1.Fiscal responsibility and budget management act.

Context:

FRBM act of 2003 set a target to reduce the gross fiscal deficit (GFD) to 3% of GDP by 2008. By April 2018, this was replaced with a debt-GDP ratio of 40%, with the GFD of 3% as an operational target.

What is FRBM?

It is an Indian law aimed at improving the government’s fiscal management. It sets targets for reducing the gross fiscal deficit (GFD) and the government’s debt-to-GDP ratio, ensuring fiscal discipline, and enhancing transparency in budgeting.

Objectives

Objective	Description
Fiscal Discipline	Instils discipline in managing public finances, aiming to progressively reduce revenue and fiscal deficits to sustainable levels.
Debt Management	Keeps public debt within reasonable limits, enhancing transparency and accountability through specific fiscal targets and regular reporting.
Long-Term Sustainability	Ensures long-term fiscal sustainability by controlling deficits and managing debt.
Resource Allocation	Optimizes resource allocation by reducing wasteful expenditures and prioritizing essential sectors like education and infrastructure.
Macroeconomic Stability	Brings macroeconomic stability by controlling inflation, maintaining the exchange rate, and avoiding economic imbalances.

Why FRBM Ineffective?

1. Reduced expenditure: While there is a fall in deficits, it has largely been on account of reductions in expenditure in critical sectors such as education, health etc.
   • Eg: Finance ministry report, State’s capex declined by over 7% so far in 2023-24.
2. Budgetary innovations: achieved the deficit targets by manipulating the revenue and expenditure accounts such as curtailing the capital expenditure.
   • Eg: The introduction of an Effective primary deficit indicator has led to the decline of deficit.
3. High Debt to GDP: The government has time and again used escape clauses in FRBM to reset the new targets and miss deadlines.
4. Divergent state policies: Even though the states have an FRBM limit of 3.5% of State GDP due to populist policy many states are facing revenue deficits.
   • Eg: the 15^th FC report shows that 12 states face a revenue deficit even after the central grant.
5. Hiking macroeconomic indicators: India has a vulnerability in stable prices, CAD and unemployment leading to a lack of fiscal prudence.

Conclusion

The government should focus on revamping of FRBM Act along the lines of NK Singh’s committee recommendation such as adaptation of the glide path to achieve the target, establishing of independent fiscal council, conscience use of escape clause and coordinating monetary and fiscal policy to achieve the Fiscal consolidation and prudence.

2.LIFI TECH .

Source- financial express

context:

The Defence Ministry has adopted Velmenni’s Li-Fi technology to tackle communication challenges in the Indian Navy.

It is developed by Velmenni, uses light for secure wireless communication, supported by a grant under India’s iDEX initiative.

Lifi tech?

LiFi (Light Fidelity) is a wireless communication technology using visible light, specifically LED bulbs, to transmit data. Invented by Professor Harald Haas in 2011, LiFi offers high-speed, bidirectional mobile communication similar to WiFi but with faster speeds, lower latency, and greater bandwidth (thousands of terahertz).

It operates by modulating LED light to encode binary data, which is then received and decoded by photodiodes to transmit data wirelessly via visible light communication. This makes LiFi ideal for electromagnetic-sensitive environments such as aircraft cabins, hospitals, and nuclear power plants, as it does not cause electromagnetic interference and utilizes unused visible light frequencies for communication.

3.Understanding Moss: Features, Life Cycle, and Applications

Mosses?

Mosses are petite, non-flowering plants that come under the Bryophyta division, sharing the category with liverworts and hornworts. Unlike other plants, they lack a vascular system like xylem and phloem, and primarily absorb water and nutrients via their leaves. They thrive predominantly in damp, shady environments, forming mats or clusters on the forest bed. Even though most mosses only grow up to around 10cm, there is an exceptional species, Dawsonia, that can reach up to 50cm.

Features..

• Mosses exist as haploid gametophytes, which is the dominant phase, and diploid sporophytes.
• Their leaves are simple, small, and spirally arranged, often layered with a single row of cells and thick midribs.
• They have thread-like structures known as rhizoids instead of roots, which aid in their attachment to the substrate.
• Their stems are weak, free-standing, and usually range from greenish to brown hues.
• Mosses reproduce through spores as they lack seeds.
• Their sporophytes are short-lived with long, unbranched stems, and are mostly reliant on the gametophyte for water and nutrition.

4. Fungi

Overview

Recently, the United Nations Biodiversity has urged people globally to use the word ‘funga’ whenever they say ‘flora and fauna’, in order to highlight the importance of fungi.

About Fungi?

• Fungi, along with Animalia (animals), Plantae (plants), Protista, Archaea/Archaebacteria, and Bacteria or Eubacteria form the six ‘kingdoms’ of biology.
• They are eukaryotic organisms; i.e., their cells contain membrane-bound organelles and clearly defined nuclei.
• Reproduction: Fungi usually reproduce both sexually and asexually. 
• Distribution
  • Fungi are either terrestrial or aquatic, the latter living in freshwater or marine environments.
  • They are found in all temperate and tropical regions of the world where there is sufficient moisture to enable them to grow.
  • A few species of fungi live in the Arctic and Antarctic regions, although they are rare and are more often found living in symbiosis with algae in the form of lichens.

• Importance of fungi
  • They help in breaking down dead organic material, they continue the cycle of nutrients through ecosystems.
  • Fungi, as food, play a role in human nutrition in the form of mushrooms.
  • They also act as agents of fermentation in the production of bread, cheeses, alcoholic beverages, and numerous other food preparations.
  • Secondary metabolites of fungi are used as medicines, such as antibiotics and anticoagulants.