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CURRENT AFFAIRS : BANKING & FINANCE
IMF expects Indian economy to grow at 6.1% in 2023 & 6.8% in 2022
- According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy is expected to grow by 6.1% in 2023 and 6.8% in 2024.
Reason :
- IMF Chief Economist and Research Department Director Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas attributed the decline in India’s growth rate during 2023 largely due to external headwinds.
- The growth of the Indian economy is set to decline from 6.8% in 2022 to 6.1% in 2023.
Key Highlights :
- The IMF World Outlook further stated that global growth is projected to fall from around 3.4% in 2022 to 2.9% in 2023 and rise to 3.1% in 2024.
- The growth in emerging and developing Asia is likely to rise to 5.3% in 2023 and 5.2% in 2024 after the slowdown to 4.3% in 2022 due to China’s uncertain economic conditions.
- The Chinese economy is projected to grow by 5.2% in 2023, which represents rapidly improving mobility & it will fall to 4.5% in 2024.
- The economy of the United States will slow down to 1.4% in 2023 due to a hike in the Federal Reserve interest-rate.
- Emerging markets and developing economies will grow by 4% in 2023 and 4.2% in 2024.
- The IMF predicted that global inflation would decrease to 6.6% in 2023 from 8.8% in 2022.
About IMF :
- Founded : 27 December 1945
- Headquarters : Washington, D.C., United States
- MD : Kristalina Georgieva
- Membership : 190 countries (189 UN countries and Kosovo)
Infibeam Avenues becomes India’s first payments platform to process retail CBDC transactions
- Infibeam Avenues’s flagship payments brand – CCAvenue, has become the first payment gateway player to process Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or Digital Rupee transactions for online retail merchants.
- CBDC, is a robust, efficient, trusted and legal tender based real-time payment option.
- The aim of the Indian government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in launching the Digital Rupee is to reduce the ₹32 lakh crore of cash in circulation and to save costs associated with cash like currency printing, solve fake currency problems, avoid wear and tear, etc.
Key Highlights :
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has identified 8 banks for phase-wise participation in the retail pilot project for CBDC.
- The first phase includes 4 banks, namely the State Bank of India, the ICICI Bank, the Yes Bank and the IDFC First Bank across Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and Bhubaneswar.
- In the second phase, the pilot will be carried out by Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank, with the facility being extended to Ahmedabad, Gangtok, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Lucknow, Patna and Shimla.
- IAL also launched the CCAvenue Mobile App – the world’s most advanced omni-channel payment platform with the revolutionary TapPay solution.
Note :
- Recently, Infibeam Avenues Limited received the Payment Aggregator license from RBI, followed by a perpetual license to operate as Bharat Bill Payment Operating Unit (BBPOU) under the Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS) from RBI.
About Infibeam Avenues Limited :
- Founded : 2007
- Headquarters : GIFT City, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India
- Founder & MD : Vishal Mehta
Canara HSBC Life Insurance Launches its new ULIP product “Wealth Edge”
- Canara HSBC Life Insurance has launched “Wealth Edge”, a Unit-Linked Individual Savings Insurance Plan (ULIP).
About Wealth Edge :
- Wealth Edge has been designed to help fulfil the life goals of an individual by providing utmost flexibility.
- The policy also offers options of single pay and limited pay for all three plans, along with death and maturity benefits.
- The product offers 3 different plans depending on an individual’s need and current requirements.
- For Invest Plus, the minimum and maximum entry ages are 0 years and 70 years, respectively.
- For Premium Plus and Life Plus, the minimum entry ages are 18 years, while the maximum entry ages are 50 years and 70 years, respectively.
- The maturity ages for Premium Plus are minimum 28 and maximum 80 years, while for Life Plus, the maturity age is up to 100 years.
- The minimum annual premium is Rs. 1.25 lakh per annum on a yearly mode, and Rs 16,667 on a monthly mode for all the three options.
- The minimum premium comes to Rs. 75,000 on a half-yearly mode and Rs. 43,750 on a quarterly mode.
- The plan allows users to select from 8 different investment funds and access the accumulated capital as needed through the Systematic Withdrawal Option (SWO) / Milestone Withdrawal Option (MWO).
About Canara HSBC Life Insurance :
- Founded : 2008
- Headquarters : Gurgaon, Haryana, India
- MD & CEO : Anuj Mathur
- Canara HSBC Life Insurance was a joint venture between Canara Bank (51%), HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings Limited (26%) and Punjab National Bank (23%).
CURRENT AFFAIRS : INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Bengaluru to host 1st G20 ETWG meeting under India’s presidency
- The first G20 Energy Transition Working Group (ETWG) meeting under India’s presidency will be held in Bengaluru, Karnataka from Feb 5 to 7, 2023.
- The meeting will have over 150 participants including G20 member countries and 9 special invitee guest countries – Bangladesh, Egypt, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Spain.
- In addition, leading international organisations including The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and International Energy Agency (IEA) will be part of the meeting.
Key Highlights :
Agenda of the Meeting
- The 3-day meeting will focus on 6 priority areas.
- Energy transition through addressing technology gaps
- Low-cost financing for energy transition
- Energy security and diversified supply chains
- Energy efficiency, industrial low carbon transitions and responsible consumption
- Fuels for Future (3F) and
- Universal access to clean energy and just, affordable, and inclusive energy transition pathway
- The Ministry of Power, the nodal Ministry for ETWG will lead the discussions and negotiations on focused priority areas.
- On the sidelines, the ETWG meeting will be complemented by a high-level international seminar on ‘Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).
- The seminar will focus on highlighting the importance of carbon capture, utilisation, and storage, considered vital for achieving net-zero targets.
- India has assumed the Presidency of the G20 for one year from December 1, 2022, to 30 November 2023 and over 200 meetings will be held across the country.
- The G20 Leaders’ Summit at the level of Heads of State/Government is scheduled to be held on September 9 and 10, 2023 in New Delhi.
CURRENT AFFAIRS : STATE NEWS
New Delhi to host 5-day PlastIndia exhibition from Feb 1 2023
- The 11th edition of the International Plastics Exhibition, conference and convention – PlastIndia 2023 will be held at the revamped Pragati Maidan in New Delhi from February 1 to 5, 2023.
- PlastIndia 2023, organised by Plastindia Foundation which is devoted to promoting excellence in the field of plastics, will focus on innovation, sustainability and growth.
- The 5-day event will provide an excellent opportunity for exhibitors to showcase their innovations in processing, machinery, moulds and dyes, auxiliary equipment, printing and packaging, raw material and more,
- PlastIndia is usually held once in three years with the last one held in 2018.
- Due to the Covid pandemic, it could not be held in 2021.
- About 1,800 exhibitors from across 30 countries will showcase their products and technology at PlastIndia 2023.
- President of Plastindia Foundation : Jigish Doshi
Visakhapatnam to be Andhra Pradesh’s new capital – CM Jagan Mohan Reddy
- Andhra Pradesh (AP) Chief Minister (CM) Shri YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced that Visakhapatnam popularly known as Vizag will be the new capital of the AP at the International Diplomatic Alliance meeting in New Delhi.
- The CM further announced that the AP government is organising the ‘Global Investors Summit’ in Visakhapatnam on March 3 and 4, 2023.
Key Highlights :
- The announcement of the new capital comes 9 years after the formation of Telangana state and Hyderabad being given as its capital.
- The Andhra government in 2015 had announced that Amaravati would come up as the new capital.
- The Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly approved the Andhra Pradesh Decentralisation and Inclusive Development of All Regions Act, 2020, for creating 3 capitals (Executive Capital in Visakhapatnam, Legislative Capital in Amaravati and Judiciary Capital in Kurnool) in 2020.
- In March 2022, the Andhra Pradesh High Court rejected the plan to make three capital
- Amaravati was rejected as the capital because it became the centre of a land scam and a source of social, legal, economic and political friction over the years.
About AP :
- Chief minister: YS Jagan Mohan Reddy
- Governor: Biswabhusan Harichandan
India’s 1st Green Solar Panel Manufacturing Facility to Build by Luminous in Uttarakhand
- India’s first green energy based solar panel factory will be built by Delhi-based Luminous Power Technologies in Uttarakhand.
- Rudrapur,Uttarakhand based new manufacturing plant is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2023.
- The cutting-edge factory will be equipped with the latest technology to design and manufacture high-quality solar panels for both residential and commercial applications.
- Once operational, the 4.5 lakh square feet/10-acre factory would help enable a solar production capacity of 500 MW per year, extendable up to 1 GW.
- It will produce a range of solar panels with power output from 40W to 600W.
- The Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) has certified the plant as a green factory, and will substantially reduce concerns around CO2 emissions with an estimated reduction of over 70 million tonnes per annum.
- This solar panel facility is completely robotic and will harness energy from 100% solar power.
- The factory’s annual production capacity will be equivalent to the carbon sequestration of planting one million trees, making a major contribution to reducing CO2 emissions.
About Luminous Power Technologies :
- CEO and Managing Director : Preeti Bajaj
- Luminous Power Technologies offers innovative and sustainable energy solutions that meet India’s growing need for clean energy.
About Uttarakhand :
- Chief Minister: Pushkar Singh Dhami
- Governor: Gurmit Singh
- Festival : Basant Panchami, Bhitauli, Harela, Phooldei, Batsavitri, Ganga Dusshera
CURRENT AFFAIRS: BUSINESS NEWS
Adani group stock rout takes India out of top five on market capitalization:
- India is no longer among the top-five nations in terms of market capitalisation (m-cap) as the close to $70 billion rout in Adani Group stocks has seen the domestic market slip to sixth position in the world.
- France, which occupied the seventh place, has catapulted India and the United Kingdom to the fifth position.
- India’s m-cap is down $137 billion, or 4 per cent, so far this year and is the only market in the top 10 to see an erosion in market value.
- At present, India’s m-cap is about 4 per cent more than the UK — also among the laggards this year.
- Meanwhile, China, France and Germany have seen double-digit growth in their market value in 2023.
- India’s ascent into the top five was on the back of sharp outperformance in 2022.
- During the year, India’s contribution to the world m-cap (currently at $104 trillion) too had topped the 4 per cent mark for the first time.
- The share has now slipped to 3.06 per cent, shows data provided by Bloomberg.
About M-cap
- Market cap—or market capitalization—refers to the total value of all a company’s shares of stock.
- It is calculated by multiplying the price of a stock by its total number of outstanding shares.
- For example, a company with 20 million shares selling at $50 a share would have a market cap of $1 billion.
GST Collection At ₹ 1.55 Lakh Crore In January, Second Highest-Ever:
- The GST collection in January surged to over ₹55 lakh crore, the second highest-ever mop-up, the finance ministry.
- The gross GST revenue collected in the month of January 2023 on 31.01.2023 is ₹ 1,55,922 crore of which CGST is ₹ 28,963 crore, SGST is ₹ 36,730 crore, IGST is ₹ 79,599 crore (including ₹ 37,118 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is ₹ 10,630 crore (including ₹ 768 crore collected on import of goods).
- The revenues in the current financial year up to January 2023 are 24 per cent higher than the GST revenues during the same period last year.
- This is for the third time, in the current financial year, GST collection has crossed ₹50 lakh crore mark.
- The GST collection in January 2023 is the second highest next only to the ₹68 lakh crore gross mop-up reported in April 2022.
- In the October-December 2022 quarter, a total of 2.42 crore GST returns were filed till the end of the next month compared to 2.19 crore in the same quarter of the last year.
About GST:
- This is due to various policy changes introduced during the year to improve compliance
- GST is a single tax on the supply of goods and services, right from the manufacturer to the consumer.
- Credits of input taxes paid at each stage will be available in the subsequent stage of value addition, which makes GST essentially a tax only on value addition at each stage.
- The types of GST in India are Central Goods and Services Tax State Goods and Services Tax, Union Territory Goods and Services Tax, and Integrated Goods and Services Tax.
India’s GDP Growth to Slow Down To 6-6.8%, Forecasts Economic Survey
- The Economic Survey projected the Indian economy to slow to a three-year low of 6.5% in FY24, slowing from the estimated 7% growth for the current year due to global economic uncertainty impacting exports.
- The Economic Survey forecasts a baseline gross domestic product, or GDP, growth of 6.5 per cent in real terms in fiscal 2024.
- Despite the lower growth forecast for next fiscal compared to the current one, the pace would still make India’s growth the fastest among big economies.
- The survey projected GDP in nominal terms to be 11 per cent in the next financial year, while the real GDP growth is likely to be in the range of 6-6.8 per cent, depending on global economic and political developments.
- The Economic Survey said growth in FY23 was primarily driven by private consumption, higher capital expenditure, stronger corporate balance sheets, credit growth in small businesses and the return of migrant workers to cities.
CURRENT AFFAIRS : APPOINTMENTS & RESIGNATIONS
Unilever appoints Mr Hein Schumacher as new CEO
- Consumer goods giant Unilever appointed Mr Hein Schumacher as its new chief executive officer (CEO , set to take on the role on July 1, 2023.
- This is the first time Unilever has appointed a CEO from outside the company.
- Mr Hein will replace Mr Alan Jope, who announced in September 2022 his intention to retire from Unilever.
About Mr Hein Schumacher :
- In 2013, he was appointed Executive Vice President of Kraft Heinz’s Asia Pacific Zone and led a successful turnaround of the business, which spanned China, Indonesia, India, Japan and Oceania.
- He joined Unilever in October, 2021 as non-executive director and currently he is the CEO of global dairy and nutrition business Royal FrieslandCampina
About Unilever :
- Founded : 2 September 1929
- Headquarters : London, England, United Kingdom
- Chairman : Nils Andersen
Air Marshall AP Singh appointed as new Vice Chief of IAF
- Air Marshal A P Singh has been appointed as the new Vice Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF).
- He will take charge as the Vice Chief on February 1, 2023.
- He will succeed Air Marshal Sandeep Singh, who will retire from service on Jan 31, 2023.
About Air Marshal A P Singh :
- He was commissioned into the fighter stream of the IAF on December 21, 1984.
- He is a Qualified Flying Instructor and an Experimental Test Pilot with more than 4,900 hours of service flying on a variety of fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft.
- He also headed the MiG 29 Upgrade Project Management Team in Moscow, Russia.
- Currently, he is serving as the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Central Air Command.
Awards & Honors :
- For his “distinguished” services, Singh was given the “Ati Vishisht Seva Medal” by the President of India on Republic Day in 2019.
About IAF :
- Headquarters : New Delhi, Delhi
- Chief of the Air Staff : Air Chief Marshal Vivek Ram Chaudhari
CURRENT AFFAIRS: SPORTS NEWS
Usman Khawaja bags inaugural Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year award
- Australia’s Usman Khawaja bagged the inaugural Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year award following brilliant performances in the last 12 months.
- The left-hander has been Australia’s leading run scorer in Tests since making a comeback in January 2022.
- Khawaja amassed 1020 runs at an average of 78.46.
- He capped off the voting period with an unbeaten 195 during the rain-affected New Year’s Test against South Africa at t
- he SCG – his third consecutive Test century at the venue.
- Khawaja was also part of the ICC Test Team of the Year alongside teammates Nathan Lyon, Pat Cummis and Marnus Labuschagne announced last week.
- The left-hander was dratted in the playing XI against England in SCG following Travis Head’s positive COVID-19 tests and grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
CURRENT AFFAIRS: IMPORTANT DAYS
World Wetlands Day 2023: 2nd February
- World Wetlands Day is celebrated on 2nd February every year.
- celebrated annually on 2 February, aims to raise global awareness about the vital role of wetlands for people and the planet.
- The World Wetlands Day 2023 theme this year is “It’s Time for Wetlands Restoration,” which highlights the urgent need to prioritize wetland Restoration.
- This day also marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar.
- Because of the many benefits we get from wetlands, World Wetlands Day is observed on February 2 every year to raise awareness about their importance and the need to preserve them.
- On this day, The Convention on Wetlands was adopted in 1971.
- This year is especially significant as World Wetlands Day 2023 will be observed as a United Nations international day for the second time.
- On August 30 last year, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to mark the day.
- The day is celebrated to mark the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on February 2, 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. World Wetlands Day was first celebrated in 1997.
Daily CA on February 2:
- India is no longer among the top-five nations in terms of market capitalisation (m-cap) as the close to $70 billion rout in Adani Group stocks has seen the domestic market slip to sixth position in the world
- The GST collection in January surged to over ₹55 lakh crore, the second highest-ever mop-up, the finance ministry.
- The Economic Survey projected the Indian economy to slow to a three-year low of 6.5% in FY24, slowing from the estimated 7% growth for the current year due to global economic uncertainty impacting exports.
- Australia’s Usman Khawaja bagged the inaugural Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year award following brilliant performances in the last 12 months.
- World Wetlands Day is celebrated on 2nd February every year
- According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Indian economy is expected to grow by 6.1% in 2023 and 6.8% in 2024.
- Infibeam Avenues’s flagship payments brand – CCAvenue, has become the first payment gateway player to process Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) or Digital Rupee transactions for online retail merchants.
- Canara HSBC Life Insurance has launched “Wealth Edge”, a Unit-Linked Individual Savings Insurance Plan (ULIP).
- The first G20 Energy Transition Working Group (ETWG) meeting under India’s presidency will be held in Bengaluru, Karnataka from Feb 5 to 7, 2023.
- The 11th edition of the International Plastics Exhibition, conference and convention – PlastIndia 2023 will be held at the revamped Pragati Maidan in New Delhi from February 1 to 5, 2023.
- Andhra Pradesh (AP) Chief Minister (CM) Shri YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced that Visakhapatnam popularly known as Vizag will be the new capital of the AP at the International Diplomatic Alliance meeting in New Delhi.
- India’s first green energy based solar panel factory will be built by Delhi-based Luminous Power Technologies in
- Consumer goods giant Unilever appointed Mr Hein Schumacher as its new chief executive officer (CEO , set to take on the role on July 1, 2023.
- Air Marshal A P Singh has been appointed as the new Vice Chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF).