IMF cuts India’s growth projection to 6.1% in 2019
Context : The IMF slashed India’s GDP growth projection for the year 2019 to 6.1%, which is 1.2% down from its April projections.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April said India will grow at 7.3% in 2019. However, three months later it projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019, a downward revision of 0.3%.
Reason For downward growth Projection :
- A reduction in corporate income tax rates, recent measures to address corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty, and government programs to support rural consumption.
- specific weaknesses in the automobile sector and real estate as well as lingering uncertainty about the health of nonbank financial companies.
Whats to be done :
- Monetary policy and broad-based structural reforms should be used to address cyclical weakness and strengthen confidence.
- A credible fiscal consolidation path is needed to bring down India’s elevated public debt over the medium term.
- should be supported by subsidy-spending rationalisation and tax-base enhancing measures.
- Governance of public sector banks and the efficiency of their credit allocation needs strengthening, and the public sector’s role in the financial system needs to be reduced.
- Reforms to hiring and dismissal regulations would help incentivise job creation and absorb the country’s large demographic dividend.
- Land reforms should also be enhanced to encourage and expedite infrastructure development.
Diagnostic kits developed under ‘Make in India’ initiative
Context : Two diagnostic kits developed by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) – Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, namely the Bluetongue sandwich ELISA (sELISA) and the Japanese Encephalitis lgM ELISA kit for the control of Swine and Detection of Antigen.
Japanese Encephalitis is a re-emerging viral zoonotic disease leading to death of children every year in the country.
Bluetongue (BT) virus is an insect-transmitted viral disease of domestic and wild ruminants that includes the camelid species.
Benefits :
- The release of these two Kits will definitely be beneficial for not only the farming community, but the society as a whole.
- This indigenous technology will not just help save foreign exchange as the newly developed kits cost ten times lesser than the imported ones but also has the potential to earn foreign exchange.
- As compared to the commercial kit available in the market at a price of Rs. 52,000; the ICAR-IVRI developed is available for the farmers at a minimal price of Rs. 5,000 only.
- Each kit is meant for testing around 45 samples.
Mother tongue for pre-school in India
Context : Children between the ages of three and six years should begin their educational journey in their own mother tongues, learn through play and not be subjected to tests of any kind, says the NCERT’s first-ever preschool curriculum.
Highlights :
- The first-ever preschool curriculum was released by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)
- The NCERT’s new curriculum is aimed at all pre-school education, defined as the education of 3 to 6-year-olds, whether at anganwadis, nursery schools, kindergartens, playschools or Montessori schools.
- It recommends that Children between the ages of three and six years should be taught in their own mother tongues
- Also, the focus on learning should be through play instead of being subjected to rote learning, tests and examinations.
- The draft National Education Policy has recommended that the Right to Education Act be extended to students in the three years of preschool before Class I.
Reason :
- A child’s mother tongue or home language is internationally recognised as most appropriate in the early years.
- Children need a bilingual or multilingual environment for smooth transition.
- In case there are more than one language as mother tongue, teachers may allow as many languages as are in the classroom to be used for expression with gradually exposing the child to school language.
Typhoon Hagibis
Context : Hagibis, which means “speed” in the Philippine language, is a super typhoon swirling around Japan.
Highlights :
- It led to Chikuma river breaching their banks inundating residential neighbourhoods and the torrential rain triggered landslides.
- The typhoon caused a total of 48 landslides in 12 prefectures and at the storm’s peak, more than seven million people were placed under non-compulsory evacuation orders.
- After it made its landfall, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake shook Tokyo shortly after.
- Hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are all basically the same thing, but are given different names depending on where they appear.
- Hurricanes are tropical storms that form over the North Atlantic Ocean and Northeast Pacific.
- Cyclones are formed over the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
- Typhoons are formed over the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
- willy-willy are formed in south-west Australia.
- It made landfall in Izu Peninsula, south-west of Tokyo and moved up the east coast.