Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 27 January 2022

::National::

Air India likely to be handed over to Tata Group: Timeline

Air India is expected to be handed over to the Tata Group. The handing over will culminate the over two-decade-long journey to privatise the national carrier.
Since then, the governments at the Centre kept trying to disinvest their stake in the national carrier but success finally came in October 2021.
Here's a look at the previous attempts at privatisation:
2001: The Atal Bihari Vajyapee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government tried to sell a minority stake (40 per cent) in order to raise funds.
Singapore Airlines, along with Tatas, were interested in buying the stake, but the plan could not materialise.
2007: Congress-led UPA government decided to merge Air India and its subsidiary Indian Airlines to curb financial losses incurred by the airline in past decades.
2011: The UPA government agreed to infuse ₹30,000 crore in equity funding in Air India, which will be spread over a decade. The move was meant to allow the airline to give salaries to its staff.
June 2017: Govt approved the privatisation of Air India.
March 2018: Expression of Interest (EoI) issued to sell 76 per cent stake of the national carrier, along with Air India Express and 50 per cent stake of Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt Ltd, the ground handling company.
No private firms showed any interest in buying the debt-laden airline.
January 2020: Govt decided to sell the entire 100 per cent stake and issued an EoI to invite bidders. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the process further.
October 2021: The Centre announced that Tata Group's ₹18,000 crore bid is successful.

Printed Study Materials for IBPS, SBI Bank Exam

::International::

US, Russia in war of threats over Ukraine

Russia hit back at US threats of direct sanctions against President Vladimir Putin, saying moves against the Russian leader would be ineffective and hurt efforts to lower tensions over Ukraine.
The West has warned Russia of severe consequences if it does invade, and on Tuesday, Washington said there could be sanctions personally targeting Putin.
Reacting to the news, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the threats as worthless because senior Russian officials are barred from holding assets abroad. But such a move, he said, would do serious damage to diplomatic efforts to ease rising tensions over Ukraine.
The Kremlin has previously said any US sanctions personally targeting Putin would be akin to crossing a red line, warning the move could result in a rupture of bilateral ties. US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that any Russian military attack on Ukraine would trigger “enormous consequences” and could even “change the world”.
In another development, Russia said on Wednesday that it has received Washington’s response to Moscow’s security demands from US ambassador John Sullivan. “The head of the American diplomatic mission handed over a written response of the US administration to the draft bilateral treaty on security guarantees,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement following Sullivan’s meeting with deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko.
France is working flat out with its European partners and the US to find ways to de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine, French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
He was addressing the Senate, the upper chamber of France’s parliament, as senior advisers from France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia met in Paris under the so-called ‘Normandy format’.
European benchmark Brent North Sea crude rallied as high as $90.02 in late afternoon London trade, attaining a level last seen in October 2014.
A string of Wall Street banks including Goldman Sachs Group have forecast oil will hit $100 a barrel this year as the global market tightens.

::Economy::

Union Budget may tweak customs duties, ensure ease of import compliance

The Union Budget is likely to bring about fresh changes in Customs duties and procedures with the aim of fulfilling two key objectives, protect and encourage domestic value addition as part of the global supply chain, and have reasonable tariff space for concessions under various free trade agreements (FTAs) currently under negotiation people aware of the matter said.
The changes will be done to reduce import dependence on manufactured products, protect the environment, and to safeguard the interests of Indian farm sector, and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the people added, requesting anonymity.
The government is considering reducing import duties on a range of inputs including raw materials for the manufacturing of steel, aluminium, textiles, jewellery, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electronic components, telecom network products, electrical vehicles (EVs), and also on liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce fuel costs, one of the people said. India is the fourth-largest importer of LNG in the world.
“Duty reductions for several sectors under the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme are under consideration,” a second person said, adding that the Budget may also expand the list of PLI sectors. The government currently gives incentives worth ₹1.97 lakh crore in key sectors to create significant scale, nurture what it calls global champions, and generate employment.
Some of the key sectors under the PLI scheme include solar PVs (photo voltaics), white goods, steel, food processing, pharmaceuticals, telecom, textiles, automobile, and auto components.
“There are also proposals to raise the customs duty on certain items to check the cheaper import of products that are manufactured domestically. The government is also negotiating FTAs, and may have to keep differential tariffs for FTA countries and other nations. This may require raising tariffs of some items,” the first person added.
“There could be some changes and a few general exemptions on the import of capital goods and raw materials considering these FTAs in the pipeline. More importantly, the FTAs would set the decks for further exports of manufactured goods from India,” said Mahesh Jaising, partner at consulting firm Deloitte India.

Google proposes Topics API to replace tracking cookies as FLoC is abandoned

Google is making changes, again, to how it approaches the need for a more private browsing experience for web users. At the same time, it is developing tools that’ll help advertisers show relevant advertisements based on web browsing activity while not revealing details of specific websites a user may have visited.
The Topics API, what Google calls a proposal, comes as a replacement for the FLoC (or the Federated Learning of Cohorts technology), which was propped up last year.
The need for a new method for online advertising, while it being more private and less intrusive in terms of sharing your web browsing history, is urgent because Google wants to disable third-party tracking cookies in the Chrome web browser by 2023. A TOPIC API, which is an evolution within the Privacy Sandbox initiative, proposes to club interests for targeted advertising in genre-esque buckets.
There will be 350 such topics available at the start, including travel, sports, auto and vehicles, music and more. Expect many more to be added consequently.
These will be interests based on your browsing history in the Google Chrome web browser. More specifically, within that week. The websites that you visit will determine these topics. These topics aren’t assigned to you or the device on which you are accessing websites using the Chrome web browser.
How will the topic buckets be created? Valid question. This will be drawn using Google’s own data and also data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Cookies do the opposite – they track you across websites and share those details. What this means is that if you’ve been visiting websites that have been assigned the topic “Books & Literature”, you may see advertisements of an online book store in your part of the world. It may be a coincidence if it’s the same one you regularly visit and buy from.

::Science and tech::

CSIR-CDRI scientists develop OM, the RT-PCR kit for Omicron

The CSIR – Central Drug Research Institute’s scientists have developed an indigenous RT-PCR kit called ‘Om’ for testing the omicron variant. The kit, a first by any government institution for the omicron variant, will also make India self-reliant in RT-PCR diagnostics.
The team comprises Dr. Atul Goel, Dr. Ashish Arora, and Dr. Niti Kumar at CSIR-CDRI. The indigenous RT-PCR kit ‘INDICoV-OmTM’ is one of the very few specific kits for detecting Omicron in the entire world.
Om enables quick and cost-effective detection of omicron variant over genome sequencing for a large population. It was made within two months and will cost around Rs 150. Further, it will give the test results in around two hours. According to the scientists, it can also be aligned for the detection of other emerging variants of Covid infection and other respiratory infections.
Once the kit gets approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), it will be launched by mid-February. The kit has been referred to the ICMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV) and is yet to be validated.
The diagnostic kit will specifically detect the omicron variant which will help in the proper diagnosis and treatment of the patient. Most RT-PCR-based diagnostic kits do not confirm by which covid variant the infection is caused. Currently, the detection of omicron variant depends on tests like the S-gene dropout or by NGS (Nextgen sequencing) of the whole viral genome.
The S-gene drop-out method is not specific and does not pinpoint the type of variant while the NGS (Nextgen sequencing) method too, has certain limitations such as expense, turnaround, and the number of centers that can provide such service.
Offline classes have resumed for students from standard 1 to 12 in Maharashtra on Monday following appropriate covid protocols. The decision was taken after the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) assessment.
Meanwhile, the Haryana government was planning to open schools at 33% capacity on different days, however, no decision has been taken yet. Schools are to remain closed for physical classes till January 26 in the State.

::Sport::

Delhi HC to hear plea on delayed IOA elections

A division bench of the Delhi High Court will hear the case related to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) elections on Thursday, two weeks after objections were raised to its president Narinder Batra making unilateral appointments including that of chefs de mission and deputy chefs de mission for this year’s Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.
The elections to IOA's executive committee were originally scheduled for December 19, but following a plea by sports lawyer and activist Rahul Mehra on November 30, a bench of Justices Manmohan and Najmi Waziri granted stay in an interim order.
Mehra had urged IOA to amend its constitution as per the National Sports Code (NSC), 2011.
"It is going to be a big day (in the court). We hope the honourable court sets a date of elections soon so that we may resume our operations properly. We are ready to comply with everything the court has to say,” IOA treasurer Anandeshwar Pandey said.
“The recommendations (given to IOA) will be tabled in court tomorrow. I will be able to discuss the nitty-gritty only after the court proceedings,” IOA general-secretary Mehta said.