6 April 2024, The Hindu
RBI keeps repo rate on hold as food prices remain high
(Page No 1)
(GS Paper 3, Indian Economy)
- The spike in food prices has kept the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) worried even though overall inflation has moderated to a certain extent.
- On Friday, the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee decided to keep the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) unchanged at 6.50%.
- This is the seventh time that the rates have been kept on hold.
- “The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) remains focused on aligning inflation to the target on a durable basis. We derive satisfaction from the progress made under disinflation. But the task is not yet finished,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said at a postmeeting press conference.
The unsettled settlers of Arunachal Pradesh
(Page No 7)
(GS Paper 3, Security Challenges)
- Uncertainty for Katak Bahadur Chhetri begins where India’s longest road under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, the Miao-Vijaynagar Road, ends near the border with Myanmar.
- While the 1,57.56 kilometre-long road connecting Vijaynagar on the border to inland Miao in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh has improved connectivity since it was opened in 2022, the work to elevate it from a 157.56 km dirt track coincided with a push for ejecting the ‘settlers’, who, like the local residents, were off the ‘mainstream radar’ for almost six decades due to the remoteness of the terrain.
- Katak Bahadur Chhetri, 84, is one such settler.
- He has been worried about the rising tensions between his community, who are primarily families of Gurkhas who served in the Army and the paramilitary Assam Rifles, and the Yobins, a trans-border community known as Lisu in Myanmar and China and given Scheduled Tribe status in India, since 2020.
- Both the settlers and the Yobin consider each other as “foreigners”.
Venky’s pushing antibiotics as poultry growth promoter
(Page No 10)
(GS Paper 2, Social Issue)
- Poultry producer Venky’s is marketing antibiotics to be used by farmers in ways that contribute to the spread of drug-resistant infections, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).
- The company is selling products aimed at speeding up poultry growth that contain drugs vital for human health. Other critically important antibiotics are being sold for so-called “preventative use”.
Rakhigarhi findings in NCERT books; Narmada Dam references dropped
(Page No 10)
(GS Paper 2, Social Issue)
- The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has proposed that findings from the DNA analysis of skeletal remains unearthed at the archaeological site of Rakhigarhi in Haryana be added to the Class 12 history textbook.
- It also proposed that references to how the Narmada Dam project adversely affected tribal people and drove them to greater destitution be dropped from the sociology textbook.
- These are among the latest set of revisions in school textbooks proposed by the NCERT.
- In the sociology textbook for Class 12, the NCERT has dropped the sentence “That Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are social groups specially marked by poverty, powerlessness and social stigma.”
RBI to enable UPI for cash deposit
(Page No 11)
(GS Paper 3, Indian Economy)
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has proposed to enable the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for cash deposits considering the app’s popularity and convenience.
- RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, while making a statement on developmental and regulatory policies, said, “Given the popularity and acceptance of UPI, and also the benefits seen from the availability of UPI for card-less cash withdrawal at ATMs, it is now proposed to facilitate cash deposit facility through the use of UPI.”
India abstains from HRC vote calling Gaza ceasefire
- India on Friday abstained on a resolution at the Human Rights Council that called upon Israel for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and the states to implement an arms embargo, which was adopted by the 47-member Council.
- While India’s abstention is believed to be in line with previous votes on any HRC resolutions that call for “accountability”, it did vote in favour of three other resolutions that criticised Israel for human rights violations against Palestinians, Israel’s occupation of Syrian Golan, and called for the Palestinian right to self-determination.
- All four resolutions were introduced at the HRC in Geneva by Pakistan on behalf of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation.
