9 PM Current Affairs Brief – March 28th, 2020

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Fight Corona IDEAthon

News:All India Council for Technical Education(AICTE) and Ministry of HRD Innovation Cell has launched the Fight Corona IDEAthon initiative.

Facts:

• Aim: To generate and transform innovative ideas into viable solutions that can support the community in managing the uncertainties arising out of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Additional Facts:

Innovation Cell:

• It has been established at All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) premises to foster the culture of Innovation in all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the country.

AICTE:

• It is a statutory body under the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

RBI’s monetary Policy statement

News: Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee(MPC) has come out with its own measures to help deal with economic fall out of COVID-19 pandemic.

Facts:

RBI’s Measures

• Repo Rate: It is the rate at which the RBI lends money to the banks for a short term. It has been cut by 75 basis points (bps) from 5.15% to 4.40%.
• Reverse Repo Rate: It is the short term borrowing rate at which RBI borrows money from banks. It has been cut by 90 bps to 4%.
• Moratorium on Repayments of Loans: RBI has allowed banks to defer payment of Equated Monthly Installments (EMIs) on home, car, personal loans as well as credit card dues for three months.
• Cash Reserve Ratio(CRR): It refers to a certain percentage of total deposits the commercial banks are required to maintain in the form of cash reserves with the central bank.It has been cut to 3% from 4%.

Additional Facts:

Monetary Policy Committee(MPC):

• It is a committee of the Reserve Bank of India which consists of six members with three nominated by the Union government and three representing the RBI.
• It is mandated by law to ensure that retail inflation stays within a band of two percentage points of the target inflation rate of 4%.

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Keqiang Index

News:Li Keqiang, the current Premier of the People’s Republic of China, has said that the Keqiang index is a better economic indicator for China than official numbers of GDP.

Facts:

• The Li Keqiang index or Keqiang index is an economic measurement index created by The Economist to measure China’s economy.
• It is based on three indicators namely a) railway cargo volume b) electricity consumption and c) loans disbursed by banks.

Legacy Waste

News:National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed a committee to assess the amount of damage caused to the environment due to the legacy waste in Delhi.

Facts:

• Legacy wastes are the wastes that have been collected and kept for years at some barren land or a place dedicated for Landfill (an area to dump solid waste).
• It is grouped into four categories: a) Contained and stored waste b) Buried waste c) Contaminated soil and groundwater and d) building materials and structures waste.
• Bio-mining method has been proposed by the Central Pollution Control Board(CPCB) for the effective disposal of legacy wastes.

Additional Facts:

• Biomining: It is the technique of using microorganisms(microbes) for the extraction and segregation of minerals such as rubbers, metals, textiles from mounds of waste.

Operation namaste

News: Army Chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane launched the initiative ”Operation Namaste”. The initiative seeks to help the Indian government in dealing with the Coronavirus outbreak and to insulate the army from coronavirus infection.

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