IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Open spaces near Buckingham canal to be developed as an urban forest

News:

The Chennai Corporation has kick started work on preparing a detailed report for developing public spaces along the Buckingham Canal. The work will be carried out adopting Japanese technique for urban forestry.

Beyond News:

Civic officials said the first phase of the project along the canal will adopt the Japanese technique of Miyawaki for urban forest owing to inadequate space in the congested parts of the city.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Restrictive measures in J&K being eased, India tells UNHRC

News:
India declared that Pakistan was trying to polarize the UN Human Rights Council to advance its agenda in South Asia. 

Beyond News:

• The Indian diplomat highlighted the discrimination faced by the minority religious communities and sects in Pakistan and stated that Islamabad has forgotten that “terrorism is the worst form of human rights abuse”.
• Pakistan has tried to “politicise and polarise” the UN Human Rights Council by its “fabricated” narrative.
• The hard hitting response from the Indian delegation came after the leader of the Indian diplomatic team assured the UN HRC about the situation inside Jammu and Kashmir.
• The Indian statement also assured that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is a “statutory, transparent and non discriminatory” process and the outcome of this judiciary supervised mechanism will conform to “Indian Law and will be consistent with India’s democratic traditions”.

Army holds simultaneous exercises in Russia and U.S.

News:
Amid tensions with Pakistan, an Indian Army contingent is in Russia for Exercise Tsentr 2019.

Beyond News:

• The Armies of China and Pakistan, besides those of the Central Asian Republics, are taking part in it.
• At the same time, another Indian Army contingent is in the U.S. for Yudh Abhyas, an annual bilateral exercise.
• Later this week, the Army will host the first conference of military medicine for the members of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO).
• AIM of Exercise Tsentr 2019 : Evolving drills of the participating Armies and practising them in the fight against the scourge of international terrorism, thereby ensuring military security in the strategic Central Asian region.
• The exercise will focus on evaluating the level of troop preparedness, acquisition of skills and raising the level of interoperability, and will demonstrate the readiness of the Armies.
• Exercise Tsentr is part of the Russian armed forces’ annual training cycle. It rotates through Russia’s four main operational strategic commands: Vostok (East), Zapad (West), Tsentr (Centre) and Kavkas (South). The exercise has become international over the years, with Belarus joining in 2017 and China and Mongolia in 2018. The participants this year are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, besides Russia.
• Already, the Malabar naval games, which had been a bilateral naval exercise, is now trilateral. In December 2018, Japan joined Cope India, a bilateral air exercise, as an observer. After a couple of editions, Japan will become a full partner in the exercise, official sources said.

Madhya Pradesh government to offer cows for adoption online

News:
The Madhya Pradesh government is going to launch an online service for those wanting to adopt a cow and provide sheds to them at gaushalas (cow shelters) across the State.

Beyond News:

While paying for a cow’s feed for 15 days would cost ₹1,100, one could take care of its diet for 10 years for ₹3 lakh. Feeding a cow for six months would cost ₹11,100.

Each contributor will be featured on the department’s website and receive a certificate. Using the service, donors, including NRIs, could pay gaushala managers directly for a borewell, a bull, a biogas plant or a shed. A bull would cost them ₹1.5 lakh that the Department would procure from other States to the designated gaushala.

Ministry plans to go from open platform to eventual monetisation of cities’ data

News:

Starting with an open data platform for the 100 cities that are a part of its Smart Cities Mission by 2020, the government is planning to make a wide range of data — from health, education, finances to social aspects — of all 4,041 urban local bodies public by 2024 and eventually monetising it.

Beyond News:

So far, the open data platform has 2,783 data catalogs from 99 Smart Cities, and by 2020, all data sets for the Smart Cities would be available.

This data would help cities plan their interventions better. All cities would have data officers and data coordinators by 2024.

India Urban Data Exchange was currently being built for the Smart Cities and government agencies, and would eventually function as a conduit for the safe transfer of data between urban local bodies, academia, private sector and civil society. These stakeholders would be able to sign a non-disclosure agreement among themselves.

Under the Smart Cities Mission, which was launched in 2015, a total of 5,151 projects worth ₹2,05,018 crore were to be completed in five years from the respective date of selection of the cities under the scheme. The cities were selected in phases starting from January 2016 till June 2018.

India firms up $130 billion plan to enhance military capability

News:

India has finalised a road map to spend $130 billion in the next five to seven years to modernise the armed forces and bolster their combat capabilities over rivals in the region, according to an official document and military sources.

Beyond News:

• The plan includes procurement of a range of weapons, missiles, air defence systems, fighter jets, submarines and warships, drones, surveillance equipment and developing infrastructure for extensive use of artificial intelligence, official sources said.
• While India’s spending has remained relatively constant in the last 10-15 years compared to its GDP, China’s has significantly ramped up defence budget during the period.
• Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced clearing a long-pending proposal to establish the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) for boosting coordination among the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Navy.
• The sources said the CDS will play a key role in implementing the modernisation drive in the three forces.
• To bolster its operational capability, the Navy has already finalised a plan to have 200 ships, 500 aircraft and 24 attack submarines in the next 3-4 years. At present, the Navy has around 132 ships, 220 aircraft and 15 submarines.
• It is also inducting the first batch of its intercontinental ballistic missile system — Agni V — which is expected to significantly bolster the country’s air defence system.
• The missile, with a strike range of 5,000 km, is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Very few countries, including the US, China, Russia, France and North Korea, have intercontinental ballistic missiles.
• In its missile armoury, India currently has Agni-1 with a 700 km range, Agni-2 with a 2,000-km range, Agni-3 and Agni-4 with 2,500 km to more than 3,500-km range.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

India, ASEAN agree to review free trade pact in goods

News:

• India and 10-member bloc of South-East Asian nations have agreed to review their free trade agreement, signed in 2009, to make it more business-friendly and boost economic ties.

Beyond News:

• The two sides also decided to constitute a joint committee for this purpose, according to a statement.
• This was agreed upon during the meeting between Economic Ministers of ASEAN and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in Bangkok on September 10. They met for the 16th AEM-India consultations.
• Both the sides also gained the recommendations of the ASEAN-India business council to further promote the potential of bilateral trade through the utilisation of the free trade pact as well as cooperation in some areas like financial technology, connectivity, startups and innovation.
• The India-ASEAN trade in goods pact came into force from January 2010.
• Under the pact, two trading partners set timelines for eliminating duties on the maximum number of goods traded between the two regions.
• The 10 ASEAN members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam.

The bilateral trade between the two sides has increased to $80.8 billion in 2018 from $73.6 billion in 2017.

RBI mandate on floating rate benchmark rates is credit negative for banks: Moody’s

News:

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mandating banks to link certain loans to the external benchmark-based interest rate from October 1 is credit negative to the lenders as it will limit their flexibility in managing risks, Moody’s Investors Service said on September 10.

Beyond News:

• Last week, the RBI had stated that banks are not satisfactorily transferring the cuts in policy interest rates to borrowers as it asked lenders to mandatorily link all new floating rate personal or retail loans and floating rate loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to an external benchmark.
• The central bank has so far this year cut interest rate by 110 basis points but lenders have transmitted only a part of it to borrowers in the form of a lower cost of taking loans.
• Banks will be free to decide the spread over the external benchmark. Subsequently, credit risk premiums may undergo change when a borrower’s credit assessment also undergoes a substantial change, as agreed upon in the loan contract, Moody’s said.
• Under the new rules, this direct linkage between lending rates and funding costs will no longer exist. This will expose banks to asymmetrical movements in the cost of funding and loan yields, thus exposing them to interest rate risks.
• Moody’s said that under the new regime, while the floating-rate loan book will get re-priced, only the non-CASA (current and savings accounts) deposits will see a re-pricing on deposits.
• “Banks’ funding requirements are dynamic. There are periods when a particular bank’s funding needs are high and it will readily pay higher than market rates, and vice versa. The new rules will impede the ability of banks to reflect such changes in funding costs of their lending rates as these will be linked to an external benchmark.
• The new rules will be applicable only to new personal, retail and MSME loans. Therefore, the near-term impact will be mitigated as new loans will be a relatively small portion of banks’ loan books to begin with.

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