrument is being designed and built by the center, and the bus is being provided by Orbital ATK.
- ICESat-2, which cost a little over $1 billion and is about the size of a Smart car.
August 25
India’s Forex Reserves decline to $400 Billion
India’s forex reserves continue to decline and in the latest report upto August 17, it has declined by $33.2 million to $400.847 billion primarily aided by the decline in foreign currency assets.
The decline is largely triggered by RBI’s proactive measures to stem further free-fall in the rupee which in the wake of Turkey crisis and US-China trade war threat has fallen past the 70 mark. In the week ended 17 August, foreign currency assets, a major component of the overall reserves, dipped by $60.2 million to $376.205 billion
Gold reserves rose by $36.1 million to $20.727 billion in the reporting week. The special drawing rights with International Monetary Fund (IMF) dipped by $3.4 million to $1.463 billion. The country’s reserve position with the IMF also declined by $5.7 million to $2.452 billion
FACTFILE – Foreign-exchange reserves (or Forex reserves)
- The Foreign exchange reserves of India are India’s holdings of cash, bank deposits, bonds, and other financial assets denominated in currencies other than India’s national currency, the Indian rupee.
- The reserves are managed by the Reserve Bank of India for the Indian government and the main component is foreign currency assets.
- Foreign exchange reserves act as the first line of defense for India in case of economic slowdown, but acquisition of reserves has its own costs.
- Foreign exchange reserves facilitate external trade and payment and promote orderly development and maintenance of foreign exchange market in India.
- India’s foreign exchange reserves are mainly composed of US dollar in the forms of US government bonds and institutional bonds, with nearly 5% of forex reserves in gold.
- The FCAs also include investments in US Treasury bonds, bonds of other selected governments and deposits with foreign central and commercial banks.
- India is at 8th position in List of countries by foreign-exchange reserves , just below Republic of China (Taiwan) and Russia.
Women account for 53% of direct selling industry
Women contribute 53% of entrepreneurs engaged in the $1.5 billion (Rs 9,850 crore) direct selling industry in India, a report by the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA).
The Indian direct selling industry provided entrepreneurship opportunities to 5.1 million people in 2017, of which 2.7 million were women.
The Indian direct selling industry has been growing at an exponential pace over the last few years to become a part of the ‘billion-dollar club’ of the multi-billion-dollar global direct selling industry.
Though India and China having a similar number of direct selling entrepreneurs, China is far ahead in terms of sales generated. Around 5.1 million entrepreneurs in India were involved in direct selling in 2017 compared to 5.3 million in China. However, sales generated in China stood at $34.29 billion compared with $1.5 billion in India in 2017.
A report by FICCI-KPMG predicts that with adequate regulatory support, retail sales in direct selling could reach Rs 64,500 crore by 2025 and provide self-employment opportunities to 18 million Indians by 2025, of which 60% could be women.
While the US is the world’s largest market, China is at the second spot. Asia Pacific region, however, has emerged as the largest contributor to the global direct selling industry in 2017. The Asia Pacific region contributed 46% to global sales generated by the direct selling industry in 2017 with more than 65 million people in the region involved in it. Among the world’s top 10 largest direct selling markets in 2017 in terms of sales, five countries are from Asia.
FACTFILE – World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA)
- WFDSA, based in Washington DC, is the leading international non-governmental organization representing direct selling industry worldwide as a federation of national Direct Selling Associations. WFDSA was founded in 1978 by 12 Direct Selling Associations.
- The Federation was set up to address various direct selling issues around the globe by allowing DSAs the ability to share information, strategies and to plan common practices.
- The First WFDSA World Code of Ethics was established in 1985 and adopted by the DSAs locally.
- The key objectives of the Federation is to pursue the highest level of ethical conduct in the global marketplace, fosters advocacy by partnering with government, consumer and academic leaders around the world, strengthens management of national Direct Selling Associations and promoting integration and alignment of direct selling companies.
SBI expects 10% credit growth in FY19
State Bank of India said it has ‘set its house in order’ and the credit growth is expected to see 10 per cent growth by the end of the current fiscal.
The country’s largest lender suffered a hefty loss of Rs 4,876 crore for the June quarter due to higher bad loans. The total provisions more than doubled to Rs 19,228 crore for the first quarter of this fiscal, from Rs 8,929.48 crore in Q1 of FY 18. On a consolidated basis, the bank posted a net loss of Rs 4,230 crore as against a profit of Rs 3,032 crore earlier.
Gross advances crossed the Rs 20 lakh crore mark and grew at 4.91 per cent to Rs 20,48,387 crore by March 2018 from the previous year’s level of Rs 19,52,507 crore.
FACTFILE – State Bank of India (SBI)
- SBI is an Indian multinational, public sector banking and financial services It is a government-owned corporation headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
- The company is ranked 217th on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s biggest corporations as of 2017. It is the largest bank in India with a 23% market share in assets, besides a share of one-fourth of the total loan and deposits market.
- The bank descends from the Bank of Calcutta, founded in 1806, via the Imperial Bank of India, making it the oldest commercial bank in the Indian subcontinent.
- The Bank of Madras merged into the other two “presidency banks” in British India, the Bank of Calcutta and the Bank of Bombay, to form the Imperial Bank of India, which in turn became the State Bank of India in 1955.
- The Government of India took control of the Imperial Bank of India in 1955, with Reserve Bank of India (India’s central bank) taking a 60% stake, renaming it the State Bank of India. In 2008, the government took over the stake held by the Reserve Bank of India.
Govt approves 1.12 lakh more houses under PM’s housing scheme
The Centre has approved construction of nearly 1.12 lakh more affordable houses for urban poor in eight states under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, with Andra Pradesh bagging the largest share of over 37,000 housing units.
According to the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry, which is mandated to implement the scheme, the total number of houses being funded under the PMAY (Urban) is close to 55 lakh across the country so far.
The committee also sanctioned construction of 2.67 lakh affordable houses for the poor in 10 states. It stated that Andhra Pradesh has been sanctioned 37,719 houses while the sanction for Haryana is 19,858.
The number of houses sanctioned for Madhya Pradesh is 18,375, Maharashtra 12,238 houses, Chhattisgarh 10,632 houses and Karnataka 8,761 houses. Approvals given for J&K stands at 4,442 houses while Arunachal Pradesh has been sanctioned 188 houses.
FACTFILE – Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)
- PMAY is an initiative by Government of India in which affordable housing will be provided to the urban poor with a target of building 20 million affordable houses by 31 March 2022.
- It has two components: Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) (PMAY-U) for the urban poor and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) (PMAY-G and also PMAY-R) for the rural poor.
- This scheme is converged with other schemes to ensure houses have a toilet, Saubhagya Yojana electricity connection, Ujjwala Yojana LPG gas connection, access to drinking water and Jan Dhan banking facilities, etc.
- Accumulative houses under PMAY(U) would become 54,95,443 after final approval from CSMC.
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