IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

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312 Indian-origin Sikhs removed from adverse list

News

• At least 312 Indian-origin Sikhs living in foreign countries have been removed from an “adverse list,” enabling them to apply for Indian visas and visit the country.

Adverse list

• Government of India has reviewed the Adverse List containing 314 foreign nationals belonging to Sikh community and brought it down to just two.
• The list prepared by the intelligence agencies was available with all Indian missions and it was a major roadblock in availing visas even for their family members who were not on the list.
• The move comes ahead of the 550th birth anniversary of Sikhism founder Guru Nanak in November. India and Pakistan are building a corridor to facilitate Sikh pilgrims to visit Kartarpur shrine in Pakistan, where Guru Nanak spent his final days.

Odd-even vehicle scheme to be back in Delhi from Nov. 4 to 15

News

• The odd-even vehicle rationing scheme will return to the capital for the third time.

Odd-even vehicle rationing scheme

• The scheme was part of a seven-point action plan mainly aimed at combating the detrimental effect of stubble burning in the neighboring States.
• Studies have been conducted on the effect of the scheme and say that when it is enforced, air pollution in Delhi is reduced by 10 to 13%.
• The experts, supported the efficacy of the odd-even scheme as well as the use of pollution masks as effective short-term pollution mitigation measures.

Interpol Red Notice against Nirav Modi’s brother

News

• The Interpol has issued a Red Notice against Nehal, brother of fugitive Nirav Modi, in connection with the ₹13,578-crore Punjab National Bank fraud case.

Red Notice

• Nehal is a citizen of Belgium. The Red Notice has been issued on the Enforcement Directorate’s request.
• The Interpol had earlier issued the notice against Nirav Modi and his sister Purvi, who is also a Belgian national.
• Based on the Red Notice, the U.K. Police arrested him in March. He is currently facing extradition proceedings.

Supreme Court continues its stay on eviction of lakhs of forest dwellers

News

• The Supreme Court continued its stay on the eviction of lakhs of Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers whose claims for forest land rights have been rejected under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006.

Eviction order

• The Bench referred to how resorts and illegal structures have encroached on forest lands and led to the depletion of the green cover.
• More than 11 lakh people from the STs and OTFDs across 16 States faced the brunt of the apex court’s eviction order.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Gravitational waves detected for first time from newly born black hole: Study

News

• Researchers have, for the first time, detected the gravitational waves from a newly born black hole, and found that the ringing pattern of the waves predicts the cosmic body’s mass and spin, providing more evidence for Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

Gravitational waves from a newly born black hole

• The study increases the possibility that black holes exhibit only three observable properties mass, spin, and electric charge.
• All other properties, the study noted, could be swallowed up by the black hole itself, and are unobservable.
• Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity predicted that a black hole of a given mass and spin can only produce tones of a certain pitch and decay.
• Researchers calculated the mass and spin that the black hole should have using physicist Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, given its ringing pattern.
• These calculations, matched earlier measurements of the black hole’s mass and spin.

NATGRID wants to link social media accounts to central database

News

• The ambitious National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) project wants to link social media accounts to the huge database of records related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details among others.

National Intelligence Grid

• The project, initially started in 2009 with a budget of ₹2,800 crore, is an online database for collating scattered pieces of information and putting them on one platform.
• At least 10 central agencies like Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and others will have access to the data on a secured platform.
• The proposal has received resistance from the intelligence agencies, whose officials fear that linking the social media accounts to sensitive government data could expose the system to “trojan attacks.”
• The 10 user agencies will be linked independently with certain databases that would be procured from 21 providing organisations and include telecom, tax records, bank, immigration, etc. to enable the generation of intelligence inputs.

Industrial output growth drops to 4.3% in July

News

• India’s industrial production growth slowed to 4.3% in July, dragged mainly by manufacturing sector’s poor show.

Industrial production growth

• Factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had expanded 6.5% in July 2018.
• The industrial output growth was recorded at 1.2% in June and 4.6% in May this year.
• Industrial output grew at 3.3% down from 5.4% growth in the same period a year ago.
• The IIP data showed a significant slowdown in the manufacturing sector, which grew at 4.2% in July 2019 as compared to 7% a year ago.
• Capital goods segment, which is a barometer of investment, saw a contraction of 7.1% compared to 2.3% rise a year ago.
• Mining growth was 4.9% as compared to 3.4% in the same month last fiscal.
• The expansion in the power generation sector stood at 4.8% compared to 6.6% a year earlier.
• As per use-based classification, the growth rates are 3.5% in primary goods, 13.9% in intermediate goods and 2.1% in infrastructure/construction goods.
• Consumer durables and consumer non-durables have recorded growth of (-)2.7% and 8.3%, respectively.
• In terms of industries, 13 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth as compared to the same month a year ago.
• The industry group ‘manufacture of food products’ has shown the highest positive growth of 23.4%followed by 17.3% in ‘manufacture of basic metals’ and 15% in ‘manufacture of wearing apparel’.

RBI was net seller of dollars in July

News

• The Reserve Bank of India has turned a net seller of dollars for the first time this fiscal in July, having sold $93 million in the month on a net basis in the spot market.

Net seller of dollars

• The RBI had purchased $1.592 billion but sold $1.685 billion in the spot market.
• The RBI had net purchased $2.463 billion, as it bought $4.434 billion and sold $1.971 billion.
• In May and April, the central bank had net purchased $2.538 billion and $4.901 billion, respectively. In July 2018, the RBI had net sold $1.874 billion.

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