Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 December 2022

::NATIONAL::

Opening Ceremony of the International Year of Millets 2023

• The Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the UN Food and Agriculture Organization for the launch of the IYM and reiterated the need to make millets a food choice for the future”.

About:

• India’s proposal to declare 2023 as the IYM was adopted by the UN in 2021.
• The IYM 2023 will raise awareness about the importance of millets in food security and nutrition.
• Millets, popularly known as Nutri-cereals, are a diverse family of small-grained cereals (Poaceae family) which includes Sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, etc. and are
• indigenous to various parts of India.
• They are a rich source of micronutrients and contain 7-12% protein, 2-5% fat, 65-75% carbohydrates and 15-20% dietary fibre.
• With the advent of the Green Revolution (emphasis on wheat and rice) millets were reduced to a marginal fodder crop.
• However, India still accounts for 20% of the globe’s millet production.

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eSanjeevani

• eSanjeevani,(National Telemedicine Service) has crossed 8 crore teleconsultations.

About:

• It is a national telemedicine service providing an alternative to the conventional physicalconsultations via digital platform.
• It is an e-health initiative of Union Ministry of Health and Family WelfareThis initiative is the world’s largest government owned telemedicine platform.
• eSanjeevani is a part Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission.
• It comprises two Verticals
• eSanjeevani Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centers’ (HWCs): bridge rural-urbandigital health divide by providing assisted teleconsultations toe beneficiaries of AyushmanBharat Scheme.
• eSanjeevaniOPD: caters to citizens in both rural and urban alike.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Curbing terror in Afghanistan, enhancing connectivity key to India-Central Asia security

• Curbing terrorism and terrorist financing in Afghanistan, and the use of trade and connectivity routes via Iran are key to regional security said India as National Security Advisor Ajit Doval chaired the first India-Central Asia meeting of NSAs and Secretaries of Security Councils in Delhi.

About:

• India’s relations with the region have gained slowly since CARsgained independence in the 1990s.
• Earlier in January this year, Prime Minister hosted the firstIndia-Central Asia Summit in a virtual format.
• Importance of CARSecurity: Religious extremism, fundamentalism, drug traffickingpose challenges to these societies and to regional stability.
• Economic: All the countries are rich in minerals like Uranium, gold,gas, etc. and well-endowed with hydroelectric resources.
• Cultural: India shares historic linkages through the Silk Route from3rd century BC to 15th century AD through which Buddhismspread in the region.

Initiatives to enhance the cooperation:

• India’s Connect Central Asia (CAA) policy of 2012 is a broad-based framework involving political, economic, security and culturalconnections.
• India is developing the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and has become a member of the AshgabatAgreement.
• Announced “Joint Working Groups” (JWGs) on Afghanistan and the Chabahar port project at the first India-Central Asia Summitin January 2022.
• India is part of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.

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Paris Club

• Paris Club creditor nations are proposing a 10-year moratorium on Sri Lankan debt and another 15 years of debt restructuring as a formula to resolve the Sri Lankan debt crisis.

About:

• The Paris club has also called upon the Global north and south to take a similar haircut in restructuring of Sri Lankan debt. So, far no official proposal has been made by Paris club to China or India.
• The Paris Club is an informal group of creditor nations whose objective is to find workable solutions to payment problems faced by debtor nations.
• The Paris Club has 22 permanent members, including most of the western European and Scandinavian nations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
• The group is organized around the principles that each debtor nation be treated case by case, with consensus, conditionality, solidarity, and comparability of treatment.
• The Paris Club stresses the informal nature of its existence. As an informal group, it has no official statutes and no formal inception date, although its first meeting with a debtor nation was in 1956, with Argentina.

::Economy::

India Development Report

• The World Bank recently lifted its growth forecast for India’s economy this year to 6.9%, after having downgraded it to 6.5% in October, 2022, citing resilience in economic activity despite a deteriorating external environment.
• It was released by World Bank.India Development Report titled ‘Navigating the Storm’.

Key highlights:

• It revised the GDP forecast considering the strong upturn in the July to September quarter of 2022-23, when it grew 3% despite inflationary pressures and tighter financing conditions, “driven by strong private consumption and investment”.
• The government’s focus on bolstering capital expenditure also supported domestic demand in the first half of 2022-23.
• It expects the Indian economy to grow at a slightly slower 6.6% in 2023-24 as a challenging external environment and faltering global growth will affect its economic outlook through different channels.
• The report said that while a one percentage point decline in growth in the United States is associated with a 0.4 percentage point decline in India’s growth, the effect is around 1.5 times larger for other emerging economies, and the result is similar for growth spillovers from the EU and China.
• It cautions about trade-offs between trying to limit the adverse impact of global spillovers on growth and the available policy space.
• The RBI’s gradual withdrawal of liquidity and policy rate hikes have been aimed at anchoring inflation expectations. However, this has increased borrowing costs, which along with elevated input prices have potentially constrained private investment.
• RBI’s management of short-term volatility in exchange rates has contributed to a decline in reserves, though they are still at a relatively high level.
• A widening goods trade deficit, driven by rising imports and softening exports, has expanded India’s current account deficit to 2.8% of GDP in Q2 this year from 1.5% in the first quarter.
• The adoption of several regulatory and policy measures—including introduction of a new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and creation of the new National Reconstruction Company Limited—facilitated an improvement in financial sector metrics over the past five years.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

ChatGPT

• ChatGPT is a ‘conversational’ AI and will answer queries just like a human.
• It has been created by the company OpenAI.

Features:

• It can answer follow-up questions; can also admit its mistakes; challenge incorrectpremises and reject inappropriate requests.
• The model is trained to predict what will come next, and that is why one can technically have a‘conversation’ with ChatGPT.
• It is based on Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT 3).
• It is a kind of computer language model that relies on deep learning techniques to producehuman-like text based on inputs.

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