Rapid Fire Current Affairs | 05 Apr 2023

SLINEX-23 India- Sri Lanka Naval Maritime Exercise

The Indian and Sri Lankan Navies are set to participate in the 10^th edition of the bilateral maritime exercise SLINEX-23, which will take place in Colombo from April 3 to April 8, 2023. The exercise will be conducted in two phases - the Harbour Phase and the Sea Phase. The previous edition of SLINEX has conducted in Visakhapatnam in March 2022. The Indian Navy will be represented by two vessels, the INS Kiltan and INS Savitri, while the Sri Lankan Navy will be represented by two vessels, the SLNS Gajabahu, and SLNS Sagara. In addition, both sides will deploy Maritime Patrol Aircraft, helicopters, and Special Forces for the exercise.

SLINEX-23 aims to enhance interoperability, improve mutual understanding, and exchange best practices between the two navies. The other military exercise between India and Sri Lanka is ‘Mitra Shakti.

Read more: INDIA SRI LANKA RELATIONS

India Probes Anti-Dumping of Sodium Cyanide Imports

India has initiated an anti-dumping probe into imports of sodium cyanide from China, the European Union, Japan, and Korea following a complaint by domestic players. Sodium cyanide is white crystalline or granular powder. It releases hydrogen cyanide gas, a highly toxic chemical asphyxiant that interferes with the body’s ability to use oxygen. Exposure to sodium cyanide can be rapidly fatal. It is used for extraction of gold and silver from their respective ores, manufacturing insecticides, dyes, pigments, and bulk drugs. The move by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) comes after an application for the probe and the imposition of appropriate anti-dumping duty on the imports from these nations. The DGTR said the applicants have alleged that material injury is being caused to the domestic industry due to the alleged dumped imports.

Anti-dumping duties are conducted by countries to determine whether domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports. As a countermeasure, they impose these duties under the multilateral regime of Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO). The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producer's vis-a-vis foreign producers and exporters. India has already imposed anti-dumping duty on several products to tackle cheap imports from various countries, including China.

Read more: Anti-Dumping Duty

Combined Commanders Conference

Recently, The Prime Minister of India, participated in the Combined Commanders’ Conference in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh for three days. The theme of the conference was ‘Ready, Resurgent, Relevant’. The Military Commanders discussed a wide range of issues related to national security, including jointness and theaterisation in the Armed Forces. Theaterisation is the practice of dividing military forces into operational commands or theaters, each with a distinct geographic area of responsibility the preparedness of the Armed Forces and the progress in the defense ecosystem towards achieving ‘AtmaNirbharta’ (self-reliance) was also reviewed.

Read more: Unified Commanders Conference.

PM SVANidhi

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs recently released data related to the PM SVANidhi scheme, which aims to provide micro-credit support to street vendors to alleviate the pandemic-induced economic stress. The data reveals that out of 42.7 lakh loans disbursed under the scheme, amounting to ₹5,152.37 crore, only 9.3% were given to street vendors from minority communities.

Additionally, the share of loans given to minority street vendors has declined steadily from 10.23% in 2020-21 to an all-time low of 7.76% in 2022-23. This is concerning given that minority street vendors make up a significant portion of the street vendor population due to various socio-economic reasons.

The disbursal of loans across states appears to be aligned with the population of each state, with Uttar Pradesh disbursing the highest number of loans and Sikkim disbursing only one loan. Uttar Pradesh also gave the highest number of loans to minority street vendors at 95,032.