- Inflation remains at 5.1% in February but food prices go up
- India’s retail inflation remained virtually unchanged at 5.09% in February even as food prices paid by consumers resurged from 8.3% in January to 8.66%.
- Food prices were spurred primarily by vegetables which rose at seven months high pace of 30.25%.
- Inflation measured by consumer food price index accelerated from 9% in January to 9.2% for urban residents and to 8.2% from 7.9% in the previous month in rural areas. Consumer Food Price Inflation, (CFPI), is a specific measure of inflation that focuses exclusively on the price changes of food items in a consumer’s basket of goods and services. CFPI is a sub[1]component of the broader Consumer Price Index (CPI).
2. Give Kerala one time package to tide over financial crisis, supreme Court tells Centre
- The Supreme Court urged the centre to give Kerala a one-time package to tide over its current financial crisis as a special case before March 31.
- The bench said that the centre could make up for it in the next financial year by introducing stricter conditions for financial aid to the state.
- Kerala had moved the Supreme Court in an original suit accusing the Union government of violating the federal structure of the governance and causing severe damage to the economy of a small state with meagre resources.
- According to Article 131, SC’s exclusive original jurisdiction extends to any dispute between the Government of India and one or more States or between the Government of India and any State or States on one side and one or more States on the other or between two or more States.
3. How is nuclear waste generated?
- Recently, India loaded the core of its long delayed prototype fast breeder reactor vessel bringing the country to the cusp of stage 2 which is powered by uranium and plutonium.
- India hopes to be able to use its vast reserves of thorium to produce nuclear power by stage 3.
- In a fission reactor a neutron’s bombard the nuclei of atoms of certain elements. When one such nucleus absorbs a neutron it destabilises and breaks up yielding some energy and a nuclei of different elements which becomes nuclear waste.
- Nuclear waste is highly radioactive and needs to be stored in facilities reinforced to prevent leakage or contamination of the local environment.
- According to a 2015 report of the international panel on fissile materials India has reprocessing plants in Trombay, Tarapur and Kalapakkam.
- Radioactive (or nuclear) waste is a by-product of nuclear reactors, fuel processing plants, hospitals, and research facilities. It can be in gas, liquid, or solid form.
4. Drug regulator warns about Meropenem, disodium
- The central drugs standard control organisation has cautioned against the manufacture and sale of unapproved drugs especially warning against those falling under the category of new drugs.
- The drug regulator, citing the example of meropenum and disodium, noted that they had received information that some manufacturers were involved in manufacturing or marketing of drugs which the organisation did not yet approve.
- CDSCO is the Central Drug Authority for discharging functions assigned to the Central Government under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940. It works under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare the National Regulatory Authority (NRA) of India.
5. India was the top arms importer in 2019-23
- India was the top arms importer in the world in the period 2019-23 with imports having gone up by 4.7% compared with the period 2014-18 according to the Swedish think tank Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
- At the same time, arms imports by European countries increased by 94% between the set. Which comes against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.
- It said that Russia remained India’s main arms supplier accounting for 36% of its arms imports.
- However, this was the first five-year period since 1960-64 when deliveries from Russia made up less than half of India’s arms imports.
- SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. It was established in 1966 in Stockholm (Sweden).
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Sea6 Energy launches World’s First Large Scale Mechanized Tropical Seaween Farm
Sea6 Energy a pioneer in the Blue Economy has launched the world’s first large-scale mechanized tropical seaweed farm off the coast of Lombok, Indonesia.
