Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 11 July 2020

::NATIONAL::

Prime Minister NarendraModi on Friday said solar energy would play a major role in achieving self-reliance in energy, essential for an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India).
The Rewa solar project, being touted as Asia’s largest, is the first such project in the country to break the grid parity barrier. While the Delhi Metro will use 24% of the electricity produced from it, Madhya Pradesh will use the rest. “The project, along with others, will make Madhya Pradesh a hub of cheap and clean energy,” said Mr.Modi.
While the world was in a quandary whether they should focus on environment or economy, he stated that India had shown these two were not in opposition to each other.

Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu has called for adoption of environment friendly architecture and designs in the country, to address future health threats. He was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the National Conference of Indian Institute of Architects virtually today.
Mr. Naidu urged architects and designers to answer the challenges posed by the pandemic through modification in their designs. He said, the design and architecture fraternity need to regroup and look for solutions to the problems created by the current crisis, while envisioning ways to tackle future threats.
Vice President emphasised that structures should be built in such a way that enough natural light and ventilation is available for the residents.

The pace of contraction of India’s factory output slowed in May, falling 34.7% on year from 57.6% contraction in April, calculations based on data released by the government on Friday showed.
The government did not provide a number for the change in output from May 2020 but said the number of units responding has improved as compared to the earlier months of lockdown. The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation also revised the contraction in April from 55.5% earlier.
MoSPI said in a statement that this has had an impact on the items being produced by the establishments during the period of lockdown and the subsequent periods of conditional relaxations in restrictions.

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic may lead to higher non-performing assets and capital erosion of banks while the redemption pressure on non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) and mutual funds are emerging as crucial stress points in the financial system, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said.
Flagging off these risks, the governor said that RBI’s policy action would depend on how the crisis unfolds even as he observed that the medium-term outlook still remains uncertain and depends on the COVID-19 curve.
Building buffers and raising capital in such a situation becomes imperative to strengthen the internal defences of financial intermediaries against the risks and to ensure credit flow, the governor said, alluding that the shocks to the financial system turning out to be more frequent than a ‘once in a lifetime events’ to ‘once in a decade’.

India is adopting a multi-pronged strategy to enhance trade and business partnership with Bangladesh amid Beijing's recent efforts to woo Dhaka with duty-free access to its products.
While Chinese trade concessions can push Bangladesh into a “dual deficit and debt trap”, India is activating various connectivity initiatives for seamless movement of Bangladeshi products to the landlocked northeastern states and other parts of India.
India had offered duty-free access to several Bangladeshi products a decade before the Chinese decision and that step helped reduce deficit in Dhaka’s trade with New Delhi, said a source while stating that India’s terms and conditions from trade concessions to loans are more favourable. Beijing has mulled over years before giving trade concessions to Dhaka and the step can push it towards a debt trap, said the above mentioned source.

World Health Organization (WHO) has set up an independent panel to review its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response by governments. The announcement follows strong criticism by US President Donald Trump, which accused the WHO of being China-centric.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf have agreed to head the panel. The co-chairs will select the other members.
The panel will then provide an interim report to an annual meeting of health ministers in November and present a substantive report next May.
WHO Director-General TedrosAdhanomGhebreyesus said that the magnitude of this pandemic has virtually touched everyone and deserved a commensurate evaluation.

The fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation 2018 has entered the Guinness World Record for being the world’s largest camera trap wildlife survey. Terming this achievement as a great moment, Environment Minister PrakashJavadekar said in a tweet that this is a shining example of Atmanirbhar Bharat which was attained through sankalp se siddhi.
The country now has an estimated 2967 tigers as per the latest census. With this number, India is home to nearly 75 percent of the global tiger population and has already fulfilled its resolve of doubling tiger numbers, made at St. Petersburg in 2010, well ahead of the target year of 2022.
The citation at the Guinness World Record website says the fourth iteration of the survey - conducted in 2018-19 - was the most comprehensive to date, in terms of both resource and data amassed.

In a significant decision, Wimbledon has done away with its seeding formula for men, used to re-order the top 32 seeds in the main draw by giving extra weight to grass-court performances during a two-year period leading up to the tournament.
Seeding will now be based solely on ATP rankings, aligning the tournament with the three other Majors.