National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 3rd November 2018

Turga Pumped Storage in West Bengal

Topic: Infrastructure Development

IN NEWS: India and Japan  signed a loan agreement of Rs 1,817 crore for the construction of the Turga Pumped Storage in West Bengal.

More on the Topic

• The objective of the project is to strengthen the capability to respond to fluctuation in supply and demand of power and to improve the stability of the power supply by constructing pumped storage facilities, thereby contributing to industrial development and improvement of living standards in the state of West Bengal.

About the Project:

• The Turga Pumped Storage Project envisages utilization of rainfall in the catchment of the Turga Nala in Ayodhya hills for peak power generation for a Pumped Storage type project development.
• The project envisages construction of Upper Dam across Turga Nala, a tributary of Subarnarekha river and a water conductor system with an underground Power House on the downstream of Upper Dam and a Lower Dam .

Subarnarekha river

• The Subarnarekha River (also called the Swarnarekha River flows through the Indian states of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha.
• After originating near piska/nagri, near Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand,the Subarnarekha traverses a long distance through Ranchi.Thereafter, it flows for through West Bengal .
• The prominent tributaries of the Subarnarekha are Kharkai, Roro, Kanchi, Harmu Nadi, Damra, Karru, Chinguru, Karakari, Gurma, Garra, Singaduba, Kodia, Dulunga and Khaijori. The Kharkai meets the Subarnarekha at Sonari (Domuhani), a neighborhood of Jamshedpur.

Source:The Hindu

NASA’s Dawn mission

Topic: Science and Technology

In news: NASA’s pioneering Dawn spacecraft which orbited the two largest objects in the asteroid belt has run out of fuel, ending a historic 11-year mission that unravelled many mysteries of our solar system.

About the Mission:

• Dawn was a space probe launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three known proto planets of the asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres.
• It was retired on 1 November 2018 and it is currently in an uncontrolled orbit about its second target, the dwarf planet Ceres.
• Dawn is the first spacecraft to orbit two extraterrestrial bodies,the first spacecraft to visit either Vesta or Ceres, and the first to visit a dwarf planet, arriving at Ceres in March 2015, a few months before New Horizons flew by Pluto in July 2015.

Source:The Hindu

RBI defends stiffer bank capital norms

Topic: Indian Economy

In news: Amid a raging controversy over capital levels of Indian banks with the government wanting lower capital requirement, Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor N. S. Vishwanathan defended the central bank’s decision to stick to stiffer capital norms.

Why high capital:

• Higher levels of capital increases the trust of shareholders, thus potentially leading to better credit appraisal and screening.
• The banking regulator said the current levels of provisions maintained by banks may not be enough to cover the expected losses, so there is a need to build adequate buffers to absorb the expected losses.
• To make sure that the banking system is resilient enough to support higher credit growth going forward, it should have higher capital levels.
• A good capital will increase the credibility of bank and improve overseas business.
• Any slackening of the prudential norms may result in a reset of international credibility/standing in the international markets.
• Such a reset could increase the cost and ease of doing business for their clientele and their clientele may need to migrate to other banks which are compliant with Basel standards.

About Basel norms

• Basel is a city in Switzerland which is also the headquarters of Bureau of International Settlement (BIS). BIS fosters co-operation among central banks with a common goal of financial stability and common standards of banking regulations. Currently there are 27 member nations in the committee.
• Basel guidelines refer to broad supervisory standards formulated by this group of central banks- called the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS). The set of agreement by the BCBS, which mainly focuses on risks to banks and the financial system are called Basel accord.

Basel 3 norms:

• Basel III norms aim at making most banking activities such as their trading book activities more capital-intensive. The guidelines aim to promote a more resilient banking system by focusing on four vital banking parameters viz. capital, leverage, funding and liquidity.
• The capital requirement (as weighed for risky assets) for Banks was more than doubled. ( e.g. 4.5% from 2% in Basel-II accord for common equity)
• Leverage basically means buying assets with borrowed money to multiply the gain. The underlying belief is that the asset will return the investor more than the interest he has to pay on the loan.
• Obviously doing so is risky business. Thus the Basel III puts a limit on the banks for doing this. The numbers are not important here. Getting the concept is important.
• Basel III puts a requirement for the banks to maintain some liquid assets all the time. Liquid assets are those which can be easily converted to cash.
• The RBI has postponed the implementation of these norms to 2019.

It is important to note that it is not easy to implement these norms as it requires several changes in the present banking system.

There are several challenges in the successful implementation of Basel III norms.

• Higher capital requirement for banks – The private banks have the autonomy to raise capital from the markets. But the Public sector banks have to rely on the government mostly. The government has recently decided to infuse 12000 Cr. rupees in the PSBs. In the coming years even more will be required.
• More technology deployment – Implementing the norms would require much more sophisticated technology and management styles that the Indian banks are presently using. Upgrading both will impose huge cost on the banks and hurt their profitability in the coming years.
• Liquidity crunch – Banks would need to invest more on liquid assets. These assets do not give handsome returns usually which would reduce the bank’s operating profit margin. Further higher deployment of more funds in liquid assets may crowd out good private sector investments and also affect economic growth.

Source:The Hindu

Russia to host Taliban dialogue

Topic: International Relations

In news: Russia has quietly invited a group of senior Afghan politicians to talks with the Taliban in Moscow, bypassing President Ashraf Ghani’s government in a move that has angered officials in Kabul who say it could muddle the U.S.-backed peace process.

More on the topic:

• The Taliban , who refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan are a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan currently waging war (an insurgency, or jihad) within that country.
• From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban held power over roughly three quarters of Afghanistan, and enforced there a strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. The Taliban emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War and largely consisted of students (talib) from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools, and fought during the Soviet–Afghan War.
• The group later regrouped as an insurgency movement to fight the American-backed Karzai administration and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan.
• The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women.
• According to the United Nations, the Taliban and their allies were responsible for 76% of Afghan civilian casualties in 2010, 80% in 2011, and 80% in 2012.Taliban has also engaged in cultural genocide, destroying numerous monuments including the famous 1500-year old Buddhas of Bamiyan.

Source:The Hindu

Botswana decides to join the International Solar Alliance

Topic: International relations

In news: The Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu has said that Botswana announced their decision to join the International Solar Alliance.

About International solar alliance:

• The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of more than 121 countries initiated by India, most of them being sunshine countries, which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.
• The initiative was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the India Africa Summit, and a meeting of member countries ahead of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015.
• The framework agreement of the International Solar Alliance opened for signatures in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016, and 121 countries have joined.
• The focus is on solar power utilization. The launching of such an alliance in Paris also sends a strong signal to the global communities about the sincerity of the developing nations towards their concern about climate change and to switch to a low-carbon growth path. India has pledged a target of installing 100GW by 2022 and reduction in emission intensity by 33–35% by 2030 to let solar energy reach to the most unconnected villages and communities and also towards creating a clean planet
• It is headquartered in India.In January 2016, Narendra Modi, and the then French President François Hollande jointly laid the foundation stone of the ISA Headquarters and inaugurated the interim Secretariat at the National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) in Gwal Pahari, Gurugram, India.

Source:The Hindu

Coconut oil more effective than insect repellents: study

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Compounds derived from coconut oil are better than DEET at preventing disease transmission and discomfort associated with insect bites, according to a study.

More on the topic:

• For more than 60 years, DEET has been considered the gold standard in insect repellents the most effective and long-lasting available commercially.
• The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, identified specific coconut oil fatty acids that have strong repellency and long-lasting effectiveness against multiple insects mosquitoes, ticks, biting flies and bed bugs  that can transmit diseases to humans and animals.
• The coconut oil-derived free fatty acid mixture lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid as well as their corresponding methyl esters provides strong repellency against blood-sucking insects.
• Coconut oil fatty acids also provided more than 90% repellency against mosquitoes including Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that can transmit the Zika virus.

Source:The Hindu