Friday Factly 10 July 2020

General Studies-2

Police:

• A survey by Common Cause, a non-governmental organisation, and the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) Delhi, showed that 14 per cent of police personnel feel that Muslims are “very much” naturally prone to committing crimes, while 36 per cent feel that Muslims are “somewhat” prone.

Police:

As against the sanctioned strength of 414,492 policemen for its nearly 23 crore population, UP has a little over 2.94 lakh cops. The ratio of cops to population is also woefully inadequate — while the sanctioned ratio of 183 cops per 1 lakh population is itself much less than the UN recommended levels of 222 cops per lakh of population, the actual ratio is barely 130 per lakh. 

Criminalization of Politics:

• In 2004, 24% of the Members of Parliament had criminal cases pendingagainst them.
• In 2009, the number went up to 30%
• In 2014 34% of MPs were from criminal background
• In 2019 as many as 43% of MPs had criminal cases pending against them. 

General Studies-3

RBI regulatory burden:

RBI regulates

• 86 Scheduled Banks
• 10 Small Finance Banks
• 53 RRBs
• Thousands of NBFC

Chinese Import dependence:

• Drugs: India is the world’s largest producer of generic drugs. But nearly70% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) required to make themare majorly imported from China — API gives a drug its therapeutic value.

For penicillin, China is the sole supplier of API. China also supplies APIs forantibiotics such as oxytetracycline (100% API from China) and tetracycline(98%), blood thinner Heparin (86.3%), and vitamins.

• Electronics: India imports nearly 43% of electronics parts from China.
• India imported Rs 71,000 crore worth power equipment including Rs21,000 crore from China.

Agriculture trade:

• India has been a net exporter of agri-produce. The golden year of agri-trade,however, was 2013-14. That year agri-exports peaked at $43.6 billion whileimports were $18.9 billion, giving a net trade surplus of $24.7 billion.

In 2019-20 agri-exports were just $36 billion, and the net agri-trade surplus at$11.2 billion.

MSME:

• The sector contributes about 30 per cent of the GDP, 50 per cent of our exports and employs about 11 crore people across 6.33 crore units.

Air Pollution:

• Globally some 9 million premature deaths a year are associated with air pollutants, such as fine particulate matter, known as PM 2.5. Regrettably, 14 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in India.

Opium Production:

• The fourth highest seizure of opium in 2018 was reported from India, after Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to the latest World Drug Report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Trade:

• India’s merchandise exports quintupled from $63.84 billion in 2003-04 to $314.40 billion in 2013-14, recording a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.28 percent during the period.
• In the next five years, till 2018-19, however, the CAGR plunged, to just about 1 percent. In fact, merchandise exports in 2019-20, at $314.31 billion, were exactly at the same level or a tad lower than in 2013-14, at $314.40 billion.

Forex Reserves

• In last one year forex reserves have increased by $ 79 bn and by $ 29 bn from the beginning of this fiscal.
• As per Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) weekly statistical supplement published on 10th July 2020India’s total foreign exchange (Forex) reserves stand at around US$ 513.254 billion the highest ever, with foreign exchange assets (FCA) component at around US$473.263 billion, gold reserves at around US$34.017billion, SDRs (Special Drawing Rights with the IMF) of around US$1.448 billion and around US$4.526 billion reserve position.
• The Economic survey of India2014-15 said India could target foreign exchange reserves of US$750 billion-US$1 trillion