Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 01 February 2022

::NATIONAL::

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) proposed plan, on a new model of “Federated Digital Identities” that will link multiple digital IDs such as driving licences, passport numbers, PAN numbers, and so on into one.

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This new digital ID will appear to be in the form of a one-of-a-kind number, similar to the Aadhaar card number.
The proposed proposal claims that a citizen will be “empowered” by the umbrella digital identity since it “puts her in control of various identities and gives her the option of choosing which one to employ for what reason.”
The Federal Digital Identity appears to be a one-stop shop for storing Central and State-related ID information.
This digital ID could be used for KYC or eKYC(know your customer) procedures, as envisaged.
The planned strategy has been relocated under the India Enterprise Architecture (IndEA) 2.0, which was first announced in 2017 with the goal of bringing government and business organisations together to make online identification processes easier.

The Ministry of Defence has launched the Home Delivery of medicines to begin from tomorrow under an online tri-services teleconsultation service platform named Services e-Health Assistance and Teleconsultation (SeHAT).

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SeHAT stay home OPD is a patient-to-doctor system where the patient can consult a doctor remotely through the internet using his Smartphone, laptop, Desktop or Tablet.
The consultation occurs through video, audio and chat at the same time.
It aims to provide quality healthcare services to patients from the comfort of their homes.
Safe and structured video-based clinical consultations between a doctor in a hospital, and a patient within the confines of his or her home anywhere in the country, have been enabled.
It is designed to be extremely simple and easy to use, which requires minimal effort from the users.

Recently U.S. eastern region has been hit by Bomb cyclone’ triggers transport chaos, outages.

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A bomb cyclone is a large, intense midlatitude storm that has low pressure at its center, weather fronts and an array of associated weather, from blizzards to severe thunderstorms to heavy precipitation.
It becomes a bomb when its central pressure decreases very quickly—by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours.
When a cyclone “bombs,” or undergoes bombogenesis, this tells us that it has access to the optimal ingredients for strengthening, such as high amounts of heat, moisture and rising air.
Most cyclones don’t intensify rapidly in this way. Bomb cyclones put forecasters on high alert, because they can produce significant harmful impacts.
Two meteorologists, Fred Sanders and John Gyakum, gave this pattern its name in a 1980 study.

The 2nd ASEAN Digital Ministers (ADGMIN) meeting with India held on a virtual platform.

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India-ASEAN Digital Work Plan 2022was approved in 2nd ASEAN Digital Ministers(ADGMIN) meeting, an annual meeting of TelecomMinisters of 10 ASEAN (Association of South-East AsianNations) countries. The work plan includes

System for combating use of stolen and counterfeit mobile handsets,
WiFi Access network interface for nationwide public internet,
Capacity building and knowledge sharing in emerging areas in the field of Information andCommunication Technologies.

In a recent report, State Bank of India has stated that it believes the stage is set for a reverse repo normalisation.

What is repo and reverse repo?

Repo rate is the rate at which the central bank of a country (RBI in case of India) lends money to commercial banks in the event of any shortfall of funds. Here, the central bank purchases the security.
The reverse repo is the interest rate that the RBI pays to the commercial banks when they park their excess “liquidity” (money) with the RBI. The reverse repo, thus, is the exact opposite of the repo rate.

How does it fit into policy normalisation?

Under normal circumstances, that is when the economy is growing at a healthy pace, the repo rate becomes the benchmark interest rate in the economy.
That’s because it is the lowest rate of interest at which funds can be borrowed. As such, the repo rate forms the floor interest rate for all other interest rates in the economy — be it the rate you pay for a car loan or a home loan or the interest you earn on your fixed deposit etc.
When RBI pumps more and more liquidity into the market but there are no takers of fresh loans — either because the banks are unwilling to lend or because there is no genuine demand for new loans in the economy.
In such a scenario, the action shifts from repo rate to reverse repo rate because banks are no longer interested in borrowing money from the RBI.
Rather they are more interested in parking their excess liquidity with the RBI. And that is how the reverse repo becomes the actual benchmark interest rate in the economy.

What does reverse repo normalisation mean?

It means the reverse repo rates will go up. That means the reverse repo rate can be raised in one or two stages.
In the face of rising inflation, several central banks across the world have either increased interest rates or signalled that they would do so soon.
In India, too, it is expected that the RBI will raise the repo rate. But before that, it is expected that the RBI will raise the reverse repo rate and reduce the gap between the two rates.

A new genus of a parasitic flowering plant has recently been discovered from the Nicobar group of islands.
The genusSeptemeranthusgrows on the plant species Horsfieldia glabra(Blume) Warb.
The parasitic flowering plants have a modified root structure spread on the stem of the tree and are anchored inside the bark of the host tree.

Heart-shaped leaves

The genus Septemeranthus has a distinct vegetative morphology, inflorescence architecture and floral characters.
The leaves of the plant are heart-shaped with a very long tip and the ovary,fruit and seeds are ‘urceolate’ (earthen pot-shaped).
The flowers have five persistent bracts having conspicuous margins.
The name Septemeranthusis derived from the Latin word ‘septem’ meaning ‘seven’, referring to the arrangement of flowers.
The genus belongs to the family Loranthaceae, a hemi-parasite under the sandalwood order Santalales and is of widespread importance.
Plants which are hemi-parasites are partially dependent on their host plants for nutrition.