Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 28 January 2023

::NATIONAL::

Monument Mitra Scheme.

• The government will hand over around 1,000 monuments under the control of the Archaeological Survey of India to the private sector for their upkeep under the Monument Mitra Scheme.

About:

• Under the scheme, monument amenities will be revamped by the private sector.
• Corporate entities will take over these monuments as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. 
• The government has set the target to hand over 500 sites under the revamped Monument Mitra Scheme by the end of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav on15thAugust 2023
• The scheme will help India in showcasing the best of its culture and tradition to all the senior dignitaries and VVIPs coming to the country from all across the world. 
• The government is also preparing a digital museum, on a G20 Orchestra, on a book of poems, on exhibitions to bring the 5000 years old Indian culture in front of G20 delegates.

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South Africa inks MoU to send 12 cheetahs to Kuno National Park

• 12 Cheetah from South Africa is expected to arrive by February-March 2023. Earlier in September 2022, KNP had received eight cheetahs from Namibia.

About:

• Project Cheetah, approved by Supreme Court in 2020, aims to reintroduce at least 50 cheetahs over next five years.
• It is world’s first inter-continental large wild carnivore translocation project.
• National Tiger Conservation Authority is nodal agency authorized for funding and supervision of project.

About Cheetah:

• Cheetah is a keystone species (organism that helps define an entire ecosystem) of dry forests,scrub forests, and savannahs.
• It is the only large wild mammalian species that went extinct from India. Protected under Appendix 1 of CITES.
• IUCN status: African Cheetah (Vulnerable) and Asiatic Cheetah (Critically endangered).
• Major Cheetah range countries: Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola,Zambia, Tanzania, and Kenya in Africa, and Iran and India in Asia.

Significance of Cheetah restoration

• Restoring open forest and grassland ecosystems in India.
• Conserve biodiversity and enhance ecosystem services like water security, carbon sequestration etc.
• Enhanced livelihood opportunities for local community through eco-development and ecotourism activities.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

World Economic situation and prospects 2023 report

• The UN World Economic Situation and Prospects 2023 report predicted global growth to moderately pick up to 2.7 percent in 2024, as some macroeconomic headwinds are expected to begin to subside next year.

Key highlights

• It is produced by United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), in partnership with UN Conference on Trade and Development and five UN regional economic commissions.
• COVID-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine battered world economy in 2022.
• World output growth is projected to decelerate from an estimated 3.0 percent in 2022 to 1.9 percent in 2023.

Recommendations

• Reallocation and reprioritization of public expenditures.
• Strengthening social protection systems.
• Strategic public investments in education, health, digital infrastructure etc.

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T+1 settlement

• Indian stock markets are embarking on a shorter settlement cycle or T+1 regime for the final list of large stocks from January, 
• A move that will help reduce margin requirements for clients and boost retail investment.

About:

• T+1 (trade plus one) means that market trade-related settlements will need to be cleared within one day of the actual transactions taking place. 
• Earlier, trades on the Indian stock exchanges are settled in two working days after the transaction is done (T+2).
• The stock exchanges — NSE and BSE — in November 2021 in a joint statement announced that they will implement the T+1 settlement cycle in a phased manner, starting February 25, 2022, with the bottom 100 stocks in terms of market value.
• Thereafter, 500 stocks were added based on the same market value criteria from the last Friday of March and so on every following month. 
• From January 27 onwards, all trades in the equity cash segment (including Futures and Options on stocks) will be conducted on a T+1 basis.

Benefits of T+1: 

• Better liquidity with investors;
• Faster rolling of funds and stocks;
• Decreases unsettled trade exposure to clearing corporation by 50%; 
• Reduces capital blocked to cover risk of trades etc.

::Economy::

RBI releases discussion paper on the ‘Securitization of Stressed Assets Framework’

• The RBI has released a discussion paper on the Securitisation of Stressed Assets Framework (SSAF), inviting comments from stakeholders. 

Key highlights:

• The Discussion paper broadly covers 9 relevant areas of the framework, including asset universe, asset eligibility, minimum risk retention, a regulatory framework for special purpose entity and resolution manager, access to finance for resolution manager, capital treatment, due diligence, credit enhancement and valuation etc.
• Discussion paper aims to develop a strong and robust securitisation market in India, while facilitating simpler securitisation structures.
• Securitisation involves pooling of loans and then selling them to a Special Purpose Entity (SPE) which then issues securities backed by loan pool.
• Currently, there is no corresponding mechanism for Securitisation of Stressed Asset (SSA) through SPE route.
• SSA is a financial structure whereby an originator of NPAs sells these to a SPE that funds such an acquisition by issuing securitisation notes.
• In turn, SPE appoints a servicing entity to manage stressed assets, typically with a fee structure that incentivises them to maximize recoveries on underlying loans.
• Till now, Securitisation is allowed only in case of standard assets while lenders have to largely rely on Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs) for bad assets under SARFAESI Act, 2002.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

NASA adds another asteroid target for the trojan explorer Lucy mission

• NASA announced that it is adding a new target for the Lucy mission as the spacecraft goes on its more than 6-billion-kilometre-long journey to study the Jupiter trojan asteroids. 

About:

• The new target is a small main-belt asteroid and Lucy will get an up-close view of it to conduct an engineering test of the spacecraft’s asteroid-tracking navigation system.
• The asteroid, labelled (152830) 1999 VD57 was not a target earlier because it is extremely small. At just around 700 metres in size, 1999 VD57 will be the smallest main belt asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft, according to NASA. 
• The asteroid is closer in size to the asteroids visited by the DART mission and the OSIRIS-REx mission than the previously visited main belt asteroids.

Trojan Asteroids:

• Asteroids sharing an orbit with a planet, but which are located at the leading (L4) and trailing (L5) Lagrangian points, are known as Trojan asteroids.
• These asteroids occupy a stable Lagrangian point in a planet’s orbit around the Sun.
• Trojan Asteroids are some of the oldest remnants from the formation of our solar system 5 billion years ago.
• There are currently over 4,800 known Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter.
• They orbit the Sun in two loose groups: one group leading ahead of Jupiter in its orbit, the other trailing behind at the same distance from the Sun as Jupiter.
• Due to the combined gravitational influences of the Sun and Jupiter, these Trojan asteroids have been trapped on stable orbits (around what is known as the Lagrange Points) for billions of years.

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