Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 27 May 2020

::NATIONAL::

PM reviews LAC standoff with defence staff

• Prime Minister NarendraModi on Tuesday reviewed the current situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the ongoing standoff with China with National Security Adviser AjitDoval, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. BipinRawat and the three Service Chiefs, multiple sources said. The meeting comes a day before the biannual Army Commanders conference.

• Army chief Gen. Manoj Naravane made a detailed presentation on the standoff at various points of the LAC in eastern Ladakh, it has been learnt.

• Several rounds of talks on the ground up to the level of Division Commanders have failed to break the impasse.

• The meeting was to review the implementation of the recommendations of the Shekatkar Committee but the Ladakh standoff was discussed, sources said, without stating the specifics of the discussion.

• MEA officials have also said “established mechanisms” are in place to resolve the issue, indicating their relative silence on the issue is to enable talks between military commanders and diplomatic channels to proceed.

• On Tuesday, the Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper Global Times published an editorial cautioning against misreading the move. “China clearly has no intention of escalating the border disputes with India, so its assistance to its citizens should not be over-interpreted,” the editorial said.

Government says ArogyaSetu app is now an open source

• Amid concerns over privacy of data being collected by its COVID-19 contact tracing app, the government on Tuesday said it was open-sourcing AarogyaSetu.

• The government has also launched a “Bug Bounty” programme wherein financial rewards will be given to security researchers for finding any vulnerability in the application or suggesting improvements to the source code.

• While the source code for the Android version.......................

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::ECONOMY::

EXIM bank claims present situation not suitable to raise funds from overseas

• Premier export finance institution Exim Bank said on Sunday that the present scenario arising out of the COVID-19 outbreak is not suitable to raise resources from overseas markets.

• Under such circumstances, the lender had requested the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a credit line of USD two billion, an official of the Export-Import Bank of India said.

• "We requested for USD two billion credit line from RBI, equivalent to around Rs 15,000 crore, which the apex bank has agreed to," he told PTI.The Reserve Bank on Friday announced a Rs 15,000-crore line of credit to the lender.

• Exim Bank raises funds in multiple currencies like USD, Japanese Yen, South African Rand, Euro and Singapore dollar, he said.

• All the currencies are then swapped into USD, according to him."Nearly 70 per cent of our business is in USD. We have a huge requirement of dollars," he said.

• The market sentiment is down at the moment, and there has been no specific request for line of credit from any quarter."We are now trying to deal with companies which have already made inroads in Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka," he added.

Centre claims special emphasis give to fisheries sector

• Minister for Fisheries, Dairy and Animal Husbandry Giriraj Singh has said that the Centre has given special emphasis on the fisheries sector.

• Briefing media in New Delhi today, Mr Singh said that the Blue revolution brought by Prime Minister NarendraModi has moved towards as a economic revolution. He said, in Blue revolution Government is focussing on employment, production and export.

• The Minister said, from 1947 to 2014, ........................................

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Srilanka assures deeper and stronger cooperation with India

• Sri Lanka has assured fullest commitment for stronger and deeper cooperation with India, while appreciating the continued exchanges of goodwill that are evident in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic.

• This was conveyed by Sri Lankan foreign minister Dinesh Gunawardena to the newly accredited Indian High Commissioner GopalBaglay when the latter met him today. Both exchanged views on a wide range of bilateral issues during the meeting.

• The High Commissioner conveyed Prime Minister NarendraModi’s assurances of closer cooperation with Sri Lanka through his neighbourhood first policy. It was agreed to kick start tourism exchanges based on the ancient foundations of Hindu-Buddhist cultural affinities between the two countries.

• Also both sides agreed to follow up on the pending Memoranda of Understanding and other bilateral instruments. It was agreed to work towards mutually beneficial trade, investment, development and political relations in the post COVID-19 new international environment by enhancing maritime cooperation, security exchanges, ensuring food and health security, enhanced assistance for capacity building and technical cooperation.

Myanmar seeks $700m loan from IMF to fight COVID

• The parliament of Myanmar on Tuesday approved the proposal to seek 700 million dollar loan from IMF to finance its spending on fighting COVID-19 in the country.

• Myanmar has sought the loan from IMF under its Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) which offers quick loan facility at concessional rates for Low Income Countries.

• The loan will be used to cover deficit.....................................

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::SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY::

Earth’s magnetic field weakening,may affect satellites &spacecrafts

• The magnetic field of the Earth between Africa and South America is weakening, causing problems for satellites and spacecraft.

• The phenomenon has been dubbed as the South Atlantic Anomaly by scientists, who’ve been studying the occurrence, which has grown considerably in recent years.

• The data gathered by the European Space Agency’s swarm of satellites reveals that the area of the anomaly dropped in strength by over 8 per cent between 1970 and 2020.

• One of the possible explanations for this could be a shift in the Earth’s magnetic field, whereby the North Pole and the South Pole switch places as the field reverses.

• This reversal last happened 7.8 lakh years ago, with scientists believing that a shift is long overdue. These reversals usually happen at an interval of 250,000 years.

• If a reversal takes place, the repercussions could be significant and could cause major issues for telecommunications and satellite systems. Certain mobile phones and satellites may stop working.

• A study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, however, said the planet’s magnetic field is not reversing despite the weakening field as the process of reversal could take tens of thousands of years.

::SPORTS::

BCCI calls for change in Ranji formats

• The BCCI is considering a change of format for the RanjiTrophy.The proposal is to split the Elite teams into five groups instead of the current three. At the moment, Elite Groups A and B have nine teams each while Group C has 10. The Plate group has 10 teams.

• In the new avatar, each Elite group will have six teams, while the Plate group will consist of eight (the top two from the previous season will be promoted to Elite Group E).

• The proposal was submitted before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, but with the pandemic disrupting the sports calendar the world over, the BCCI could be tempted to test it for the next season, which is almost certain to be shortened.

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