Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 3 DECEMBER 2018

::NATIONAL::

Central govt. releases guidelines on HIV interventions in Prisons

Government is not only fully funding the HIV/AIDS programme but also increasing the resource envelope in accordance with the programme needs.” This was stated by Smt. Anupriya Patel, Minister of State (Health & Family Welfare) at a function to mark World AIDS Day, 2018 organised by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
Speaking at the event, Smt. Anupriya Patel informed that the HIV/AIDS Programme has focused on more than one million people from high risk group and kept the infection of HIV in control through comprehensive and intense targeted interventions services.
“The Programme has also given attention to eliminating mother to child transmission of HIV and Syphilis by 2020. Under the PradhanMantriSurakshitMatritvaAbhiyan complete ante-natal check up facility is provided to all pregnant women across the country, including HIV testing.
The Minister further said that in a historic move, the HIV/AIDS (Prevention and Control) Act, 2017 was unanimously passed by the Government and it has also come into force. “This Act provides an enabling environment to HIV affected and infected population where they get a seamless access to services and a comprehensive grievance redressal mechanism with ombudsman at the Centre and Complaints Officer at establishments, she added.
Stressing on the need for multi-faceted and multi-sectoral response, SmtAnupriya Patel stated that NACO has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with 16 key Ministries to augment a comprehensive AIDS response. In addition to this NACO has signed MoUs with more than 250 industries of public and private sectors to mobilize their support.

NITI Aayog forum for north east to be held in Guwahati

The second meeting of the newly constituted ‘NITI Forum for North East’ will be held in Guwahati on 4th December, 2018.Vice Chairman NITI AAYOG, Dr Rajiv Kumar will chair and Minister of State (IC) for DoNER, Dr Jitendra Singh will co-chair the meeting.
In February 2018, the ‘NITIForum for North East’ was constituted to periodically review the development status in North EasternRegion. The NITI Forum for Northeast is tasked to identify various constraints on the way of accelerated, inclusive and sustainable economic growth in the North East Region of the country and to recommend suitable interventions for addressing identified constraints.
Members of the Forum include Secretaries of various Ministries of the Government of India, Chief Secretaries of all the eight North-eastern states and also senior government officials and experts from various fields. The Secretary, North East Council (NEC) is the Member Secretary of the Forum.
The Forum’s first meeting was held on 10th April 2018 at Agartala where a wide ranging spectrum of issues was discussed. It emerged that Infrastructure, Horticulture, Bamboo, Tourism, Food Processing, Education, Livelihoods, Health and Made in North Eastern Region were areas critical for the development of the Region.
Decisions taken at the meeting have since been carried forward by various Government Departments and other stakeholders.
Deliberations during the meeting will mainly focus on issues pertaining to five critical sectors - Tourism, Bamboo, Dairy, Fisheries and Tea. Besides the members of the Forum, a number of experts from Government, Industry and Academia have also been invited to make the discussions more meaningful.

::ECONOMY::

Slowing inflation might lead to holding of key policy rates by MPC

Slowing inflation is likely to prompt the monetary policy committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to hold the key policy rate or the repo rate in the fifth bimonthly monetary policy review of 2018-19 scheduled for Wednesday.
The retail inflation rate the yardstick used by the RBI for monetary policy purposes slowed in October to 3.3%, the slowest pace in 13 months. Consumer price index-based inflation or retail inflation remained below the 4% target of the RBI for the third straight month. Inflation is likely to decline further as crude oil prices dropped below $60 a barrel in November.
While the central bank estimated retail inflation to be in the 3.9-4.5% range for the second half of the current financial year and 4.8% for the first quarter of 2019-20, Kotak Securities expects inflation to undershoot the RBI estimate.
The market will be looking for liquidity-boosting measures from the central bank, including reduction in the cash reserve ratio (CRR), even if the RBI has changed its monetary policy stance in the last review meeting to calibrated tightening, from neutral. The change in stance indicates that interest rate can only go upward.
The recent decision of the RBI to infuse ₹40,000 crore liquidity in December through open market operations has been seen as inadequate by market participa0nts. A report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimated the current liquidity deficit at ₹1 lakh crore, which could go up to ₹1.4 lakh crore after corporate advance tax outflows start by the middle of this month.

NITI Aayog Vice chairman claims huge employment opportunitiescreated in last 4 years

Terming the criticism of jobless growth during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government as “spurious”, NitiAayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar has said that 70 lakh jobs were created in the financial year 2017-18 alone.
Mr. Kumar further said that growth in sales of transport vehicles, huge disbursement of Mudra loans and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) data show that enough opportunities for employment and self-employment were created over the past four years of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government
Recently, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said the BharatiyaJanata Party-led (BJP) government’s promise to generate two crore jobs annually had turned out to be a “gimmick”.
Mr. Rajiv kumarfurther said if unemployment was rising in the country, then real wages in both rural and urban regions should decline, but that was not happening. “So, what is the basis for this [criticism of jobless growth during the NDA regime]? I think, the purpose is negative discourse for political aims and does not reflect economic reality,” he said.
Replying to a question on protests by farmers in some parts of the country, he said: “We have increased minimum support price (MSP) for farmers by huge amounts. The rural economy is in good shape, farmers’ income is rising.”

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Centre planning to attract medical tourists from across the world

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhuhas said, the Centre is working on a comprehensive strategy to attract medical tourists from different parts of the world to India. He was addressing an inaugural session of the 4th edition of India Heals @Advantage Healthcare India (AHCI 2018) in Mumbai today.
He said, the Government of India is committed to provide all kind of help to patients visiting the country from various parts of the world. Mr Prabhu said, treatment will be affordable and quality in nature for these patients. He also directed the stakeholders to ensure that the tourists who come from abroad to India should not be taken for a ride and they should not be hoodwinked in anyway.
Noting that large number of tourists visit India for medical treatment, the minister said , he has discussed the issue with the concerned official from Uzbekistan on setting up of a protocol unit.
He further said that service sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of a growing economy and is of the potent source of job creation. He said that the programmes of the Ministry of AYUSH are aimed at providing a holistic health care solution.
Besides India, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Malawi, Maldives, Mauritius, Myanmar, Oman, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine and Uzbekistan are the other countries participating in the event.

External affairs minister to co-chair India-UAE joint commission for economic & technical cooperation

External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj will co-chair the 12th session of the India-UAE Joint Commission Meeting for Economic and Technical Cooperation with her counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi during her official visit to the Gulf country from December 3-4.
With nearly USD 50 billion bilateral trade, the two countries are one of the largest trade partners for each other and have made robust investments bilaterally. The UAE is the sixth-largest source of Indian oil imports and hosts a 3.3 million-strong Indian community.
“We look forward to the visit of the External Affairs Minister to Abu Dhabi to co-chair the India-UAE Joint Commission,” India’s Ambassador to the UAE, Navdeep Singh Suri, said.
Mr.Suri said the minister’s visit is an important opportunity to continue the bilateral dialogue at the highest levels of government, to share views on major regional and global issues and to give a further boost to our comprehensive strategic partnership.
Meanwhile, the External Affairs Ministry has said that with the exchange of visits at the highest-level in the recent past, the bilateral relationship has been elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
Along with the UAE Foreign Minister, Ms.Swaraj would also inaugurate a Gandhi-Zayed Digital Museum in Abu Dhabi to mark the celebrations of 150 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth and centenary celebrations of the birth of Sheikh Zayed, founder of the modern UAE.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Mother’s milk influences rotavirus infection in children

By studying the complex interplay between the sugars and microbes in mother’s milk and the baby’s gut microbes, an international team of researchers has tried to understand neonatal rotavirus infection.
Rotavirus infection is one of the leading causes of gastroenteritis in children under five years worldwide. Babies in 10 Indian states are immunised against rotavirus.
The researchers first investigated whether human milk oligosaccharides (specific sugars in milk) can inhibit infection by a particular strain (G10P11) of rotavirus. In vitro studies were carried out on monkey kidney epithelial cells (MA104 cells).
Though mother’s milk sugars should be ideally killing the virus, the researchers found that the oligosaccharides enhanced the infection of cells with this strain of rotavirus.
The researchers then repeated the study in a neonatal nursery to validate their lab results. A study group of 181 mother–infant pairs were selected from the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore. The sugars and microbiome of breast milk, and baby’s gut microbiome were characterised.
They found that oligosaccharides responsible for increased infectivity were “significantly higher” in breast milk where the babies had symptomatic infection. There were also specific differences in the milk microbiome.

::SPORTS::

Bangladesh gets its biggest win against west Indies

OffspinnerMehidyHasan finished with a match haul of 12-117, the best figures by a Bangladeshi bowler, to spin his side to an innings and 184 runs victory against West Indies in the second test on Sunday.
It marked the first time Bangladesh won a test by an innings margin against any opposition in its 112-test history, a win that completed a sweep of the two-match series following its 64-run victory in the first test.
Bangladesh compiled 508 in its first innings, thanks to a career-best 136 from Mahmudullah and three half-centuries from skipper Shakib Al Hasan (80), opener Shadman Islam (76) and Liton Das (54) after which the spinners took the charge.