India’s First Carbon-positive Settlement
- Phayeng Village in Manipur (Imphal West district) has become India’s first carbonpositive settlement.
- A village is given the carbon-positive tag if it sequesters more carbon than it emits, slowing the accumulation of greenhouse gases and mitigating the effect of climate change.
ISRO’s PSLV-C45 Places Emisat
- The Indian Space Research Organisation placed Defence Research Development Organisation-developed electronic intelligence satellite Emisat and 28 foreign satellites in orbits from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.
- Emisat, weighing 436kg, is meant for helping the military locate hostile radars.
- It is country’s first Electronic Surveillance Satellite and will be used for Electronic Signals Intelligence (ELINT).
Hump-backed Mahseer Declared Endangered
- International Union for Conservation of Nature has placed Hump-backed Mahseer found in Cauvery River basin in Red List of Threatened Species.
- It means, this freshwater first is a critically endangered species.
- The fish is also called the tiger of the water
Changing Business and Opportunities for Employer and Business Organizations
- ILO’s report titled “Changing Business and Opportunities for Employer and Business Organizations" lists the percentage of work activities that can be automated using current technology. In the case of India, 51.8% of activities can be automated
- Japan and Thailand run the risk of 55.7% and 54.8%, respectively, of their activities being automated.
- Over 40% of activities can be automated across the world.
- Also, automation threatens to impact women more than men, suggests the report. It points out that women “are a large component of the workforce in retail, business processing outsourcing and textiles/clothing/footwear". This is primarily because automation threatens sectors where women form a major part of the workforce.
Ways and means of RBI
- The Reserve Bank of India, in consultation with the Government of India, has decided that the limits for Ways and Means Advances (WMA) for the first half of the financial year 2019-20 (April 2019 to September 2019) will be Rs 75000 crore.
- The temporary loan facility provided by RBI to the Centre and State govt. is known as Ways and Means Advances.
- The WMA scheme for Central Govt. was introduced on April 1, 1997, replacing the system of adhoc Treasury Bills to finance the Central Government deficit.
- The WMA scheme was designed to meet temporary mismatches in the receipts and payments of the government.
- The WMA is to be vacated after 90 days and is charged at repo rate.
- The Overdraft Facility is provided when the WMA limit is breached but not beyond 10 consecutive working days.
- The interest rate on Overdrafts would be 2% more than repo rate.
NPA Divergence Closure Norms
- The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to disclose bad loan divergences in their financial statements if the additional provisioning exceeds 10 percent of profit before provision and contingencies.
- It has been decided that banks should disclose divergences, if "the additional provisioning for NPAs assessed by RBI exceeds 10 percent of the reported profit before provisions and contingencies for the reference period".
- RBI further said disclosure has also to be made if the additional gross NPAs identified by RBI exceed 15 percent of the published incremental gross NPAs for the reference period.
First Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy of RBI FY20
- RBI has reduced the current Repo Rate from 6.25% to 6% as part of First Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy of FY20 (As of April 5, 2019).
- Also, RBI cuts GDP growth forecast to 7.2% from 7.4% for 2019-20.
- Reverse Repo Rate : 5.75%
- Marginal Standing Facility Rate : 6.25%
- Bank Rate : 6.25%
- CRR – 4%
- SLR – 19.25%
BoB Becomes 3rd Largest Bank
- Bank of Baroda (BoB became the second largest state-owned lender after merging Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank into itself as part of the first three-way amalgamation
- Also, it became the third-largest bank after State Bank of India (SBI) and HDFC Bank
BSE, INX and Moscow Exchange Join Hands
- BSE and India International Exchange (India INX) have signed a memorandum of understanding with Moscow Exchange (MOEX) to connect investor community and companies in both countries besides allowing a capital formation platform.
- They will conduct joint research to explore the possibility of further cooperating in the area of cross-listing of derivative products, exchange traded fund, dual listing and fixed income product cooperation.
Voice-based Financial Transaction by RNAM
- Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management (RNAM) has partnered with Google to enable the customers of Reliance Mutual Funds to carry out voice-based financial transactions.
- This makes RNAM, the first company to introduce conversational interface that would help customers regarding funds transactions.
State of Global Air 2019
- This third annual State of Global Air report published by y Health Effects Institute presents the latest information on worldwide air pollution exposures and health impacts.
- Overall long-term exposure to outdoor and indoor air pollution contributed to nearly five million deaths from stroke, diabetes, heart attack, lung cancer, and chronic lung disease in 2017.
- South Asia viz. Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan is the most polluted region, with over 1.5 million air-pollution-related deaths.
- China and India together were responsible for over half of the total global attributable deaths from air pollution in 2017.
- The life of a South Asian child born today is shortened by two years and six months growing up in current high levels of air pollution, while the global life expectancy loss is 20 months.
BSNL to Provide Internet on Flights
- State-owned telecom service provider Bharatiya Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has received licence from the Department of Telecommunications to provide Internet and mobile services on flights.
- BSNL and its satellite partner, Inmarsat, will offer in-flight connectivity to airlines.
- According to the rules, passengers can make phone calls or use Internet when a flight is at a minimum height of 3,000 m in Indian airspace to avoid interference with terrestrial mobile networks.
Global Report on Food Crises
- As per the 2019 Global Report on Food Crises report released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) More than 113 million people across 53 countries experienced acute hunger in 2018.
- Yemen remained the world’s gravest food insecurity crisis in 2018 with 53% of the population was in urgent need of assistance.
India Open 2019
- YONEX-SUNRISE India Open 2019 or India Open was organized by the Badminton Association of India in New Delhi.
- Viktor Axelsen defeated India’s top shuttler, Kidambi Srikanth to win the Men’s Singles title.
- Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand won in Women’s Singles Category.
ESPN India Awards
- At the ESPN India awards for 2018, PV Sindhu was conferred with the Sportsperson of Year award in female category and Neeraj Chopra was conferred with the Sportsperson of the year award in Male category.
- Shooter Saurabh Chaudhary was conferred upon Emerging Sportsperson of the Year
- Saina Nehwal grabbed Comeback of the Year
Defence
- The third edition of India and Australia’s bilateral maritime exercise of ‘AUSINDEX-19 began on April 2, 2019 with the arrival of Royal Australian Navy’s fleet at Visakhapatnam.
- The United States Department of State has approved the sale of 24 MH-60R Seahaw Maritime multi-mission helicopters to India under its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program.
- The Indian Army has successfully built the longest suspension bridge of India ‘Matiri Bridge’ over the Indus River in the Leh-Ladakh region. It is 260-feet long suspension bridge built in 40 days
Important Days
| Date | Day | Theme |
|---|---|---|
| April 2. | World Autism Awareness Day | Assistive Technologies, Active Participation |
| April 5 | National Maritime day | “Indian Ocean- An Ocean of Opportunity” |
| April 6 | International day of Sport for Development and Peace | |
| April 7 | World Health Day | Universal Health Coverage: : everyone, everywhere” |
Appointments
| Vipin Anand | Managing Director of the Life Insurance Corporation of India |
| Davis Malpass | 13th President of the World Bank |
| Keshav Murugesh | Chairman of NASSCOM |
| Lori Lightfoot | Chicago’s first Black Women Mayo |
| Justice T B N Radhakrishnan | Chief Justice of Calcutta High Court |
| Manu Sawhney | Chief Executive Officer of ICC |
Miscellaneous
- South Korea became the first country to commercially launch Fifth-Generation (5G) services as it rolls out the latest wireless technology with Samsung Electronics‘ new 5G-enabled smartphone Galaxy S10.
- WhatsApp has launched an India-focused fact-checking feature to combat fake news and rumours by reporting the forward to the WhatsApp number +91-9643-000-888.
- Paytm Money, the wealth management arm of Paytm, has got approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India to start offering a stock broking service.
- Asian Development Bank (ADB) has lowered India’s growth to 7.2 per cent from 7.6% in fiscal year 2019-20.
- Saurav Ghosal became the first Indian male squash player to enter the top 10 in the latest PSA world rankings.
- Lakshmi Vilas Bank has announced its merger with Non-Banking Finance Company Indiabulls Housing Finance.
- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has honoured PM Narendra Modi with the “Order of Zayed”, its highest civilian award.
- Dr. Viharidas Gopaldas Patel, an eminent economist and father of entrepreneurship movement in India, passed away in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
- Fitch Rating kept the India’s Rating sovereign rating unchanged for 13th year in a row at the lowest investment grade of BBB- with a stable outlook.
