Current Affairs – 5.October.2019

“Green Crackers”

Context : India launches “Green Crackers” in its bid to curb air pollution.Green logo and QR coding system also launched to track manufacture & sale of counterfeit crackers.

Green crackers are environment freindly as compared to the traditional crackers. To develop reduced emission/green fireworks, eight labs participated,CSIR–NEERI, CEERI, IITR, IICT, NCL, CECRI, NBRI and CMERI, with CSIR NEERI coordinating the entire exercise.

Benefits :

Reduced emission light .
Sound emitting crackers with 30% reduction in particulate matter.
Environment-friendly fireworks .
To the rescue of the common man and millions of jobs have been saved as the supreme court bans on crackers .

ELECTRIC VEHICLE (EV) CHARGING GUIDELINES

In News

Union Minister for Power has approved amendments in Electric Vehicle Charging Guidelines and Specifications.
At least one Charging Station to be available in a grid of 3 Km x 3 Km in the cities and one Charging Station at every 25 Km on both sides of highways/roads.
All Mega Cities & expressways connected to these Mega Cities to be taken up for coverage in first phase, other big cities to be taken up in second phase.
For inter-city travel, Fast Charging Station to be installed at every 100 Kms.
Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a statutory body under Ministry of Power has been nominated as the Central Nodal Agency to facilitate installation of Charging Infrastructure.

Make policing and police stations people-friendly

Context : To make policing people-centric and police stations people-friendly and receptive.

What to be done ?

To focus on the swift and objective approach to dealing with cases rather than bothering about the increase in crime figures.
Every complaint must be registered and enquired.
The common man should feel confident that the police personnel were competent to redress his grievance.
senior officers take the lead in changing the atmosphere in police stations .
State Police and Central Armed Forces to deal with emerging challenges effectively.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut the repo rate

In News :

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut the repo rate or key lending rate by 25 basis points while maintaining an accommodative stance.
The reverse repo rate was reduced to 4.9%.
This is the fifth consecutive rate cut by the apex bank this year, aggregating to 135 bps.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) also cuts GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal year 2019-20 to 6.1% from 6.9% earlier.

Highlights of MPC:

A repo rate cut allows banks to reduce interest rates for consumers and lowers equal monthly instalments on home loans, car loans and personal loans.
Central banks around the world are loosening monetary policy to offset a global slowdown made worse by U.S.-China trade tensions
RBI will take a fresh look at cooperative bank regulations and take it up with the government
The RBI has allowed domestic banks to freely offer foreign exchange (forex) prices to NRIs
The continuing slowdown warrants intensified efforts to restore the growth momentum.
On the crisis in the Punjab & Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC), the RBI governor said one incident cannot be and should not be used to generalise the health of the co-operative banking sector.
PCA(Prompt Corrective Action) is an opportunity for the bank to correct itself.
Appealed members of the public and all depositors that our banking system remains sound and stable, there is no reason for unnecessary panic.
RBI has decided to create a separate category of NBFC, viz., Non-Banking Financial Company-Micro Finance Institution (NBFC-MFI).
It acknowledged “the negative output gap has widened further”

Present scenario:

Inflation is well within the target giving space to the RBI to focus on growth
Crude oil prices are back in the comfort zone, retreating from the spike in mid-September, and food prices are projected to remain soft on the back of a good monsoon.

Crux:

If the projection of 6.1% for 2019-20 is to be met, the economy has to grow by about 7% in the second half which does not look very likely.
The problem is that the central bank can only facilitate lower rates and push banks to lend. It cannot force borrowers to borrow and this is evident from the soft trends in credit offtake in the last few months.

World Cotton Day

Context: World Cotton Day being observed from 7th October to 11th October 2019 in Geneva.

About the World Cotton Day:

Organised by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in collaboration with the Secretariats of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC).
WTO is hosting the event at the request of the Cotton – 4 countries, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali.

Objectives of the event:

To give exposure and recognition to cotton and all its stakeholders in production, transformation and trade.
To engage donors and beneficiaries and strengthen development assistance for cotton.
To seek new collaborations with the private sector and investors for the cotton related industries and production in developing countries and promote technological advances, as well as further research and development on cotton.

Significance of the day:

The Day will celebrate the many advantages of cotton, from its qualities as a natural fibre, to the benefits people obtain from its production, transformation, trade and consumption.
It will also serve to shed light on the challenges faced by cotton economies around the world because cotton is important to least developed, developing and developed economies worldwide.

A single tonne of cotton provides year-round employment for five people on average.

Cotton is a drought – resistant crop ideal for arid climates, it occupies just 2.1 % of the world’s arable land, yet it meets 27% of the world’s textiles need.

In addition to its fibre used in textiles and apparel, food products are also derived from cotton like edible oil and animal feed from the seed.

India’s first e-waste clinic will come up in Bhopal