{"id":5117,"date":"2019-12-09T18:09:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T12:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5117"},"modified":"2019-12-09T18:09:32","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T12:39:32","slug":"current-affairs-prelims-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/current-affairs-prelims-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Current Affairs: Prelims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Exercise INDRA 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exercise INDRA 2019 will be conducted in India from 10 \u2014 19 December 2019 simultaneously at Babina (near Jhansi), Pune, and Goa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>News summary <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Exercise INDRA 2019 a joint, tri services exercise between India and Russia.<\/li>\n<li>The INDRA series of exercise began in 2003 and the First joint Tri Services Exercise was conducted in 2017.<\/li>\n<li>Company sized mechanised contingents, fighter and transport aircraft as well as ships of respective Army, Air Force and Navy wiil participate in this exercise of ten days duration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>RBI hits pause on policy rate cuts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its fifth bi-monthly Monetary Policy has kept the policy repo rate unchanged at 5.15 per cent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>News summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by Governor Shaktikanta Das unanimously voted for a status quo policy.<\/li>\n<li>The reverse credit policy has also maintained the reverse repo rate at 4.90 per cent and the marginal standing facility rate and Bank Rate at 5.40 per cent.<\/li>\n<li>The real GDP growth for 2019-20 has been revised downwards from 6.1 per cent in the October policy to 5.0 per cent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Comment:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said the decisions are in consonance with the objective of achieving the medium-term target for consumer price index inflation of 4 per cent while supporting growth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Swedish torrefaction technology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India is testing a Swedish technology \u2014 torrefaction that can convert rice stubble into \u2018bio-coal\u2019.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>News summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to Government of India has funded a pilot project in Punjab to evaluate the feasibility of the technology.<\/li>\n<li>Bioendev, a Swedish company, has set up a pilot plant at the National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute in Mohali.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Stubble to bio-coal<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>About 65% of the biomass could be converted to energy. The technology involves heating up straw, grass, saw mill residue and wood biomass to 250 degrees Celsius \u2013 350 degrees Celsius.<\/li>\n<li>This changes the elements of the biomass into \u2018coal-like\u2019 pellets. These pellets can be used for combustion along with coal for industrial applications like steel and cement production<\/li>\n<li>The Bioendev project was discussed at a gathering on Tuesday, chaired by King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden. Swedish and senior Indian government officials, academics and representatives from companies and non-governmental organisations were also present.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exercise INDRA 2019 Why in news? Exercise INDRA 2019 will be conducted in India from 10 \u2014 19 December 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5118,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5117\/revisions\/5118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}