DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

By admin: March 19, 2022

India to provide fresh $1 billion line of credit to Sri Lanka

Tags: International News

The Government of India has agreed to provide another USD 1 billion line of credit to Sri Lanka. An agreement was signed between the State Bank of India and Sri Lankan government on 17 March during the visit of the Sri Lankan finance minister's Basil Rajapakse to India.

• The loan has been given to Sri Lanka to buy food, medicine and other essential items.  

• This is the second visit of the Sri Lanka Finance minister’s Basil Rajapakse who is the brother of the Sri Lankan President Gotbaya Rajpakse and the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, since December 2021.

• Sri Lanka's economy is facing a huge economic crisis and ever increasing  foreign debt. It has to repay USD 7 billion of foreign loans this year and it is facing an unprecedented food and fuel shortage. It is dependent on imported food and fuel and it has almost no foreign exchange reserves to buy food or fuel. Almost 10% of its external debt is to China.

• The main source of foreing exchange earner for the Sri Lankan economy is tourism. Due to covid situation there has been no flow of international tourists to Sri lanka in the past two years.

Helping Hand of India 

The government of India has provided  loans to Sri Lanka to deal with its economic crisis, under its neighbourhood first policy. During Basil Rajapakse's visit to India on December 21, India agreed to help Sri Lanka under its neighbourhood policy. The decision included a four pillar initiative to help Sri Lanka.

The four­ pillar initiative comprises-

• India will provide loans to Sri Lanka to enable it to purchase food, medicines and fuel from India.

• A currency swap agreement to deal with Sri Lanka's balance of payment issues, 

• An “early” modernisation project of the Trincomalee oil farms that India has been pursuing for several years, and

• Sri Lankan commitment to facilitate Indian investments in various sectors

Excluding this loan amount of USD 1 billion, India has provided USD 1.4 billion support to Sri Lanka in 2022. It has provided USD 500 million for import of fuels, deferred repayment of USD 500 billion debt repayment and extended a  $400-million RBI currency swap facility.

Fact File Sri Lanka 

• Officially it is called the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka .

•  It is a country in the Indian Ocean  and is separated from India by the Palk Strait.

• It was called Serendib by the Arabs  and the Europeans called it Ceylon .

• It officially became Sri Lanka in 1972.

• It became independent in 1948 from Britain.

Capital : Sri Jayewardenepura

President : Mahinda Rajapakse 

Currency : Sri Lankan Rupee

Ashish Jha appointed United States covid response coordinators

Tags: Popular Person in news

Indian American Dr Ashish Jha has been appointed as the covid response coordinator by the American President Joe Biden.

Dr Jha was born in Madhubani in Bihar and was the Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.

Ukraine crisis to reduce World economic growth by 1%-OECD

Tags: Economy/Finance

The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned that the Russian, Ukrainian war could lead to an increase in Inflation and reduction of economic growth in the world in 2022.

• According to OECD, the crisis is likely to see a reduction of world economic growth by 1% and an increase of 2.5% in inflation in 2022.

• Ukraine and Russia's contribution to the world economy is around 2% but Russia and Ukraine is a major supplier of energy and other commodities which are used as a major raw material in the world . Russia is a major player in the oil and gas sector, and with Ukraine it is a major supplier of wheat, maize, fertilizers, etc in the world.

• Europe, which is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas imports, is likely to see a  decline by 1.4% especially in the eurozone areas and the United States economic growth may decline by 0.9% .

For OECD kindly see March 11, 2022 Post 

Euro Zone 

It is officially called the euro area. It consists of those European Union countries which have accepted the euro as a common monetary unit (currency).

• The European Union consists of 27 countries of Europe. Out of 27 member countries 19 countries have accepted the euro as a common currency. 

• These countries are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

• Euro was launched on 1 January 1999. It was used as an accounting unit and for electronic payment for three years.

• Coins and banknotes were launched on 1 January 2002 in 12 countries and now total countries included in euro areas is 19.

Finland is the Happiest country in the world

Tags: International News

For the fifth year in a row, Finland is the world's happiest country, according to the World Happiness Report 2022, of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Denmark was ranked 2nd followed by Iceland, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

India was ranked 136  in 2022 as compared to 139 in 2021.

Afghanistan was ranked the most unhappy  country in the world and was ranked at the bottom 146th .

The World Happiness Report is released by the United Nation Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It ranks the countries on the basis of:

• healthy life expectancy;

• GDP per capita; 

• social support in times of trouble;,

•  low corruption and high social trust;

•  generosity in a community where people look after each other and

•  freedom to make key life decisions. 

The first  World Happiness report was released in 2012.

UN Sustainable Sustainable Development Solutions Network

It is a non -profit organisation set up by the United Nation in 2012.

Its Headquarters : New York, United States of America.

Factfile Finland 

Finland is located in Northern Europe .

Capital : Helsinki 

Currency : Euro

Prime Minister : Sanna Marin

Nokia company is from Finland

Bhagavad Gita to be taught in Gujarat School

Tags: State News

The Gujarat Education Minister Jitu Vaghani announced in the state legislative assembly that Bhagavad Gita will be a part of the school syllabus for Classes 6 to 12 across the state from the academic year 2022-23.

• According to the minister this was done to “cultivate a sense of pride and connection with tradition”.

 Factfile Gujarat

• It is the fifth largest state in India area wise and ninth largest state, population wise in India .

• It has the largest coastal area (1214.7 KM) amongst states in India and second largest coastal area after Andaman and Nicobar (1962 KM)

Capital : Gandhinagar 

Governor : Acharya Dev Vrat 

Chief Minister : Bhupendra Patel 

Prime Minister inaugurates the centenary celebration of Mathrubhumi

Tags: National

The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi inaugurated centenary year celebrations of Mathrubhumi virtually on 18 March 2022. The celebration was held at Kozhikode, Kerala.

Mathrubhumi newspaper was established in 1923 by the noted freedom fighter K. Madhvan Nair. It was initially published in Malayalam and now it is published in English also.