GS3

CORE SECTOR OUTPUT RISES 5.4%

The output growth of India’s eight core sectors rebounded to 5.4% in November from a revised estimate of a 0.9% uptick in October, the slowest in 20 months. This was despite the fact that overall production levels in November 2022 remained the same as in the previous month. The recovery …

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INDIAN PHARMA SECTOR AND ISSUES

December 2021 and December 2022 could not have been more contrasting for India’s pharmaceutical industry. Last year, it was hailed for developing vaccines that inoculated billions against the coronavirus and underlined its moniker as the ‘pharmacy of the world’. This year, two Indian drug-manufacturing firms stand accused by two countries …

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BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE IN BUTTERFLIES

In a five-year study, scientists of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bengaluru have discovered secrets of a long evolutionary game through which butterflies come to warn, fool, and escape their predators using traits such as wing colour patterns and even flight behaviour. The study conducted by Ph.D. …

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PROBLEM OF BAD LOANS IN INDIA

In December 2022, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that banks had written off bad loans worth ₹10,09,511 crore during the last five financial years. A National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd. (NARCL) was announced in the Union Budget for 2021-2022 to resolve stressed loans amounting to about ₹2 lakh crore …

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THE DANGER OF DEEPFAKES

What are deepfakes? Deepfakes are digital media – video, audio, and images edited and manipulated using Artificial Intelligence. It is basically hyper-realistic digital falsification. Deepfakes are created to inflict harm on individuals and institutions. Access to commodity cloud computing, public research AI algorithms, and abundant data and availability of vast …

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UNEMPLOYMENT RATE RISES TO 8.3%

India’s unemployment rate rose to 8.3% in December, the highest in 16 months, from 8% in the previous month, data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) showed on Sunday. The urban unemployment rate rose to 10.09% in December from 8.96% in the previous month, while the rural unemployment …

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GREAT WHITE PELICAN

A lone Great White Pelican was spotted for a few fleeting moments at the Nelapattu Bird Sanctuary, located at the end of the Pulicat lake in Andhra Pradesh, on December 29. The sighting was documented by K.V.R.K. Thirunaranan, founder of The Nature Trust, and K. Hussainaiah, bird watcher and guide …

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CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT

India’s current account balance recorded a deficit of $36.4 billion (or a nine-year high of 4.4% of GDP) in the quarter ended September, rising from $18.2 billion (2.2%) in the previous quarter. Deficit for the year-earlier period came in at $9.7 billion (1.3%), according to data released by the Reserve …

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COMBATING CYBER-FRAUD

Bank and cyber frauds in India are on the rise. According to data by the Reserve Bank of India, frauds have cost the country an estimated ₹100 crore a day over the last seven years. The frauds reported in 2021-22 were 23.69% higher than in the previous year (9,103 cases …

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