Why in news?

• The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is implementing Jiva (life) alongside its network of non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders in rural areas to revitalise ‘life’ around agriculture.
• It is a natural farming program under NABARD’s ongoing watershed and Wadi (tribal development projects) programs in 11 states.
• To be implemented under Wadi programmes. It consists of five geographical regions. These areas are environmentally fragile and rain-fed areas.
• NABARD will collaborate with Australia-based Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) for simple soil water monitoring techniques and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) for scientific validation of natural farming activities for research support.

Why in news?

• The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI)Governor Shaktikanta Das kept the repo rate unchanged at 4 per cent for the 10th consecutive time while maintaining an ‘accommodative stance’ as long as necessary.
• The reverse repo rate will continue to be 35 per cent. The central bank had last revised the policy rate on May 22, 2020, in an off-policy cycle to perk up demand by cutting the interest rate to a historic low.
• The Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) rate and bank rates remain unchanged:
• Policy Repo Rate: 4.00%
• Reverse Repo Rate: 3.35%
• Marginal Standing Facility Rate: 4.25%
• Bank Rate: 4.25%
• CRR: 4%
• SLR: 18.00%
• RBI Monetary Policy Highlights & Key Decisions:
• The MPC decided to continue with the accommodative stance.
• RBI has projected the real GDP growth for 2022-23 at 7.8 per cent.
• For the current fiscal year, RBI projected real GDP growth of 2 per cent and expects that it will take the economy above the pre-pandemic level.
• For the current fiscal year, RBI retained its retail inflation projection at 3 per cent.
• MPC has been given the mandate to maintain annual inflation at 4 per cent until March 31, 2026, with an upper tolerance of 6 per cent and lower tolerance of 2 per cent.

Monetary policy instruments

• Repo Rate: It is the (fixed) interest rate at which banks can borrow overnight liquidity from the Reserve Bank of India against the collateral of government and other approved securities under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF).
• Reverse Repo Rate: It is the (fixed) interest rate at which the Reserve Bank of India can absorb liquidity from banks on an overnight basis, against the collateral of eligible government securities under the LAF.
• Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF):The LAF has overnight as well as term repo auctions under it. The term repo helps in the development of the inter-bank term money market. This market sets the benchmarks for the pricing of loans and deposits. This helps in improving the transmission of monetary policy. As per the evolving market conditions, the Reserve Bank of India also conducts variable interest rate reverse repo auctions.
• Marginal Standing Facility (MSF):MSF is a provision that enables the scheduled commercial banks to borrow an additional amount of overnight money from the Reserve Bank of India. Bank can do this by dipping into their Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) portfolio up to a limit at a penal rate of interest. This helps the banks to sustain the unanticipated liquidity shocks faced by them.

Why in news?

• India’s first commercial-scale biomass-based hydrogen plant will come up at the Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh.
• Every day this plant will produce one tonne of hydrogen, from 30 tonnes of biomass feedstock.
• The plant is being put up by a joint venture of Watomo Energies Ltd and Biezel Green Energy with an investment of Rs 24 crore.
• The company owns the technology for a ‘thermally accelerated anerobic digestion (TAD) reactor’ that can produce hydrogen, methane and biochar from biomass.
• Biezel Green will own 50 per cent in the yet-to-be-named joint venture; the other 50 per cent will come from interested farmers.

Why in News

• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mandi, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) for the installation of landslide monitoring and early warning systems at some places in the district.
• The Landslide Monitoring and Early Warning System device has been developed by Dr. Varun Dutt, Associate Professor in the School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, and Dr K.V. Uday, Assistant Professor, School of Engineering, IIT Mandi.
• The Landslide Monitoring System developed by IIT Mandi provides soil movement alerts via hooters and blinkers mounted on the road and dispatched remotely via text message. Also, the system sends rainfall alerts if more than 5 mm of rain is forecast.
• Landslides are currently predicted 10 minutes before they actually occur by monitoring changes in soil movement.

Why in news?

• Actor-athlete Praveen Kumar Sobti, best known for playing Bheem in the TV series “Mahabharat” and for winning an Asian Games gold medal, passed away.
• He represented the country across various athletic events in hammer and discus throw and even won four medals at the Asian Games, including two gold medals in 1966 and 1970.
• Praveen Kumar Sobti also won a silver medal in Hammer Throw during the 1966 Commonwealth Games.
• The athlete gained popularity after he began his acting career and was featured as Bheem in BR Chopra’s classic “Mahabharat” in 1988.

Why in news?

• Sanjay Malhotra has been named as Secretary in the Department of Financial Services in the Ministry of Finance.
• He has succeeded Debashish Panda, who completed his term as DFS Secretary on January 31, 2022.
• He is a 1990 batch IAS officer of the Rajasthan cadre.
• Before this, Sanjay Malhotra was Chairman and Managing Director of REC Ltd.

Why in news?

• Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami has appointed Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar as the brand ambassador of Uttarakhand ahead of the 2022 Assembly Elections.
• In 2017, Akshay Kumar was appointed as Uttarakhand’s brand ambassador for ‘Swachhata Abhiyan’.
• Akshay Kumar, is a Canadian-Indian actor, a film producer who has acted in more than 100 films.

Why in news?

• Odisha marked the day of Basant Panchami February 5, 2022, with a prayer ceremony to consecrate the logs used in the chariot of the deity Jagannath.
• But this year, most of the Phasi (Anogeissus acuminata) wood came from private land rather than forests, according to the state forest department.

About Phasi (Anogeissus acuminate) Wood

• It is a deciduous tree with a narrow crown and takes 50-60 years to mature.
• Range- India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam.
• Phasi trees are mostly found in the alluvial floodplain of the Mahanadi.
• Habitat – Tropical low land open forest or semi deciduous forests at elevations below 700 m.
• It is found particularly in deep, humus rich, loamy soils along streams or river banks.
• The trees for the chariot have to be pencil straight, six feet in girth and 12-14 feet in height. If the girth is less, they cannot be used.

Why in news?

• Scientists have recorded presence of White-Cheeked Macaque (Macaca leucogenys)from central Arunachal Pradesh in India. The significance of the discovery is that it marks a new addition to mammals of India.
• The species was discovered in 2015 by a group of Chinese scientists from the Modog region in southeastern Tibet and this discovery was considered a significant breakthrough as far as primates are concerned.
• White- Cheeked Macaques are distinct from other macaques found in the region by displaying white cheeks, long and thick hairs on the neck area, and a longer tail.
• White Cheeked Macaque has not been yet included in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 of India.
• Along with White-Cheeked Macaques and Arunachal Macaque the other species of Macaques are Assamese Macaque(Macaca assamensis) and Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta) reported from the same landscape.The number of mammals reported from India stands at 434.
• The potential threat to all species of macaques in the landscape are due to hunting by locals for consumption and habitat degradation due to urbanisation and infrastructure development.

Why in news?

• The Women in the Boardroom report was recently released by Deloitte Global.
• This is the seventh edition of the report.
• According to the report, women hold only 17.1% board seats in India. However, this has increased. In 2014, it was 9.4%.
• 2014 has been taken as base year of comparison because in 2013, the Companies Act mandated that every board should have at least one woman member.
• The report said that only 3.6% of the chairpersons are women in the country. The women representation in chair positions has come down in the last four years. Globally, the women representation in boards is 19.7%. This has increased by 2.8% as compared to 2018. Between 2016 and 2018, the increase was 1.9%.
• At this pace, the equality in representation all over the world shall be achieved only by 2045.