On October 6, 2021, Anshu Malik has become the first Indian woman wrestler to reach the final of 2021 World Wrestling Championships.
Anshu Malik is an Indian freestyle wrestler. She won gold in the 60 kg category in the Cadet Wrestling Championships. She won one of the bronze medals in 57 kg category at the 2020 Asian Wrestling Championships, that was held in New Delhi, in 2020. She also won the silver medal in women’s 57 kg event at 2020 Individual Wrestling World Cup, Serbia. In Asian Wrestling Championships 2021, she won Gold medal. She belongs to the family of wrestlers. Coach Jagdeesh is her coach, who give her training at Chaudhary Bharat Singh Memorial Sports School in Nidani. Her father Dharamvir Malik, was an international wrestler and has worked with the CISF.
Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the sovereign rating outlook of India to stable from negative.
Moody’s had downgraded India’s sovereign rating to Baa3 from Baa2 in June 2020 with a negative outlook.
As per Moody’s, downside risks on growth because of coronavirus infection waves are lowering because of rising vaccination rates and selective use of restrictions on economic activity. Furthermore, higher capital cushions and greater liquidity highlights that banks & non-bank financial institutions have a lesser risk to the sovereign now.
According to Moody’s, economic environment will lead to a gradual reduction of general government fiscal deficit in next few years. It will also prevent further deterioration of sovereign credit profile.
In the medium term, Moody’s predicts that real GDP will increase to around 6%, reflecting a rebound in activity to levels at potential. This growth was predicted by taking into account the weak infrastructure, structural challenges as well as rigidities in labour, land & product markets.
As per Moody’s, higher debt burden and weaker debt affordability will persists as compared to pre-pandemic times. It will contribute to ‘lower fiscal strength’. This is why Moody’s has given Baa3 rating.
13th Annual International G-20 conference was held on October 6, 2021. India was represented by Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman.
Emerging market economies will hold the presidency for G20 presidency till 2025. Indonesia will hold it in 2022 while India in 2023.
Themes and priorities that India has placed before the G20 reflects those issues wherein emerging market economies can work jointly in order to enable G20 to play a more constructive role across the global policy arena. The theme will also reaffirm the importance of multilateral cooperation and ensure that multilateralism leads to expansion of opportunities. It will also provide direction to G20 in reaching out to global community beyond the G20 membership.
On US ‘taper tantrum’ impact on India, FM said, India has learnt its lessons from the taper tantrum that led India to being included in ‘fragile five’ economies.
The taper tantrum phenomenon denotes the 2013 collective reactionary response which triggered an increase in US treasury yields, after investors came to know that US Federal Reserve was slowly putting holds on its quantitative easing (QE) programme. This move has led to inflation in double digits across the emerging economies.
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) released “Multilingual Dementia Research and Assessment (MUDRA) toolbox” in five Indian Languages on October 5, 2021.
MUDRA Toolbox project is led by the ICMR Neuro-Cognitive Tool Box (ICMR-NCTB) partnership. It seeks to improve dementia and mild cognitive impairment research & therapeutic practices in India. To implement this project, ICMR-NCTB has collaborated with AIIMS (New Delhi), NIMHANS (Bengaluru), NIMS (Hyderabad), SCTIMST (Thiruvananthapuram), Manipal Hospital (Bengaluru), Apollo Hospital (Kolkata) and Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College.
Toolbox comprise of several cognitive tests which can be used to examine several aspects of cognition such as executive functioning, speech, memory, and visuospatial functions. It is sensitive to the elements affective cognitive test performance like language, education, and culture.
Dementia is a neurological illness which affects the ability of person to perform activities of daily living. It creates a loss in memory. As per Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSIDementia), currently more than 5.29 million persons are living with dementia in India. By 2030, number of dementia patients is expected to reach 7.61 million.
ICMR is the apex body to formulate, coordinate and promote biomedical research. It is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies across the world. It is funded through the Department of Health Research of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced its plan to send a probe on an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter for collecting data regarding origins of the universe.
Space Agency of UAE will partner with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics of University of Colorado to develop this project. Laboratory will offer a cost and describe what particular features of the asteroid to UAE’s space agency.
This project was announced in the backdrop of first successful launch of “Hope probe” in orbit of Mars in February 2021. The car-size “Hope” mission was worth $200 million.
UAE has also planned to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in the year 2024.
UAE has also set the ambitious goal of building a human colony on Mars by 2117.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on October 6, 2021 endorsed the Malaria Vaccine called “RTS,S/AS01”.
WHO has recommended that, children up to the age of two, in sub-Saharan Africa and in other regions having moderate to high malaria transmission should get four doses.
According to WHO, a child dies of Malaria every two minutes. As per WHO’s 2019 data, more than half of malaria deaths across the world were reported in six sub-Saharan African countries. A quarter of the deaths were reported in Nigeria alone.
There are many existing vaccines against viruses and bacteria. But this is the first time that WHO recommended to use a vaccine against human parasite. This vaccine acts against plasmodium falciparum, which is one of five malaria parasite and the deadliest among all. RTS,S vaccine is known by the brand name Mosquirix. It requires four injections and has a relatively low efficacy.
R21/Matric-M is the most effective malaria vaccine discovered so far. It has the efficacy of 77%. This is the first vaccine which meets WHO’s goal of a malaria vaccine with at least 75% efficacy.
American Space Agency, NASA has announced to launch “asteroid-killing Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft” on November 24, 2021.
NASA is planning for this spacecraft because astronomers and scientists have been warning that; asteroids might cause most damage if proper defence system is not developed against them. For instance, an asteroid collision caused the extinction of dinosaurs from planet 66 million years ago.
The DART mission is based on the idea of developing a defence system against asteroid collision. It has reached to its final stages of development. Under the mission, spacecraft will be sent towards Didymos asteroid system, approximately 109.4 crore kilometres away from Earth. Didymos system comprise of two asteroids namely, Didymos and Dimorphos. The spacecraft will ram into Dimorphos in order to determine if kinetic impactor technology can be a reliable method to deflect asteroids. Kinetic impactor technology requires flying the spacecraft directly into a small Solar System body.
This suicidal spacecraft will collide into the system at the speed of 24,140 kmph.
This spacecraft has been built and developed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
DART spacecraft comprises of a compact Roll-Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) and a Didymos Reconnaissance & Asteroid Camera for Optical (DRACO) navigation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with the beneficiaries of Svamitva scheme in Madhya Pradesh on October 6, 2021.
On the occasion, PM also distributed e-property cards to 1,71,000 beneficiaries under the SVAMITVA scheme.
SVAMITVA Scheme stands for “Survey of Villages Abadi and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas”. It is a central sector scheme. It is implemented by the “Ministry of Panchayati Raj”. The scheme is implemented with the aim of providing property rights to residents across rural areas. The scheme will also make way to use property as a financial asset by villagers to take loans and other financial benefits in urban areas. It also aims to demarcate inhabited lands in rural areas using latest surveying drone-technology. Thus, the scheme also boosts the ecosystem of drone manufacturing in India.
Central government had launched the SVAMITVA scheme on April 24, 2021 marking the National Panchayati Raj Day. This scheme is a collaborative effort of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, State Revenue Department, State Panchayati Raj Departments and Survey of India. It aims to provide an integrated property validation solution in rural India.
The scheme conducts the mapping of land parcels across rural inhabited areas using drones and Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS). Under the scheme, mapping will be done in India in a phase-wise manner for a period of four years that is “2020 to 2024”.
Union Cabinet has given its approval, on October 6, 2021, to set up seven PM MITRA parks, accomplishing the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to establish Atmanirbhar Bharat.
PM MITRA parks stands for “Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel” parks. These parks will be established at Greenfield or Brownfield sites at different states. Establishment of the parks will benefit unemployed with seven lakh direct jobs as well as 14 lakh indirect jobs. Under the project, parks will be established through a special purpose vehicle, owned by state governments and Centre under a public-private partnership (PPP) model.
Till date, 10 states have shown their interest in establishing the PM MITRA parks namely, Punjab, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
Maximum Development Capital Support (DCS) of Rs 500 crore will be provided to Greenfield PM MITRA while Rs 200 Crore will be provided to Brownfield PM MITRA, in order to develop a Common Infrastructure. Apart from that, Rs 300 crore of Competitiveness Incentive Support (CIS) will also be provided to these parks for early establishment of textiles manufacturing units there.
PM MITRA initiative is motivated by PM Modi’s 5F vision of- “farm to fibre; fibre to factory; factory to fashion; and fashion to foreign”.
In order to promote indigenous & Geographical Identification (GI) tagged products, first consignment of GI tagged sweet dish Mihidana from West Bengal was exported to Bahrain.
To commemorate the historical legacy of century old sweet delicacy and GI certified Jaynagarer Moa, India post released a specially designed envelope in collaboration with APEDA. The Jaynagarer Moa is prepared from popped-rice ball & fresh date-palm jaggery in the Jaynagar city of West Bengal. A consignment of Jaynagar Moa was exported to Bahrain in January 2021 from Kolkata.
GI tag denotes specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are specific to that origin. GI is a form of intellectual property right (IPR) and is different from other forms of IPR on the fact that, it denotes the exclusivity of the community in a defined geography, rather than to an individual.
GI tag can be issued for agricultural, natural or manufactured goods with unique quality, reputation or characteristics, unique to its geographical origin. For example, Basmati Rice, Darjeeling tea, Kanchipuram Silk, Mysore Silk, Nagaland chilli products, Hyderabadi haleem, etc are sold with the GI tag and these products have premium pricing.
On October 6, 2021, “National Mission on Edible Oil- Oil Palm Business Summit” was held at Guwahati for North Eastern States.
Government decision to make major intervention in North Eastern states for the promotion of oil palm will turn NE states into oil palm hub of India. Special package and assistance for North Eastern states will change the socio-economic status of farmers. It will also open up the employment opportunities as it will set up oil palm mills along with infrastructure development.
Business summit is being organised with the aim of exploring:
This Mission is being launched with a total outlay of Rs 11040 crore. It will bring an additional area of about 6.5 lakh hectares under Oil Palm plantation in next five years. Out of this, 3.28 lakh hectares will be from North Eastern states while 3.22 lakh hectares will be from rest part of India.
Union Ministry of Road Transport & Highways notified to set up a “National Road Safety Board” recently.
The Head Office of National Road Safety Board will be established in the National Capital Region. Board might establish offices at other places as well in India.
The road safety board will comprise of the Chairman. Apart from that, these will be 3 to 7 members. All the members will be be appointed by the Central Government.
Board will perform the following functions:
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its new report titled “The State of Climate Services 2021: Water” on October 5, 2021.
Report also highlights that, most of the drought-related deaths occurred in Africa. Thus, more robust end-to-end warning systems is needed for drought in African region. Most of the flood-related deaths & economic losses were witnessed in Asia.
According to report, increasing temperatures are resulting in global & regional precipitation changes. It will also lead to shifts in rainfall patterns as well as agricultural seasons.
WMO recommends that countries should increase investment in integrated water resources management and drought & flood early warning systems. WMO also urged countries to fill the gap in capacity of collecting data for basic hydrological variables.