Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 27 February 2022

::National::

India and Japan will conduct military exercise "Dharma Guardian 2022" in Belgaum, Karnataka

India and Japan will conduct the annual joint military exercise “Dharma Guardian 2022” in Belgaum, Karnataka, from February 27 to March 10, the Union defence ministry.
“In the series of military training exercises undertaken by India with various countries, this exercise with Japan is crucial and significant in terms of security challenges faced by both nations in the backdrop of current global situation,” the ministry’s statement said.
The Japanese forces arrived at Belgaum on Friday to take part in this exercise, it noted.
India, Japan, the US and Australia are part of the Quad group that has been formed to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free from any malignant influence of China.
The scope of Dharma Guardian exercise covers platoon-level joint training on operations in jungle and semi urban and urban terrain, the statement said.
Combat experienced troops of the Maratha Light Infantry Regiment of the Indian Army and 30th Infantry Regiment of Japanese Ground Self Defence Forces are participating in the exercise this year, it noted.
“Special emphasis is being laid on enhancing tactical skills to fight global terrorism and on enhancing inter-operability between the forces and to promote Army to Army relations,” the statement read.
The annual exercise has been taking place since 2018, it added.

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::International::

India and Nepal agree to form joint task force on construction of hydroelectric project

India and Nepal agreed to form a joint task force on a proposal to construct a hydropower project from investments of the two neighbouring countries.
The task force will have maximum three members from both the countries.
The agreement was reached at the 9th meeting of the Nepal-India Energy Secretary-Level Joint Steering Committee in Kathmandu, according to officials at the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation.
The meeting was co-chaired by Secretary of the Energy Ministry DebendraKarki from Nepal and Secretary of the Energy Ministry of India Alok Kumar.
Kumar, who was in Kathmandu to attend the India Nepal Joint Steering Committee meeting, also paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister SherBahadurDeuba on Wednesday evening at the PM’s Official residence at Baluwatar.
During the meeting between Karki and Kumar, issues including existing transmission lines between the two countries, under-construction and proposed interstate transmission line, the Arun III hydropower and transmission line and interstate power trade were discussed, said Joint Secretary ChiranjiviChataut.
Both sides agreed to increase the capacity of energy being imported and exported through the interstate 400 KV Dhalkebar-Muzaffarpur transmission line. The 400 KV transmission line will span 140 kilometers (20 kilometers in Nepali territory and the remaining 120 in Indian territory).

::Economy::

Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Narayan Rane announced setting up of MSME-Technology Center in Sindhudurg, Maharashtra with an outlay of Rs 200 crore

Union Minister for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME), Shri Narayan Rane today announced the establishment of MSME-Technology Centre with an outlay of Rs. 200 Crore, in Sindhudurg. The MSME-Technology Centre will provide the best of technology, incubation as well as advisory support to the industry, especially MSMEs, to enhance their competitiveness and provide skilling services for the employed and unemployed youth of the area to enhance their employability.
The Minister made this announcement at the inauguration of the two-day MSME Conclave (25 and 26 February) being organized in Sindhudurg by the Ministry of MSME. The Conclave aims to promote entrepreneurship and trade opportunities for MSMEs in the Konkan region by handholding them in use of technology, product development and skilling.
Speaking about the significance of the conclave, the Union Minister said, “such conclaves serve as an important platform for entrepreneurs, policy makers and other key stakeholders to engage in an open dialogue to exchange information, innovative ideas and explore mutual business opportunities.”
“The objective behind this conclave is to make Sindhudurg region – the top most in industrial sector,” said ShriRane. He pointed out how most of the residents of Sindhudurg had to leave the city in search of job opportunities and to earn a living. He insisted that we have to bring change in the current scenario where income is generated in Sindhudurg and where our future generation can benefit from it.

Moody's Investors Service raises its 2022 growth forecast for India to 9.5%

American credit rating agency, Moody’s Investors Service has raised India’s growth forecast to 9.5 percent from 7 percent for the calendar year 2022.
The agency today revised its growth projection for India citing a stronger-than-expected economic recovery from the national lockdown of 2020 and the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-2021.
Moody’s said in a statement that they have raised the 2022 calendar year growth forecasts for India and maintained the forecast for 5.5 percent growth in 2023. This translates into 8.4 percent growth in fiscal year 2022-23 and 6.5 percent growth in fiscal year 2023-24. However, it flagged high oil prices and supply distortions as a drag on growth.
It said, the Indian economy is estimated to have surpassed the pre-COVID level of GDP by more than 5 percent in the last quarter of 2021 and added that sales tax collection, retail activity, and PMIs suggest solid momentum.
The Agency said, 2022 Budget prioritized growth, with a 36 percent increase in allocation to capital expenditure to 2.9 percent of GDP for the fiscal year 2022-23. It said, with the RBI leaving interest rates unchanged at its February meeting, monetary policy remains supportive.

::Science and tech::

Chandrayaan-2 detected solar proton events due to high intensity solar flares in January 2022

When Sun is active, spectacular eruptions called solar flares occur that sometimes also spew out energetic particles (called Solar Proton Events or SPEs) into interplanetary space. Most of these are high energy protons that impact space systems and significantly increase radiation exposure to humans in space. They can cause ionisation on large scales in Earth's middle atmosphere. Many intense solar flares are accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), a powerful stream of ionised material and magnetic fields, which reach Earth a few days later, leading to geomagnetic storms and lighting up the polar sky with auroras.
Solar flares are classified according to their strength. The smallest ones are A-class, followed by B, C, M and X. Each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output. This means that an M class flare is ten times intense than C-class flare and 100 times intense than B-class flare. Within each letter class there is a finer scale from 1 to 9 i.e a M2 flare is twice the strength of M1 flare.
Recently, there were two M-class solar flares. One flare (M5.5) spewed out energetic particles into interplanetary space and the other flare (M1.5) was accompanied by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). SPE event was seen by NASA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellite orbiting around Earth. However, the CME event was not detected by GOES.
Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer (CLASS) on-board Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter detected SPE due to an M5.5 class solar flare that occurred on January 20, 2022 (blue curve). The red curve shows the proton counts due to SPE recorded by GOES satellite operated by NOAA.

::Sport::

58th Senior National Chess Championship-2022

International Master KoustavChatterjee of West Bengal continued with his impressive show and downed fourth seed and two time national champion KarthikeyanMurali in the fifth round of the ongoing MPL 58th Senior National Chess Championship here Ganges Club here.
Playing black side of Steinitz Defence of Ruy Lopez opening, Koustav sacrificed his rook for bishop and pawn on 39th move to garner full point against his fancied rival after 20 more moves. Earlier in the fourth round Koustav stunned fifth seed Sethuraman while in the third round he held top seed B Adhiban.