CURRENT AFFAIRS
05 December 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Vaccine may be ready in a few weeks: Modi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday told floor leaders of 19 political parties represented in Parliament that a vaccine against COVID-19 could be available for roll-out in the next few weeks. He said this during his closing remarks at an all party meeting, where nearly 30 leaders of various parties were present. Experts have assessed that it won’t be too long before a vaccine against corona is available and that it could be a matter of weeks for that to happen, Mr. Modi said. As soon as scientists green light a vaccine, the distribution will start, he said. The government, he said, had set up a national experts group of scientists, Central and State government officials for mapping the vaccination programme, which would likely take advantage of India’s large and experienced vaccination network from its universal immunisation programme. Cold chain and other logistics will be boosted, taking inputs from State governments, he said. Frontline health workers and those with comorbidities would be first in line for the vaccine, Mr. Modi said. The pricing of the vaccine would be according to the imperatives of public health and in consultation with the State governments, he added.
B) Ministry seeks proposals for technical textiles body.
The Ministry of Textiles has invited proposals to constitute a dedicated export promotion council for technical textiles. Exporter associations and trade bodies registered under the Companies Act or Society Registration Act can submit proposals by December 15, the ministry said. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, in its meeting held in February this year, gave its approval to set up a National Technical Textiles Mission, with a four-year implementation period and a total outlay of t1,480 crore, to position the country as a global leader in technical textiles. The export promotion council for technical textiles is one of the components of the mission. K.S. Sundararaman, chairman of Indian Technical Textile Association, said annual technical textile exports are now worth {14,000 crore. The government is looking at explosive growth in the sector. Most of the exporters of technical textiles currently go through export promotion councils for other products. A dedicated council for this sector will be beneficial, he added. Confederation of Indian Textile Industry’s chairman T. Rajkumar said that the government had set a target market size of $350 billion for technical textiles by 2024-2025 from the current $167 billion for the textile and clothing sector. The decision to set up a dedicated export promotion council is a step in the right direction. he added.
C) RBI holds rates, sees FY, GDP contraction at 7.5%.
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday left benchmark interest rates unchanged and retained an accommodative stance as it prioritized support for the economy over sticky inflation amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The MPC kept the RBI’s key lending rate, the repo rate, steady at 4%. The central bank has slashed the repo rate by 115 basis points since late March to cushion the economy from the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, including the lockdowns to check the spread of the coronavirus. The RBI also brightened its outlook for the economy, projecting that the GDP contraction would narrow to 7.5% for the financial year ending in March 2021, a full 2 percentage points shallower than the 9.5% it had forecast in October. Citing the improvement in activity in the second quarter, it projected that GDP would return to growth of 0.1% in Q3, and expand 0.7% in Q4. The risks to its estimates were “broadly balanced”, the RBI added. There is considerable optimism on successes in vaccine trials, the MPC said. Consumers remain optimistic about the outlook, and business sentiment of manufacturing firms is gradually improving, it added.
D) Remarks by Canadian PM unacceptable: India.
Comments from the leadership and other members of the Canadian government regarding the ongoing farmers agitation is unacceptable interference in India’s affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. This message was conveyed to Canadian High Commissioner Nadir Patel by senior Indian diplomats after he was formally summoned to the Ministry and handed over a demarche in this regard. The Canadian High Commissioner was informed that comments by the Canadian Prime Minister, some Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament on issues relating to Indian farmers constitute an unacceptable interference in our internal affairs. Such actions, if continued, would have a seriously damaging impact on ties between India and Canada, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that summed up the contents of the demarche issued to Mr. Patel. Reacting to the development, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that Canada will always stand up for the right to peaceful protest anywhere around the world and we are pleased to see moves towards de-escalation and dialogue (with the farmers).
E) LIC’s online policy sales rise 128%, says MD Kumar.
Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has posted a 128% growth year-on-year in online sales of insurance policies during this fiscal up to October, and settled maturity claims and survival benefits worth more than {57,000 crore, said Managing Director Raj Kumar. The insurer has been resilient during COVID-19 times, reaching out to people, he added. Alternative payment channels such as Google Pay and PhonePe witnessed a huge response during the pandemic with more than 42% of the premium being collected via the digital route, he said. In all, 72% of the premium collections occurred outside of the traditional cash counters in offices. Thus, digital route had gained popularity during the pandemic, he added. Till November, LIC recorded an investment income of more than u.49 lakh crore, registering a growth rate of 20%. It had booked 05,000 crore in profit via stock trading, Mr. Kumar said in a statement.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) U.K. drugs regulator defends fast pace of vaccine approval.
Britain’s medicines regulator insisted on Friday its world first approval of the Pfizer, BioNTech coronavirus vaccine met all safety standards, after officials in Europe and the U.S. queried the rapid process. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on Wednesday announced emergency approval for the vaccines general use against COVID-19, and the government plans to start rolling it out next week. Any vaccine must undergo robust clinical trials in line with international standards, the MHRA said in a statement. No vaccine would be authorized for supply in the U.K. unless the expected standards of safety, quality and efficacy are met. Leading U.S. infectious disease scientist Anthony Fauci on Thursday said the MHRA had rushed through that approval, but later apologized. Our process is one that takes more time than it takes in die U.K. And that’s just the reality. he said. He did not mean to imply any sloppiness even though it came out that way. MHRA chief executive June Raine previously insisted that no corners had been cut in vetting the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. With Britain transitioning out of the European Union, the U.K. regulator obtained an exemption from the ELI’s medicines which has stressed it prefers to wait for further review and consultations across the 27-nation bloc. Britain plans to distribute an initial batch of 8,00,000 doses starting next week, prioritizing care homes.
B) China poses greatest threat to U.S., says intelligence chief.
China poses the greatest threat to America and the rest of the free world since the Second World War, outgoing National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe said on Thursday as the Trump administration ramps up anti Chinese rhetoric to pressure President-elect Joe Biden to be tough on Beijing. The intelligence is clear, Beijing intends to dominate the U.S. and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically, Mr. Ratcliffe wrote in an op-ed published on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party. He call its approach of economic espionage rob, replicate and replace, Mr. Ratcliffe said. China robs U.S. companies of their intellectual property, replicates the technology and then replaces the U.S. firms in the global marketplace. In Beijing, foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying dismissed the editorial as a further move to spread false information, political viruses and lies in hopes of damaging China’s reputation and China-U.S. relations. It offered nothing new but repeated the lies and rumours aimed at smearing China and playing up the China threat by any means, Ms. Hua said at a daily briefing on Friday. It’s another hodgepodge of lies being produced by the relevant departments of the U.S. government for some time. Trump administration officials have been stepping up their anti-China rhetoric for months, especially during the presidential campaign as President Donald Trump sought to deflect blame for the spread of the coronavirus . On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump warned that Biden would go easy on China, although the President-elect agrees that China is not abiding by international trade rules, is giving unfair subsidies to Chinese companies and stealing American innovation. The Trump administration, which once boasted of warm relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, also has been ramping up sanctions against China over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, Hong Kong and the South China Sea. It has moved against the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and sought restrictions on Chinese social media applications like TikTok and WeChat. Mr. Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist who has been accused of politicizing the position, has been the nation’s top intelligence official since May. In his op-ed, he did not directly address the transition to a Biden administration. Trump has not acknowledged losing the election.
