Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 18 January 2022

::National::

SC dismissal of Devas plea to help India in global arbitration

The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal filed by Devas Multimedia against the decision of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), which had upheld the National Company Law Tribunal’s decision to wind up the company, has significant political and economic ramifications -- and it is likely India will use it while fighting against an international arbitration award won by Devas, whose enforcement the company has been pushing for in some geographies.
Recently, a Canadian court ordered the attachments of assets owned in that country by Air India as part of this. The judgment, delivered by a bench comprising justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian dismissed Devas’s and its minority shareholder Devas Employees Mauritius Private Ltd’s appeal, upholding the order passed by NCLAT, which stated that Devas was incorporated with a fraudulent motive to collude and connive with some officials of Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
The judgment is the latest chapter in a controversial deal during the previous UPA regime, when, in 2005, Devas entered into an agreement with Antrix, the private sector arm of ISRO to provide high-speed data services using S-band satellite spectrum from Antrix.
This resulted in commercial arbitration before an ICC Tribunal in the Netherlands and investment arbitration under the India-Mauritius and India-Germany bilateral investment treaty. Each of these proceedings has led to adverse awards against the Union of India.
Judgment in favour of the Union of India bolsters its case against Devas internationally, especially against the arbitration award for Devas that is under consideration with the judiciary of the Netherlands. This may also help the Modi government in limiting the enforcement proceedings globally on grounds of fraud. The apex court’s order also embarrasses the previous regime ahead of state elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab.

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::International::

Asteroid twice the size of Burj Khalifa to fly past Earth on January 18

A huge asteroid bigger than the size of Burj Khalifa is set to fly past Earth at a 1,230,000-mile distance on January 18. The asteroid 7482, also known as 1994 PC1, is about 1.6 km wide and has been categorised by US space agency Nasa as a “potentially hazardous object” due to its relative proximity to the Earth while shooting past.
Nasa identifies asteroids as potentially hazardous if the asteroids are more than about 140 meters in size with orbits that bring them as close as within 4.6 million miles of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It is also a Near-Earth Object since it is closer than 1.3au astronomical units, little over the distance between the Earth and the Sun. One au is the equivalent of 93 million miles.
While an asteroid of such size can cause huge damage on Earth, Nasa assured that 1994 PC1 will safely fly past the planet 1.2 million miles away.
The closest approach of the potentially dangerous asteroid to Earth will occur at 4.51pm EST on January 18 (3.21am IST on January 19). It will be the closest for this asteroid for at least the next 200 years for which astronomers have calculated its orbit, according to EarthSky.
The most recent asteroid to hit the planet was eight years ago in Russia which exploded in the atmosphere.
Nasa recently launched a mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid as a test run to stop a giant space rock from wiping out life on Earth. The spacecraft is expected to hit the asteroid in the fall of 2022, when the binary asteroid system of Dimorphos and Didymos is 11 million kilometres from Earth.

::Economy::

India's overall economic activity remains strong, says RBI article

India's overall economic activity remains strong, driven by an upbeat consumer confidence and uptick in bank credit, and expectations that Omicron may turn out to be a "flash flood rather than a wave" have further brightened the prospects, according to a RBI article.
“On the vaccination front, India has made rapid strides. On the Omicron variant, the recent data from the UK and South Africa suggest that such infections are 66 to 80 per cent less severe, with a lower need for hospitalisation,” the article on the state of economy published in the RBI Bulletin said.
Amidst upbeat consumer and business confidence and an uptick in bank credit, aggregate demand conditions stay resilient while on the supply front, rabi sowing has exceeded last year's level and the normal acreage, it noted.
Noting that manufacturing and several categories of services remain in expansion, the article said, "overall economic activity in India remains strong, with upbeat consumer and business confidence and upticks in several incoming high frequency indicators".
The central bank said the views expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
There are indications that supply chain disruptions and shipping costs are slowly easing, although the waning of inflation may take longer. This provides a window of opportunity to focus all energies on accelerating and broadening the global recovery, the article said.
It also said that data for early January 2022 (up to January 12) indicate growth in digital payments, although the recent surge in infections "may pose a concern going forward". Nevertheless, the payment industry is expected to display resilience owing to availability of varied checkout options and rising digital.
Market estimates predict that the value of digital payments could jump three-fold from USD 300 billion in 2020-21 to USD 1 trillion by 2025-26.

PM Modi to deliver special address at World Economic Forum's Davos Agenda

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver a special address at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Davos Agenda on Monday. According to the WEF website, the address is scheduled to take place at 1600 hours Central European Time (CET) or 8.30pm IST.
Several heads of state will address the event including Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and EU Commission's chief Ursua von der Leyen.
The event will also witness the participation of top industry leaders, international organisations and civil society, who will deliberate on critical challenges being faced by the world today and discuss how to address them.
According to WEF Agenda website, the virtual plenaries will be aligned with the annual meeting objective of “orienting global leaders on the imperatives of the year ahead”.
A week-long online 'Davos Agenda' summit is being held in its place. Two virtual summits are expected in the online summit - one on Covid-19 and the second on technology cooperation in the fourth industrial revolution.
There would be sessions on energy transition, scaling up climate innovation and Latin America outlook.
The other listed speakers for the online summit are: US treasury secretary Janet L Yellen, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva and European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde.
The dialogue will be a springboard to the annual meeting in Davos, scheduled for early summer.

::Science and tech::

Jitendra Singh launches AI-powered start-up for water purification by IIT alumnus

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today launched Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven Start-Up by IIT alumni for water purification through innovative technology. The facility aims to provide clean drinking water at a price much lesser than the market price.
Speaking on the occasion, the Minister said, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven Start-Up initiative should be motivating for other Start-Ups as well.
A MoU was also signed between Technology Development Board (TDB), a statutory body of Department of Science & Technology, Government of India and M/s Swajal Water Private Limited, a tech Start Up company founded by ex-IITians based in Gurugram. The company is focused on innovative technologies to make reliable clean drinking water accessible to communities at affordable price, for their project on IoT enabled point of use Solar Water Purification Unit for slums, villages and High Utility Areas.
Dr Jitendra Singh welcomed the financial support extended to Swajal by TDB and said that his Ministry is committed to reach out to potential small and viable Start-ups having skill and talent pool, but lacking resources. The Minister asked the CEO & Co Founder of Swajal, Dr VibhaTripathi to scale up this technology to help achieve India’s ambitious target of providing clean drinking water to all by 2024, as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Minister said, apart from the Centre’s initiatives like National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) and Jal Jeevan Mission, Private Sector should come forward in a big way with state of the art tech solutions to cover nearly 14 Crore households where clean drinking water is yet to reach.
Referring to Prime Minister’s 75th Independence Day speech, where he said that in just two years of the Jal Jeevan Mission, more than four and a half crore families have started getting water from taps, Dr Jitendra Singh said that Ministry of Science and Technology is positively contributing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision and Mission of “Har Ghar Nal Se Jal”.
It may be recalled that Dr Jitendra Singh launched state-of-the-art Heli-borne survey technology for groundwater management, developed by CSIR-NGRI Hyderabad with Union Minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekawat from Jodhpur in October, last year. To start with, the States of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana are being taken up for this latest heli-borne survey.
The Gurugram based company’s patented system, ‘Clairvoyant’ uses artificial intelligence to optimise purification systems and predict future breakdowns.Thus,allowing it to remotely manage, update, and repair each system in real time. They have also developed clean drinking water solutions in the form of Water ATMS, which combines Internet of Things technology with solar energy to provide clean drinking water. Theserural Water ATM by Swajalproposed to use solar energy to pump water from rivers, wells, ponds or groundwater depending upon the location. The water will then be treated with appropriate technology to make it healthy & pure for drinking. With this innovation, the cost of purified water be brought down to as low as 25 paise per litre.
Dr. Srivari Chandrashekhar, Secretary DST & Chairperson TDB, pointed out that this project is a combination of new emerging technologies --- IOT, Artificial Intelligence combined with renewable solar energy to cater to the need of pure drinking water in villages and remote areas.

::Sport::

Goalkeeper Savita Punia appointed captain of Indian women's hockey team

Goalkeeper Savita Punia will captain an 18-member Indian squad at the Women’s Hockey Asia Cup 2022 in Muscat, Oman from January 21-28.
Indian women are the defending champions at the continental event.
The Indian women’s hockey team, named by Hockey India on Wednesday, features 16 players who were part of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where the Indian eves finished fourth.
Regular skipper Rani Rampal will miss out as she is undergoing rehabilitation for a hamstring injury in Bengaluru. Defender Deep Grace Ekka will be the vice-captain.
Gurjit Kaur and Vandana Katariya, who were India’s top goalscorers at Tokyo 2020, are also in the squad.
China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand are the seven other teams competing at the Women’s Hockey Asia Cup 2022.