Today's Current Affairs - 17th October 2022

INTERNATIONAL

EAM Jaishankar begins two-day Egypt visit, meets eminent foreign policy thinkers

• External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar has reached Cairo in Egypt on his two-day official visit. On the first day of his visit, he met with eminent personalities in the field of foreign policy. During his visit, Dr Jaishankar have discuss a range of bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.
• India and Egypt traditionally enjoy warm and friendly relations underpinned by historical and cultural linkages. Both countries are celebrating 75 years of establishment of diplomatic relations this year. Egypt has been invited as a ‘Guest Country’ during India’s Presidency of G-20 in 2022-23.
• Egypt has been one of India’s largest trading partners in Africa and the promotion of bilateral trade, commerce and investments will be one of the focus areas during the visit. India-Egypt bilateral trade has touched a record high of 7.26 billion US dollars during the last financial year. Indian investment in Egypt is worth 3.15 billion US dollars. Over 50 Indian companies are actively present in Egypt in a range of sectors like manufacturing, chemicals, energy, infrastructure and retail.
• EAM’s visit to Egypt will provide an opportunity to review the entire gamut of our bilateral and multilateral relations and to exchange views with the Egyptian leadership covering whole range of issues of mutual interest.

Japan set to scrap remarriage restrictions on pregnant women

• Japanese cabinet ministers on Oct 14 approved the scrapping of a law that stipulates women pregnant at the time of a divorce must wait 100 days before marrying again. The law, in place for more than a century, does not apply to men and was originally intended as a way to aid the identification of the father who is financially responsible for a newborn baby.
• Japan consistently ranks low in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap report, which takes political empowerment into account as well as health, education and economic participation. In 2022, the country was placed 116th out of 146 ranked.
• The striking demographic feature in post-World War II Japan was the decline of birth and death rates, the result of families having fewer children and of health conditions improving markedly. Japan’s rate of population increase slowed dramatically at the end of the 20th century and became essentially stagnant in the first decade of the 21st century.

US resolution calls for recognition of Pak actions as 'genocide' in 1971 war

• Two American congressmen have introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives urging the Biden administration to recognise the Pakistan Army’s atrocities against ethnic minorities during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh.
• The legislation was brought by Congressmen Ro Khanna and Steve Chabot on October 14, calling on the Pakistan government, among other things, to apologise to the people of Bangladesh for its role in the genocide of ethnic Bengalis and Hindus during the war.
• The resolution “condemns the atrocities committed by the Armed Forces of Pakistan against the people of Bangladesh from March 1971 to December 1971; recognises that such atrocities against ethnic Bengalis and Hindus constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide; calls on the President of the United States to recognise the atrocities committed against ethnic Bengalis and Hindus by the Armed Forces of Pakistan during 1971 as crimes against humanity war crimes, and genocide.”
• Chabot, a Republican Party member, confirmed of bringing in such a resolution jointly with another Congressman Khanna, a Democrat and the US Representative from California’s 17th congressional district, to commemorate the 1971 Bengali Genocide.

 NATIONAL

India stands third in the world in terms of fish production: MoS Dr. L Murugan

• Union Minister of State for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying L Murugan has recently said that India stands third in the world in terms of fish production. India is the 3rd largest fish producing and 2nd largest aquaculture nation in the world after China.
• He said, India stands third in the world in terms of fish production. Making specific reference to Karnataka, the Union Minister said that 734.77 crore rupees was allocated to the state under the flagship scheme of Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) from 2020-21 till date for the development of infrastructure facilities.
• The vision is to bring about Blue Revolution through sustainable and responsible development of fisheries sector.
• The main motto of PMMSY is ‘Reform, Perform and Transform’in the fisheries sector.
• Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying is the implementing agency.

Centre approves India’s 1st cable-cum-suspension bridge across Krishna river

• The central government has approved the construction of an iconic cable stayed-cum-suspension bridge across the Krishna river connecting Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and passing through the Nallamala forest range. The decision was announced by the union minister for road transport and national highways Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari said the iconic bridge will have several unique features like the longest glass pedestrian walkway across a river, gopuram-like pylons, signature lighting and a large navigational span.
• The two-storeyed cable bridge with a four-lane carriageway across the Krishna river was approved last week by the standing committee on finance for the union ministry of road transport and national highways.
• The bridge begins at Somasila at Kollapur in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district and Atmakur in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool district.
• At present, the people from Telangana are forced to travel for a long distance via Kurnool to reach pilgrim centres like Mahanandi, Ahobilam, Tirupati.

 SUMMIT'S & MOU's

ICC to promote gender equality in tie-up with UNICEF

• The International Cricket Council (ICC) and UNICEF have launched a global partnership to empower women and girls and promote inclusion and gender equality through cricket. The initiatives to drive greater gender equity along with advocacy campaigns involving some of the world`s best players will form the basis of the partnership, which aims to mobilise the “power of cricket to driving positive social change”.
• UNICEF and ICC will also launch `Criiio 4 Good`, a cricket-for-development curriculum giving girls and boys the opportunity to have a fun first experience of the game whilst learning gender-based life-skills essential for gender equity.
• The Criiio 4 Good programme will be an eight-week lesson plan on the fundamentals of batting, bowling and fielding. Each lesson plan has a life-skill module attached to teach participants core life skills that will promote greater gender equity.
• These skills include leadership, problem-solving, self-esteem, negotiation, empathy, decision-making, teamwork and goal-setting.

About ICC:

Founded: 15 June 1909;

Chairman: Greg Barclay

CEO: Geoff Allardice

Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

About UNICEF:

Founded: 1946

Headquarters: New York City, USA

Director General: Catherine M. Russell

Membership: 192

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Hyderabad wins 'World Green City award' at South Korea

• The city of Hyderabad, Telangana, has been honoured as the Grand winner of the AIPH (International Association of Horticultural Producers) World Green City Awards 2022, the most prestigious award of the Inaugural AIPH World Green City awards (2022 edition), for its initiative titled “Green Garland to the State of Telangana”. Hyderabad also won the award under the ‘Living Green for Economic Recovery and Inclusive Growth’ category.
• Hyderabad has been awarded for its initiatives relying on greater use of plants and nature to create better city environments and helps fulfil local aspirations for improved economic, social and environmental resilience.
• The award acknowledged Telangana’s programme of ‘Telangana Ku Haritha Haram’s large¬scale tree¬planting program taken up from 2015-¬2016.
• The program aims to increase the tree cover of the state from 24% to 33% of total area of the state.
• AIPH World Green City awards (2022 edition) are the world’s first Green City awards. AIPH announced the 6 Category Winners and the Grand Winner during the award ceremony that took place at the gala dinner at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Leaders Forum in Jeju Province of the Republic of Korea(South Korea) on 14th October 2022.

RANKING

PUBLIC AFFAIRS INDEX: Among 18 big states, Haryana best governed

• Haryana has bagged the top position in the category of big states in the Public Affairs Index-2022. The state has emerged at the forefront in social, economic and political justice themes. It has topped among the major states with a score of 0.6948, followed by Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Karnataka among many other states.
• In PAI-2022, Sikkim has retained its position as the best-governed small state in India. The index, prepared by a Bengaluru-based non-profit think tank Public Affairs Centre (PAC), was released. In the report, economic justice was measured on indicators such as labour productivity, assurance of standard of living to wage workers, public expenditure on development, coverage of social safety net, and employment opportunities.

About International Association of Horticulture Producers (AIPH):

Secretary General: Tim Briercliffe;

Headquarters: Oxfordshire, United Kingdom (UK).

About Public Affairs Centre:

Headquarters: Bengaluru, Karnataka;

Founded: 1994.

BANKING AND ECONOMY

India will achieve USD 2 trillion export target by 2030: Piyush Goyal

• Piyush Goyal, the minister of commerce and industry, expressed confidence that the nation will reach its goal of 2 trillion USD in products and services exported by 2030. The Union Commerce and Industry minister was addressing at the Chennai-based Exporters Conclave.
• Piyush Goyal stressed the need of maintaining the export momentum and expressed his confidence that Indian exports will be able to weather the global challenges and will far outpace export growth.
• Piyush Goyal predicted that the nation’s economy will reach USD 30 trillion by 2047, with exports accounting for 25% of total output.
• He predicted that India’s exports will reach USD 2 trillion by 2030.The government has promised to resolve the problems brought up by the industry participants.

India's WPI inflation drops further to 10.7% in September

• Inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index(WPI) decreased to 10.70% in September. According to official figures, the WPI-based inflation rate was 12.41% in August. High-speed diesel (HSD) saw the highest inflation rate at 65.96%. (YoY). It was followed by price increases of 44.72 percent for crude oil and natural gas and 49.79 percent for potatoes.
• Only the category of fuel and power experienced an increase in inflation month over month (MoM). The prices fell in all the others. Inflation was also down in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) Food Index.
• The index for this important group dropped from 178.6 (provisional) for the month of August 2022 to 176.2 (provisional) in September 2022, a (-1.34%) decrease.
• In September 2022 compared to August 2022, prices for non-food items dropped by 3.60 percent, crude oil and natural gas prices dropped by 6.38 percent, and the price of minerals dropped by 6.45 percent.