(FREE) UPSC Current Affairs 2024 PDF

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 July 2019

::NATIONAL::

New amendments by govt.will make doctors prescribe only generics

The Central Government is considering amendments to the D-rdable but we have to ensure availability and effectiveness also of generic medicines.”

Vice President calls for a national innovation movement

The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has called for creating a National Innovation Movement to promote path-breaking ideas and innovations that improve the living conditions of the people and generate wealth.
Speaking after presenting Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) Awards-2019 at a function organised by the Department of Biotechnology, here today, Shri Naidu stressed the need to tap the huge talent present in every section of the society across the length and breadth of the country to build a new and inclusive India.
Calling for stepping up Bio-Technology interventions to make agriculture more viable and sustainable, he said there was a need for a greater focus on allied sectors like animal husbandry, dairy, fisheries, apart from other vital areas such as health, nutrition, environment and biodiversity conservation.
On the plans to make India a five trillion dollar economy by 2025, Shri Naidu said the engines driving this growth would be start-ups and digitisation. In this context, he suggested that every school and college should setup innovation departments and promote the culture of entrepreneurship.
The Vice President said that the Government has identified 117 Aspirational Districts for their overall transformation and exhorted the young innovators to be part of the mass movement to transform those districts.
He said the transformation of the nation is for the betterment of the lives of the people and innovation plays an important role in this process.

::ECONOMY::

Increase of gold duty in Budget draws flak

Gem and jewellery exporters on Saturday expressed disappointment over the significant increase in import duty on gold and other precious metals, saying the move would result in shifting of businesses to neighbouring countries.
Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) chairmanPramodAgrawal said: “We, as an industry, are greatly disappointed with the increase of import duty on precious metals, gold and silver.”
The sector was already going through very tough times with decline in exports and job losses, he added. According to industry experts, the decision could lead to an increase in smuggling of the yellow metal in the country.
In the Budget 2019-20, the government proposed to raise the import duty on gold and other precious metals from 10% at the present to 12.5%. Mr.Agrawal said they had urged the government to cut the import duty as they were important raw materials for the sector.
The government’s move “will result in growth of business in the neighbouring countries as foreign tourists will stop buying jewellery from here and processing of larger diamonds will shift to competing countries like China, Vietnam,” he said.

Fiscal target revised to 3.3% in budget

The government is estimating a fiscal deficit of 3.3% of GDP in financial year 2019-20, lower than the 3.4% estimated earlier in the interim Budget presented in February.
The main reason for this is an increase on the revenue side, while expenditure is being controlled, Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said. Ratings agencies and tax analysts say there is a risk of missing the 3.3% target if tax revenue falls short of the target.
The government has budgeted a higher disinvestment target for 2019-20 of ₹1.05 lakh crore, compared to the ₹80,000 crore budgeted in the previous year. Apart from this, Mr.Garg said, the government had budgeted a dividend from the Reserve Bank of India amounting to about ₹90,000 crore.
While the government predicted a total revenue of ₹17.2 lakh crore in its revised estimates for 2018-19, the data in the Survey showed this was actually ₹1.6 lakh crore lower. The bulk of this reduction in collections was due to tax receipts falling well short of the mark.
Notably, the government has cut the allocations for several major schemes. Most significant of these is the ₹4,334 crore cut for the Swachh Bharat scheme.

Online Coaching for UPSC PRE Exam

General Studies Pre. Cum Mains Study Materials

::INTERNATIONAL::

China talks on quicker implementation of BCIM corridor

A statement on the Chinese foreign ministry’s website on Ms.Hasina’s talks with President Xi on Friday says that the Prime Minister pledged to “promote the construction of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor”.
On Thursday, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang advocated that Beijing and Dhaka should “work together to build the BCIM- EC, in a bid to connect the market covering nearly 3 billion people”
The revival of Chinese interest in the BCIM-EC in coordination with India was evident when Mr. Xi singled out the project as an example of expanding the India-China ties, which had entered a “new phase” after the Wuhan informal summit held last year in April, following last month’s talks with Mr.Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Bishkek.
In tune with China’s intent to engage with India to spur the BCIM-EC, President Xi and Prime Minister Hasina acknowledged that “the initiative would have to be revived working together with India,” the United News of Bangladesh (UNB) reported on its website.
After the Wuhan summit, China has been advocating “China-India Plus” cooperation, aimed at adopting a joint approach towards some of the major issues in the region, including the Rohingya refugee crisis along with possible initiatives in Nepal, Afghanistan and Iran.
China’s decision to adopt a consultative approach with its BRI partners, including financing of specific projects, as announced during this year’s Belt and Road Forum (BRF), echoed in Ms.Hasina’s talks with the Chinese leadership.

::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

MoeFCC to consider contraceptives for animals

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has launched a project for undertaking ‘immunocontraceptive measures’ for population management of four species of wild animals elephant, wild boar, monkey and blue bull (Nilgai).
Human-animal conflict has emerged as a major challenge in managing wildlife in the country and human-elephant conflict causes the maximum number of causalities every year.
According to reply tabled in Parliament on June 28, 2019, nearly 494 persons were killed by elephants last year alone. Between 2014 and March 2019, 2,398 people died in elephant attack in the country, with West Bengal accounting for maximum number of such deaths .
Raman Sukumar, a well-known elephant expert and ecologist, said immunocontraception is a technology that uses a female animal’s immune system to build a protein around the egg that prevents it from fertilising.
Professor Sukumar said the birth-control method has been tried in Africa in areas like the Kruger National Park but added that the implementation of such a project in India will not be a simple task. It will involve multi-disciplinary effort over a long period of time, he said.
Professor Sukumar said that after developing the technology, the test will be to deliver the contraceptive and the logistics around it. In Africa the system has worked in private reserves with a relatively small elephant population, where every individual can be easily identified, he added.

::SPORTS::

Indian athletes perform well in Qasanov memorial meet

Indian track and field athletes won six medals, including three gold, on the first day of the Qasanov Memorial Meet at Almaty in Kazakhstan today.
Mohammed Afsal won the men's 800m gold in a good time of one minute 49.12 seconds.
Gagandeep Singh added another gold in men's discus throw with a best effort of 52.39m. Senthil Kumar Mithravarun took the silver with a 49.54m throw.
NavjeetKaurDhillon, who had won a bronze in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, won the third gold for India recording discuss throw covering 54.80m.