This page contains "10th August 2018" current affairs analysis from different newspapers and magazines like The Hindu, Indian express, PIB and Yojna.
Quality and relevance are two key features considered while writing the content, all the topics are based on the pattern of previously asked questions in exams like UPSC CSE, IAS, State PCS, SSC, Banks PO and likewise competitive exams.
India's GDP to grow at 7.5 per cent in 2019-20: IMF
According to IMF the near-term macroeconomic outlook for India is "broadly favourable" due to strengthening of investment and robust private consumption.
GDP
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its report stated that GDP of India is expected to grow at 7.3 per cent in the 2018-19 fiscal and 7.5 per cent in 2019-2020.
Inflation
The report also indicated that the Headline inflation in India is projected to rise to 5.2 per cent in fiscal year 2018-19, because of tighten demand, depreciation of the rupee, and higher oil prices, housing rent allowances and agricultural minimum support prices.
Headline inflation has been a 17 year low at 3.6 per cent in fiscal year 2017-18, normal monsoon rainfall, agriculture sector reforms, subdued domestic demand and currency appreciation helped in keeping the inflation in check.
In May 2018, the headline inflation has risen to 4.9 per cent breaching the RBI threshold of 4 percent, this is due to demand recovery and rising oil prices.
Current account deficit
The report says that strong demand for imports, increase in remittances and rising oil prices will widen the current account deficit further to 2.6 per cent of GDP.
GST and Demonetization
According to the report the currency exchange exercise and GST implementation slowed down economic activities for a short period to 6.7 per cent GDP in fiscal year 2017-18.
Reforms taken by India
The report indicates that financial sector reforms taken by the government to address NPA and revive bank credit efficiency has been effective so far in cleanup of bank and corporate balance sheets.
Challenges
On domestic side, tax revenue shortfalls due to GST issues, NPA, structural reforms, expected high inflation, vulnerable sovereign-bank nexus, government fiscal deficits and debt remain key macroeconomic challenges for India.
On the external side, risk includes increase in international oil prices, tighter global financial conditions, global trade conflict, and rising regional geopolitical tensions.
Recommendation
The report recommends to consolidate fiscal continuously in order to lower elevated public debt levels, this can be achieved by simplifying and streamlining the GST structure.
While Recognition and addressing the Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) and recapitalisation of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) is a welcome step, more needs to be done for a sound economic atmosphere.
In context to financial sector weaknesses highlighted by several bank frauds, the report recommends : Strong steps needs to be taken by the government to improve governance and operations of PSBs, including more aggressive disinvestment.
Conclusion
The report concludes saying, despite higher global oil prices, tighter global financial conditions and domestic financial vulnerabilities broadly the economy reflects positive outlook.
The report also forecast that by contributing to 15 per cent of the growth in the global economy; India is a source of growth for the global economy for the next few decades as was the case with China few years back.
What is National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) ?
In a bid to reduce the response time, keeping in view the country's vast geographic area, the cabinet has given its approval for raising four more battalions of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) at an estimated cost of 637 crore rupees.
What is National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) ?
The NDRF was created in 2006 under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 for specialist response during the natural and man-made disasters, it has a total of 12 battalions deployed across the country.
NDRF comes under National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the apex body for Disaster Management in the country, the Prime Minister of India is the chairman of the Authority.
The head of the NDRF is designated as Director General among IPS officers, DG wears the uniform and badges of rank of an army three-star general.
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) consists of a force of 12 battalions, each of them includes persons on deputation from the para-military forces of India with each of them having a strength of approximately 1150 persons.
These battalions also includes engineers, technicians, electricians, dog squads and medical paramedics. 4 out of these 12 battalions are also capable of responding to radio-logical, nuclear, biological and chemical disasters.
Centre and State's responsibility in Disaster Management
In India State Governments are tasked with Disaster Management while Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is the nodal agency for management of natural disasters.
In situations of calamities of severe nature, the Central Government is responsible for providing aid and assistance to the affected state on request of the state government. Central Government's assistance includes deploying of Armed Forces, Central Paramilitary Forces, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and other assets available and needed.
Proactive deployment of NDRF forces is carried out by the NDMA in consultation with state authorities.
Heritage restoration by Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH)
In a bid to derived revenue for upkeeping the heritage properties, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) has started to transform heritage buildings in Rajasthan into "economic assets".
An exercise for mapping the natural heritage in Thar desert is also started with the participation of local communities for modern planning and building up the capacity of local communities
Under the initiative the protection of natural heritage, geo-heritage, water bodies, step-wells, sacred groves, wall paintings and rock painting is being undertaken by INTACH.
What is Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) ?
Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage(INTACH) was founded in New Delhi in 1984, as a non-profit charitable organisation registered under the Societies' Registration Act, 1860. INTACH is devoted to create a membership organisation to stimulate and spearhead heritage awareness and conservation in India.
INTACH has played a crucial role in conservation and protection of India's natural and cultural heritage and is today the largest membership organisation in the country dedicated to conservation.
Now it have chapters not only in 170 Indian cities but in Belgium and the United Kingdom. In 2007 INTACH got a special consultative status by United Nations Economic and Social Council of United Nations.
INTACH responsibilities
INTACH responsibility includes, sensitising the public about the pluralistic cultural legacy of India, take necessary actions and measures to protect and preserve India's living, built, and natural heritage.
In order to formulate conservation plans the trust also documents unprotected buildings of archaeological, architectural, historic and aesthetic significance.
It also encourages social responsibility in common people to preserve country's common heritage through capacity-building and training programmes.
It also helps in sponsoring of conservation and educational projects and take emergency response during disasters, support the administration whenever heritage is threatened.
Challenge in restoring of heritage structures
Most of the people involved in reviving these old structures are unaware of the work that goes into conservation architecture this makes it hard to safeguard the original architectural style and the integrity of the building.
Workers included for restoring of heritage structures should be given hands-on experience of working with lime and mortar used to restore the building and should also be given a chance to interact with the craftsmen if possible.
Practices like using cement instead of original building materiel being used to replace the lime and mortar on heritage structures should be avoided to keep the building integrity intact.
INTACH is currently undertaking the restoration of Fort High School, the Colonial-style structure which was built during the time of Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV, the erstwhile Maharaja of Mysuru. The restoration was started in April 2018 at a cost of 2.5 crore rupees.
RISECREEK - family of six industry-standard microprocessors
IIT- Madras has recently developed the first of a family of six industry-standard microprocessors, named "RISECREEK" under the project "Shakti". RISECREEK is a kind of chip family that India always wanted, but could not make so far.
Indigenous Microprocessor - RISECREEK
The microprocessors involved in the chip are optimised for power consumption and compete with Cortex A5 from Advanced RISC Machines (ARM) like international units.
The design of RISECREEK's microprocessors is open source and have been fabricated free at Intel's facility at Oregon, U.S., to run the Linux operating system.
RISECREEK's microprocessors scored 1.68 against the competition's 1.57 in terms of the DMIPS per megahertz rating with a frequency of 350 MHz.
The Shakti Project was started in 2014 as an IIT-M initiative, a part of the plan is being funded by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The project covers not only microprocessors but several high speed interconnects to develop super computers capable of Petaflop and Exaflop level computing.
Project Skakti contains six types of microprocessors C class is ready while E and I class of microprocessors to be used in IoT devices, fan/motor controls etc and desktops and mobile phones is soon to follow. S class which can be used for enterprise class servers is underway.
H class, 32 cores microprocessors part of next phase Para-SHAKTI project, consists of massive parallel processing capacity to build High Performance computers is also inline.
Benfits of RISECREEK
Country's demands of defence and strategic equipment such as NAVIC (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite) and Internet of Things (IoT) can be met by these indigenous Microprocessor.
Apart from better processing speed the process of making RISECREEK chips is three times faster than the industry standards. The design of this made in India chip family is open source so that its microprocessors can be adapted by others.
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