IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

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Centre launches online national laboratory directory

News

• Consumer Affairs Minister launched an online directory, which provides information about Indian standards of various products and testing infrastructure in the country for the benefit of various stakeholders such as start-ups.

Online national laboratory directory

• There are estimated 10,000 labs across the country. Currently, about 4,500 labs owned by public and private academic institutions are listed on the online directory.
• The directory is a one-stop solution for all testing requirements and houses information about all testing facilities available in the country today.
• Consumers can also make use of the information to test the quality of the products they are using.
• At single click, from individual users to entrepreneurs to exporters to companies, everyone can know about testing requirements and location of testing labs in the country.

India, Pak officials hold technical talks on Kartarpur corridor

News

• Officials from India and Pakistan discussed the technical modalities of the Kartarpur corridor for the Sikh pilgrims, the first meeting after New Delhi revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status leading to fresh tensions between the two countries.

Kartarpur corridor

• The corridor will connect Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur with Dera Baba Nanak shrine in Gurdaspur district and facilitate visa-free movement of Indian Sikh pilgrims, who will have to just obtain a permit to visit Kartarpur Sahib, which was established in 1522 by Sikh faith founder Guru Nanak Dev.
• This is the first meeting that is being held after India on August 5 revoked Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and bifurcated the state into two Union Territories.
• Pakistan and India are discussing the modalities regarding the opening of the corridor at Narowal, some 125-km from Lahore, on the occasion of 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak in November.
• Over the past few months many rounds of meetings have been held on the corridor during which the experts from the two sides have discussed its alignment, coordinates and other engineering aspects of the proposed crossing points.
• The corridor will also be the first visa-free corridor between the two neighbours since their independence in 1947.
• Pakistan is building the corridor from the Indian border to the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib, while the other part from Dera Baba Nanak up to the border will be constructed by India.
• Tension between India and Pakistan has escalated after New Delhi revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. Reacting to India’s move on Kashmir, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi and expelled the Indian High Commissioner.

 

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Government unveils mega bank mergers

News

• The government unveiled a mega plan to merge 10 public sector banks into four as part of plans to create fewer and stronger global-sized lenders as it looks to boost economic growth from a five-year low.

Mega bank mergers

• Finance Minister, announced four new set of mergers- Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will combine to form the nation’s second-largest lender; Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank will merge; Union Bank of India will amalgamate with Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank; and Indian Bank will merge with Allahabad Bank.
• The exercise, seen together with the previous two rounds of bank consolidation, will bring down the number of nationalised public sector banks to 12 from 27 in 2017.
• After the mergers, the country will have 12 public sector banks, including State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda.
• Also, Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Punjab and Sind Bank, which have strong regional focus, will continue as separate entities.

₹2,000 notes in circulation fall

News

• The ₹2,000 currency notes introduced during the demonetisation exercise of 2016 have dropped in circulation in the last one year ended in March 2019.

₹2,000 currency notes

• According to data in the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report, there were 3,363 million pieces of such notes in circulation as at end March 2018, which was 3.3% of the total currency in circulation, in terms of volume.
• In value terms, the ₹2,000 notes’ share in total currency circulation was 37.3%.
• The number of pieces dropped to 3,291 million in the year ended March 2019, which was 3% in terms of volume and 31.2% in value of total circulation.
• At the same time, the number of ₹500 notes significantly increased to 21,518 million pieces from 15,469 million pieces during the period under review.
• In value terms, the ₹500 notes are more than half of the currency in circulation.
• There was a sharp increase in the value of ₹500 banknotes in circulation — from 42.9% to 51.0% over the year.

Bank frauds rise 74%, says RBI

News

• Bank frauds saw a whopping 73.8% jump in value in 2018-19 as compared to the previous year. In terms of number of cases, it was up 15%, the RBI’s annual report said.

Bank frauds

• The number of cases of frauds reported by banks increased by 15% in 2018-19 on a year-on-year basis, with the amount involved rising by 73.8%, though mostly related to occurrences in earlier years.
• Banks had taken 55 months, on an average, to report large frauds.
• The overall average lag between the date of occurrence and its detection by banks was 22 months, the RBI report said.
• The average lag for large frauds, that is ₹100 crore and above, which amounted to ₹52,200 crore in 2018-19, was 55 months.
• Among bank groups, public sector banks (PSBs), which constitute the largest market share in bank lending, have accounted for the bulk of frauds reported in 2018-19. These were followed by private sector banks and foreign banks.
• While the total number of counterfeit notes detected had fallen in 2018-19 to 3,17,384 pieces from 5,22,783 pieces in the previous years, what’s interesting is that 717 such notes of ₹1,000 denomination had been detected.
• The ₹1,000 notes were withdrawn from circulation on November 8, 2016. The number of ₹2,000 counterfeit notes detected also increased in 2018-19 to 21,847 pieces from 17,929 pieces, the data showed.
• There was also a sharp increase in the new ₹500 notes category, with 21,865 counterfeit notes detected as compared to 9,892 in the previous year.

Two new eel species discovered

News

• Two new species of marine eel were discovered and documented by Estuarine Biology Regional Centre (EBRC) of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).

Two new species

• One of them is a short brown un-patterned moray eel now named ‘Gymnothorax andamanensesis’. Two specimens of this eel were caught at 2-metre deep waters in the south Andaman coast.
• Till now, 10 species of short brown unpatterned moray eels have been discovered in the world, out of which two were found in Indian waters. With this new discovery, the number of short brown un-patterned moray eels discovered from the Indian coast has increased to three.
• Similarly, a new white-spotted moray eel, now named ‘Gymnothorax smithi’ has also been identified by the Gopalpur ZSI’s scientists. Its first specimen was found from the 200-metres deep waters of the Arabian Sea in 2011.
• Marine eels are mostly found in shallow waters but some of them live offshore in sandy or clayey bottoms ranging up to 500 metres.
• Till now, 49 species of moray eel from 10 genera had been reported from Indian waters, and their species numbers have increased to 50 with the new addition.

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