Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 17 February 2022

::National::

India set to sign CEPA trade pact with UAE

India, which is currently negotiating about half-a-dozen free trade agreements, is set to sign the first such bilateral pact with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) during a virtual summit Friday, with adequate protections for domestic industry.
The comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) with the UAE will have clauses protecting the interests of domestic industries and providing them a gateway to markets in West Asia and Africa, three people aware of the matter said.
“Negotiations for CEPA were launched in September 2021 and have been completed,” the external affairs ministry said in a statement announcing the virtual summit between Prime Minister NarendraModi and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan. “The agreement will take India-UAE economic and commercial engagement to the next level. [The] UAE is India’s third largest trade partner, and bilateral trade and investment ties are expected to see significant enhancements,” the ministry added.
India is negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with the UK, Australia, European Union (EU), Canada and Israel, and all of them have negative lists of items where limited or no tariff concessions will be granted. This will be done to protect the interests of domestic industry, the three people said, and requesting anonymity.
He CEPA with the UAE will be the second major trade deal after the India-Mauritius comprehensive economic cooperation and partnership agreement (CECPA) signed in February 2021, one of the people said. “The India-UAE agreement is of strategic significance for both partners. We see a potential of $100 billion in bilateral trade in five years. It is a win-win for both,” he added. During the virtual summit, Modi and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed are expected to lay out their vision for the relations between the two sides at a time when India is celebrating 75 years of independence and the UAE the 50th anniversary of its foundation.

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::International::

French bill banning hijabs in sports events moves to National Assembly

The place of religion and religious symbols worn in public is a long-running matter of controversy in France, a staunchly secular country and home to Europe's largest Muslim minority.
A draft bill that would ban the wearing of the hijab in sporting competitions will pass on to France's National Assembly after the Senate on Wednesday declined to vote on the legislation.
The broader bill is devoted to "democratising sport", including how the big sporting federations are governed. But it includes a clause, previously attached as an amendment by the conservative-dominated upper house, stipulating that the wearing “of conspicuous religious symbols is prohibited” in events and competitions organised by sports federations.
The move is, however, opposed by President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government and its allies who command a majority in the National Assembly, which has the final vote.
The place of religion and religious symbols worn in public is a long-running matter of controversy in France, a staunchly secular country and home to Europe's largest Muslim minority.
Identity and Islam's place in French society are hot-button issues ahead of April's presidential election, with two far-right candidates whose nationalist programmes question Islam's compatibility with the Republic's values polling nearly 35% of voter support between them.
Elsewhere, divisions over the hijab - the traditional covering of the hair and neck worn by Muslim women - have fanned protests in the Indian state of Karnataka after authorities there banned the garment in school classrooms.
Macron's government had been swift to denounce the amendment. Given the majority wielded by his party and its allies in the lower house, the amendment is likely to be removed from the broader bill.
"Our enemy is radical Islamism, not Islam," Marlene Schiappa, junior minister for citizenship, said.
France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and critics of the legislation have questioned how it would affect protocol at the Games, whose participants will include conservative Muslim countries, if it were adopted.

::Economy::

Zombie firms dampen effectiveness of monetary policy at margins: RBI study

The monetary policy does not hinder the creative destruction process by misallocating credit flows to zombies during periods of economic slowdown, showed a study by officers of Reserve Bank of India. It has been published in RBI’s bulletin for February 2022.
In India, zombie firms are estimated to account for about 10 per cent of total debt of the non-financial corporate sector. They have also absorbed about 10 per cent of total bank credit extended to all firms in the economy.
The Schumpeterian creative destruction process requires a dynamic reallocation of resources from weak and vulnerable firms to strong firms having high growth potential.
The study pointed out that zombie firms that often survive longer than desirable taking advantage of countercyclical policy support, however, tend to thwart that process.
The RBI study said as one would expect, they are found in general to be highly leveraged; generate a negative return on assets over successive years and borrow more to survive rather than undertake new investment.
Their average cost of funds is more sensitive to monetary policy shocks. Their borrowings from banks, however, often do not give rise to higher real investment activity, unlike non-zombies.
This validates that accommodative monetary policy is effective overall in lowering the cost of funds, stimulating higher flow of credit and raising new investment.
However, the policy gets dampened at the margin by zombies who tend to use borrowed resources, including long-term bank loans, less for new investment and more for survival.

Economic recovery gaining strength as India emerges out of 3rd wave: RBI

The Indian economy is gaining momentum as it comes out of the relatively less virulent third Covid wave, which is in divergence with the global economic scenario, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its state of the economy report.
“In India, the recovery in economic activity is gaining strength and traction as it emerges from the third wave. Both manufacturing and services remain in expansion with optimism on demand parameters and uptick in consumer and business confidence," the central bank said.
According to the report, this time better planning and strategy as well as better management of supply chain logistics, and accelerated digitisation helped companies mitigate the impact of the third wave of the pandemic.
Also, unlike the last two waves, the consumer and business confidence was far more resilient, aided by accelerated pace of vaccination, and better prospects on the general economic situation, household incomes, and spending.
Further, in February, mobility indicators recovered to pre-pandemic levels and unemployment rate dropped, with companies drawing up massive hiring plans, signs that the Indian economy is coming out of the third wave. Robust goods and service tax (GST) collection, toll collections and e-way bill generations are all pointing towards a revival.
The farm sector remains upbeat on the back of higher minimum support prices announced by the government. The manufacturing activity remains in expansion with optimism on demand parameters such as production volumes, new orders and job landscape during Q4FY22. Firms expect further improvement in capacity utilisation and overall financial situation, the report stated.
“Firms in the services sector remained optimistic on demand conditions, while their expectations on overall business situation, turnover and employment conditions have moderated marginally”, the report said.
Against market expectation, in the recently concluded monetary policy committee of RBI kept rates unchanged and continued with the accommodative stance to support growth. Also, it was very optimistic in its inflation projections, as it pegged inflation at 4.5 per cent for the next fiscal year, despite high crude oil prices, which has prompted many global central banks to turn hawkish.

::Science and tech::

Chinese space junk, not SpaceX rocket debris, headed for Moon, say astronomers

An astronomer who claimed a piece of one of Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 booster rockets was going to slam into the moon in March has admitted making a mistake — he now says the hunk of space junk belongs to a Chinese rocket.
Bill Gray set the astronomy world abuzz when he made a very specific prediction about a moon impact on March 4, 2022.
While Gray has slightly tweaked his calculations to put the impact a few kilometers away from the original impact spot, he now thinks the “long cylinder, spinning slowly” is not part of a Space Exploration Technologies Corp. booster, but belongs to a Chinese rocket sent to the moon in October 2014.
In an amended blog post at the weekend, Gray, of Project Pluto, which supplies software to amateur and professional astronomers, wrote: “We now know that this object is not actually the SpaceX booster: that was a misidentification, by me.”
And in a fresh post entitled “Corrected identification of object about to hit the moon,” he wrote: “Back in March 2015, I (mis)identified this object as 2015-007B, the second stage of the DSCOVR spacecraft. We now have good evidence that it is actually 2014-065B, the booster for the Chang'e 5-T1 lunar mission. (It will, however, still hit the moon within a few kilometers of the predicted spot on 2022 March 4 at 12:25 UTC, within a few seconds of the predicted time.)”
Gray said his best guess is that the booster followed the DSCVR weather satellite launched by the Falcon 9 on its million-mile journey into deep space, and is now probably in an orbit around the sun.

::Sport::

IND vs WI 1st T20I: Bishnoi makes first impression, Rohit sets up easy win

IshanKishan, SuryakumarYadav play steady knocks after skipper's 40 off 19 balls as India win first T20 by 6 wickets with seven balls to spare at the Eden Gardens.
With the summer approaching, Eden Gardens can be notorious for its dew factor in the evening. Anything beating a fielder on the inner circle is impossible to cut off. Pulling it back for the bowlers though is a tricky two-paced Eden Gardens pitch that plays up even more when spinners come into the fore. YuzvendraChahal and debutant Ravi Bishnoi are leg-spinners but while Chahal can be loopier in his action, Bishnoi more or less built his reputation on googlies. On this pitch, it was too good a concoction for West Indies in the first T20.