Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 13 July 2021

::NATIONAL::

The world-famous Kesaria Buddha stupa in Champaran,Bihar is waterlogged following floods in catchment of river Gandak.

About:

Tallest and largest ever-excavated Stupa in the world. It is also one of the tallest and the largest Buddhist stupa in the world.
Archaeologist believe that it was built by Licchivis of Vaishali before Budha attainedNirvana and known commonly as”Raja Ben ka DEORA”.
Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang had visited it as per his diary in seventh century.
The ASI has declared it a protected monument of national importance.

The National Fisheries Development Board(NFDB) celebrated the National Fish Farmers Day.

About:

NFDB was established in 2006, in Hyderabad.
It is an autonomous organization under the administrative control of the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying.
Its mission is to have holistic development of the fisheries sector through enhancement of fish production and productivity in the country.
This includes sustainable management and conservation of natural aquatic resources with focussed attention to fisheries and aquaculture (Production. Processing, Storage, Transport andMarketing).

The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) has been established the International Financial Services Centres (IFSCs).

About:

It aims to develop and regulate the financial products, financial services and financial institutions in Towards this end.
IFSCA has issued a framework for Setting up and operating International Trade Finance Services Platform (‘ITFS’) for providing Trade Finance Services at International Financial Services Centres (‘IFSCs’).
The framework will enable Exporters and Importers to avail various types of trade finance facilities at competitive terms, for their international trade transactions through a dedicated electronic platform viz, ITFS.
This will help in their ability to convert their trade receivables into liquid funds and to obtain short term funding.
This framework will provide an opportunity to the participants to avail trade finance facilities for trade transactions such as

1. Export Invoice Trade Financing,

2. Reverse Trade Financing,

3. Bill discounting under Letter of Credit,

4. Supply Chain Finance for Exporters,

5. Export Credit (Packing Credit),

6. Insurance/ Credit Guarantee,

7. Factoring and any other eligible product, on the ITFS platform.

Bangladesh jumped four notches to become India’s fifth-largest export destination in the year ended 31 March.
Exports to Bangladesh grew 11% in previous fiscal year even as India's overall exports contracted 7% because of pandemic.
India's top export items to Bangladesh were cotton and cotton yarn, electricity, fuel, rice and corn.
US ($51.6 billion) remained India’s top export destination and China ($21.2 billion) became
second biggest export market, surpassing the United Arab Emirates ($16.7 billion).

In India, Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) shall come into effect from October 1, 2021.

About:

These rules are part of the Basel III regulation designed to make banks more stable and prevent a repeat of the 2008-09 financial crisis.
The rules treat physically traded gold like any other commodity, requiring banks to hold more cash to match their gold exposure as a buffer against adverse price moves.
The rules will increase the cost of bank's balance sheets to hold gold.

Virgin Group founder Richard Branson and five others undertook a brief trip to the “edge of space”, taking off on the VSS Unity spaceship from New Mexico and reaching an altitude of 85 km from Earth before returning.Such a trip is called a “suborbital flight”.

About:

When an object travels at a horizontal speed of about 28,000 km/hr or more, it goes into orbit once it is above the atmosphere.
Satellites need to reach that threshold speed in order to orbit Earth. Such a satellite would be accelerating towards the Earth due to gravity, but its horizontal movement is fast enough to offset the downward motion so that it moves along a circular path.
Any object travelling slower than 28,000 km/hr must eventually return to Earth. However, Branson’s spacecraft travelled far enough, as Bezos’s will, to reach the “edge of space”.
These are suborbital flights, because they will not be travelling fast enough to orbit Earth once they reach there.
Such a trip allows space travellers to experience a few minutes of “weightlessness”.
If an object travels as fast as 40,000 km/hr, it will achieve escape velocity, and never return to Earth.