CURRENT AFFAIRS :  19-11-2020

Table of Content :

1.Failed Bank 

2.Deemed Forests

3.Tigress on the Trail

4. Param Siddhi

5.Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention

6.ODOP Digital Map of India

7.Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises Scheme

1.Failed Bank

Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to impose a 30-day moratorium on Lakshmi Vilas Bank Ltd (LVB) and put in place a draft scheme for its amalgamation with DBS Bank India.

Background

• The RBI said the financial position of the Chennai-based LVB has undergone a steady decline with continuous losses over the last three years eroding the bank’s net-worth.

• The bank has not been able to raise adequate capital to address these issues as it was also experiencing continuous withdrawal of deposits and low levels of liquidity.

• The LVB posted a net loss of Rs 397 crore in the September quarter of FY21 as against a loss of Rs 112 crore in the June quarter.

What is a Failed Bank?

• The closing of an insolvent bank by the regulator is known as a bank failure.

• The bank deposits are insured by Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) which is a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

• The account holders who have accounts in the failed bank will not experience any change using the bank with new ownership as they will still have access to their cash and should be able to use their debit cards and cheques.

Safety of Depositors and Financial System during moratorium

• The RBI, which put a cap of Rs 25,000 on withdrawals, has assured depositors of the bank that their interest will be protected.

• The combined balance sheet of DBS India and LVB would remain healthy after the proposed amalgamation.

  • The Capital to Risk Weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR) reached at 12.51% and Common Equity Tier-1 (CET-1) capital at 9.61%, without taking into account the infusion of additional capital.

Regulatory measures against Bank Failures

• In 2004, the RBI announced a moratorium on private sector lender Global Trust Bank, which was then reeling under huge losses and bad loans.

  • The bank was merged with public sector Oriental Bank of Commerce within 48 hours under an RBI-led rescue plan.

• In 2020, the RBI has followed a somewhat similar approach on resuscitation of the troubled lenders of Yes Bank and now LVB.

• The moratorium announcement was followed by a reconstruction plan for Yes Bank and capital infusion by banks and financial institutions, with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC, Axis Bank and others putting in equity capital in the reconstructed entity.

Impact of COVID-19 induced loan stress on Banking System

• The Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in the banking sector are expected to increase as the pandemic affects cash flows of people and companies.

• The impact will differ depending upon the sector, as segments like pharmaceuticals and IT seem to have benefited in terms of revenues.

• NPA accretion in cash-rich sectors like IT, pharmaceuticals, FMCG, chemicals, automobiles is expected to be smaller when compared to areas like hospitality, tourism, aviation and other services.

• The expert committee headed by K V Kamath recently came out with recommendations on the financial parameters required for a one-time loan restructuring window for corporate borrowers under stress due to the pandemic.

Source: The Indian Express

2.Deemed Forests

Recently, the Karnataka government has announced that would soon declassify 6.64 lakh hectares of the 9.94 lakh hectares of deemed forests in the state (nearly 67%) and hand it over to Revenue authorities.

Background

• The issue of deemed forests is a contentious one in Karnataka, with legislators across party lines often alleging that large amounts of agriculture and non-forest land are “unscientifically” classified as Deemed Forest.

• An expert committee constituted by the Karnataka government after the Supreme Court order identified ‘deemed forests’ as "land having the characteristic of forests irrespective of the ownership".

• The reports by expert committees in 1997 and 2002 identified 43.18 lakh hectares of forest land for conservation in Karnataka, which included 33.23 lakh hectares notified forest area as per forest records and 9.94 lakh hectares ‘deemed forests’.

• The extent of land identified to be categorised as deemed forests is steadily declining ever since the state government undertook the exercise of consolidating additional areas to boost forest conservation.

About Deemed Forests

• The Supreme Court in the case of T N Godavarman Thirumalpad (1996) accepted a wide definition of forests under the Forest Conservation Act of 1980.

• The word ‘forest’ must be understood according to its dictionary meaning which covers all statutorily recognised forests, whether designated as reserved, protected or otherwise for the purpose of Section 2 (1) of the Forest Conservation Act.

• The term ‘forest land’ occurring in Section 2 will not only include ‘forest’ as understood in the dictionary sense, but also any areas recorded as forest in the government record irrespective of the ownership.

• The provisions enacted in the Forest Conservation Act 1980 for the conservation of forest and the matters connected therewith must apply clearly to all forest.

Reasons for de-classification of Deemed Forests by Karnataka

• The previous state government has said that some of the ‘statutory forests’ had been wrongly classified as ‘deemed forest’ by the expert committee constituted after the Supreme Court order.

• The government also said that where the dictionary definition of forests was applied to identify thickly wooded areas as deemed forests, a well-defined scientific, verifiable criteria was not used, resulting in a subjective classification of areas as deemed forests.

• The government argued that the subjective classification in turn resulted in conflicts between the Forest Department and other departments like Revenue, Irrigation, Public Works and Energy.

Source: The Indian Express

3.Tigress on the Trail

Recently, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has flagged off 'Tigress on the Trail' campaign.

About Tigress on the Trail

• It is the first and unique adventurous motorcycle trip launched with the objective of promoting adventure and safe tourism for women.

• Under Tigress on the Trail journey, 15 eminent women bikers from all over the country will visit various tourist spots of the state.

• 'Tigress on the Trail' includes women bikers from Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Punjab, Bihar and Karnataka.

• In this journey of 1500 km, the women bikers will travel to Madhi, Pench, Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Panna and Khajuraho.

• The purpose of the 'Tigress on the Trail' event is to convince all tourists that Madhya Pradesh is completely safe for tourists and especially for single women tourists.

Source: All India Radio

4. Param Siddhi

Recently, Param Siddhi has achieved global ranking of 63 in TOP 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems in the world.

About Param Siddhi

• It is the high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).

• It is installed in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing’s (C-DAC) unit.

• The AI system will strengthen application development of packages in areas such as advanced materials and computational chemistry & astrophysics.

• The supercomputer with Rpeak of 5.267 Petaflops and 4.6 Petaflops Rmax (Sustained) was developed jointly with support of Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

• The Param Siddhi Supercomputer is built on the NVIDIA DGX Super POD reference architecture networking along with C-DAC’s indigenously developed HPC-AI engine.

Pratyush

 

It is a supercomputer used for weather forecasting at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune.

 

It is the 4.O Peta flops (PF) high performance computer.

 

It was ranked 78th on the November edition of the list.

 

Mihir

 

It is installed at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast in Noida.

 

It was ranked 146th on the November edition of the list.

 

Source: PIB

5.Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention

Recently, the Union Health Minister digitally addressed the Ministerial meeting of the Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention.

• The meeting was hosted by UNAIDS and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) on behalf of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC).

About Global Prevention Coalition (GPC) for HIV Prevention

• It is a global coalition of United Nations Member States, donors, civil society organizations and implementers which was established in 2017 to support global efforts to accelerate HIV prevention.

• The membership includes the 25 highest HIV burden countries, UNAIDS Cosponsors, donors, civil society and private sector organizations.

• The overarching goal of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition is to strengthen and sustain political commitment for primary prevention by setting a common agenda among key policy-makers, funders and programme implementers.

• It seeks to ensure accountability for delivering prevention services at scale in order to achieve the targets:

  • 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS;

  • 75% reduction in HIV infections towards fewer than 500 000 infections by 2020; and

  • Ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

• The coalition aspires to maintain a global accountability process with score cards, reflecting progress against national targets, to track yearly progress.

• It is establishing a coordinated and responsive modality for providing technical support to needs assessments, target-setting, planning, implementation, programme reviews and technical and policy guidance through an interagency draw-down mechanism.

India's model for HIV Prevention

• India’s unique HIV prevention model is centered around the concept of ‘Social Contracting’ through which the Targeted Interventions (TI) programme is implemented.

• The programme is aimed at providing outreach, service delivery, counselling & testing and ensuring linkages to HIV care with the support from Non-Government Organizations.

• India’s prevention model can be adopted and scaled up in many countries by tailoring the intervention as per local settings.

•  The Government linked key populations and people living with HIV (PLHIV) to various social welfare schemes.

• The enactment of The Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Prevention and Control) Act, 2017 has provided a legal and enabling framework for safeguarding the human rights of the infected and affected populations.

• India’s commitments to achieve the 90-90-90 targets across the country by the end of the current year and also end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.

• Under the Test and Treat Policy, approximately 50,000 PLHIV who were lost to follow-up were linked back to Anti-Retroviral Treatment services through ‘Mission SAMPARK’.

Mission 90-90-90

 

It is an initiative of Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to provide an ambitious treatment target to help end the AIDS epidemic.

 

The primary objectives of the Mission 90-90-90 are:

 

By 2020, 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status.

 

By 2020, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy.

 

By 2020, 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.

 

Mission SAMPARK

 

It is an initiative of the Government of India to reach out to all the Lost to Follow up Patients Living with HIV/AIDS.

 

Under Mission Sampark, National Data Cleaning is going on to identify the duplicates within the system, silent transfer outs between the states and GIS mapping to intensify the efforts.

 

Source: LiveMint

6.ODOP Digital Map of India

Recently, the Union Minister for Food Processing Industries has launched the GIS-based One District One Product (ODOP) digital map of India.

About ODOP Digital Map of India

• The digital ODOP map provides detailed information about ODOP products to all stakeholders.

• It provides details of ODOP products of all the states and facilitates the stakeholders.

• The digital map also has indicators for tribal, SC, ST, and aspirational districts.

One District One Product (ODOP) Scheme

 

The Uttar Pradesh government’s One District, One Product Programme aims to encourage indigenous and specialized products and crafts.

 

The scheme aims to create product-specific traditional industrial hubs across 75 districts of UP.

 

The central government will soon launch a ‘One District One Product’ programme for every district in the country to expand the outreach of their ‘special’ product not just in India but across the world.

 

The objective is to convert each district of the country into an export hub by identifying products with export potential in the district.

 

Source: PIB

7.Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises Scheme

Recently, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries inaugurated the capacity building component of the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PM-FME Scheme).

Background

• The unorganized food processing sector comprising nearly 25 lakh units which contributes to 74% of employment in food processing sector.

• Nearly 66% of these units are located in rural areas and about 80% of them are family-based enterprises supporting livelihood in rural household and minimizing their migration to urban areas.

• The units face a number of challenges such as lack of access to modern technology & equipment, training, access to institutional credit, lack of basic awareness on quality control of products, and lack of branding & marketing skills which limit their performance and growth.

About PM-FME Scheme

• It is an all India Centrally Sponsored Scheme under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, for providing financial, technical and business support for upgradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.

• The Scheme adopts One District One Product (ODOP) approach to reap benefit of scale in terms of procurement of inputs, availing common services and marketing of products.

• The scheme would provide support to FPOs/SHGs/Producer Cooperatives for capital investment along the entire value chain with credit linked grant at 35%.

• Under the capacity building component of the PM-FME scheme, training of the Master Trainers would be delivered through online mode, classroom lecture and demonstration and self-paced online learning material.

• The scheme envisions to directly assist the 2 Lakh micro food processing units over a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25.

Objectives of PM-FME Scheme

• Support for capital investment for upgradation and formalization with registration for GST, FSSAI hygiene standards and Udyog Aadhaar.

• Capacity building through skill training, imparting technical knowledge on food safety, standards & hygiene and quality improvement.

• Hand holding support for preparation of DPR, availing bank loan and upgradation.

• Support to Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), Self Help Groups (SHGs), producers cooperatives for capital investment, common infrastructure and support branding and marketing.

Significance of PM-FME

• The scheme would support strengthening of backward and forward linkages, provision of common facilities, incubation centres, training, R&D, marketing & branding, provision of which would primarily be for ODOP products.

• All individuals & institutions members receiving grant would undergo training for upgradation of their skills.

• The scheme lays special focus on SCs/STs, women and aspirational districts and FPOs, SHGs and producer cooperatives.

Source: PIB

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