ODISHA

State govt targets revival of sea trade

With a 480-km-long coast, Odisha once commanded a powerful position in the subcontinent’s maritime activities. The state’s hopes for growth in export now has potential for reviving the same glory.

The fields in which there can be possible collaborations between Odisha and other countries across the Indian Ocean include information technology, telecommunications, finance, education, health, hospitality, travel and tourism, construction and transportation. There is similar scope for joint ventures in food processing, furniture, gems and jewellery, agro-biotech, textiles and wood crafts with various companies.

There is historical evidence of strong sea-trade ties between Kalinga (ancient Odisha) and countries like Sri Lanka and other south Asian countries.

Revival of these routes would be a win-win situation for investors as well because instead of going to a new place they would get to invest in a place with strong cultural and social links.

INTERNATIONAL

International Animation Day 2018

International Animation Day is celebrated on October 28, commemorating the day in 1892 when Charles-Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique made its first public appearance in Paris.

The day recognises and celebrates the artists, technicians and scientists behind the art of animation in all its forms and avatars.

· United Nations decided to launch project on creating Indias intangible heritage inventory

This project dubbed- A snapshot inventory of intangible cultural heritage, will be launched to protect the disappearing intangible cultural heritage of India.
This will include art forms, craftsmanship and other intangible cultural heritage of the country.
The “Wiki-styled project” would be executed through “crowd-sourcing”.

IGI Airport to get Taxibots

Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, Delhi, India is set to commence commercial use of semi-robotic tow trucks. The Taxibots are launched by TaxiBot India. It will be thefirst airport in the country to use such TaxiBots. It aimed to help airlines reduce the use of air turbine fuel during taxiing. A live test will be carried out by SpiceJet and Jet Airways. Upon successful testing, the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation, India(DGCA) will grant approval for their further use.
The advanced tow trucks will be used for narrow-body planes of the two airlines and will initially be deployed only for flights departing from IGI. TaxiBot India is also in talks with Mumbai and Bengaluru airports for introducing Taxibots.

NATIONAL

Kerala the best State for teenage girls in India: Report

Kerala tops the TAG index which compares the performance of each State based on the status of their teenage girls, as a part of the survey findings of The Teen Age Girls (TAG) Report.
Compiled and published by the Naandi Foundation, with grant support from Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, this report is touted as the nation’s first report on what it means to be a teenage girl in India.

Conducted by an all-women team of 1000 surveyors, the survey covered over 74,000 girls across the country and traversed 30 States and 600 districts.

Kerala is followed by Mizoram, Sikkim, Manipur and Himachal Pradesh as the top States, while the top three cities were found to be Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru.

Pakistani lawyer Asma Jahangir wins UN Human Rights Prize posthumously

Pakistan’s iconic human rights activist and lawyer Asma Jahangir was posthumously awarded the 2018 UN Human Rights Prize.

She was one of the four winners of the award which was announced by the United Nations.

· A Rs.700 crore project to clean up courts has been proposed under Swachh Nyayalaya

In the pre-launch function of the ‘Swachh Nyayalaya’ project, a Rs.700-crore project has been proposed to have clean courts, right from the Supreme Court and the High Courts to the 3,388 lower courts.
Under the project, construction of toiletsfor both male and female lawyers and litigants, a facility that many courts sorely lack, has been planned. These toilets will be equipped with vending machines that will dispense sanitary napkins, toilet paper, band-aids, etc. Garbage segregation in courts is also being planned. Also, apart from the construction and maintenance of wash-rooms in over 16,000 courtrooms, a mechanism needed to be devised to deal with garbage, and to weed out old case files.

The Supreme Court of India is set to launch the “Swachh Nyayalaya” project
It would be undertaken by NITI Aayog and the Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation along with the Department of Justice
It will be inaugurated on the Law Dayby Chief Justice of India.

Reserve Bank of India to inject Rs 40,000 crores into banking system via OMO in November 2018

This will be done through the purchase of government securities under open market operations for an aggregate amount of 400 billionin the month of November 2018.
This will help ease a cash shortage in the system and stabilize debt market rates.

GK bit – OMO (Open Market Operation)

Open market operations are conducted by the RBI by way of sale or purchase of government securities (g-secs) to adjust money supply conditions. The central bank sells g-secs to suck out liquidity from the system and buys back g-secs to infuse liquidity into the system.

These operations are often conducted on a day-to-day basis in a manner that balances inflation while helping banks continue to lend. The RBI uses OMO along with other monetary policy tools such as repo rate, cash reserve ratio and statutory liquidity ratio to adjust the quantum and price of money in the system.

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