Daily Current Affairs including static notes

The Brick Kiln Initiative in Nepal ( Env)

The Brick Kiln Initiative, launched by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, found a way to redesign the ovens and stack the bricks differently so that less toxic soot is produced.

Details: There are more than 150,000 kilns in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal belching out thousands of tonnes of soot — known as black carbon — a major air pollutant and the second largest contributor to warming after carbon dioxide.

By stacking the bricks inside the kilns in a zigzag pattern, the heat snakes through the gaps more efficiently, ensuring coal is completely burned so less soot is produced. Emissions are cut by 60%. But more importantly for the kiln owners, it nearly halves coal consumption.

The environmental factor does not necessarily motivate most kiln owners, but the zigzag method has an economic benefit.

Despite the availability of clean technology, the majority of the 1,500 billion bricks used each year are produced using polluting kilns.

Traditional brick production methods, in which clay bricks are fired using coal, wood or other biomass materials, are still commonly found in parts of Asia and Latin America. These methods are inefficient, requiring a lot of energy and top soil, and pose an important threat to health and the environment through the large amounts of particulate matter, black carbon, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants they release into the atmosphere.

The mitigation potential in the sector is signiﬁcant, with recent estimates showing that switching to more efficient technologies, mainly during brick ﬁring, can reduce pollutant emissions by more than 90%, depending on the process, scale, and fuel used. These technologies would also bring additional social and economic benefits to brick producers and their communities, including safer working conditions, increased productivity, and improved agricultural yield.

Cleaning up traditional brick production methods requires regional and international coordination as well as greater awareness about the challenges specific to the sector.

Commonly known as soot, black carbon is the second biggest global warming pollutant after carbon dioxide; it affects health and visibility and accelerates the melting of Himalayan snow and ice. The brick-making process is highly energy- and labor-intensive. In South Asia, bricks are mostly hand-molded and then baked in fixed chimney bull’s trench kilns (FCBTKs). In recent years, mechanized brick making plants and other varieties of kilns have been introduced, such as tunnel kilns, the Hoffman kiln, the modified FCBTK, the zigzag, and the vertical shaft brick kiln technology (VSBK). Earlier attempts to introduce mechanized brick making and brick baking had not been successful because of operational and adaptability problems.

Most FCBTKs emit thick black smoke that contains pollutants (carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, black carbon, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides) and fine particulate matter, which present serious health hazards to surrounding communities, causing human illnesses and destroying animal and plant life.

3-D Printed cornea ( S&T)

Scientists have created 3D printed human corneas that could solve the shortage of available eye donors and help millions of blind people gain sight again.
The research shows how stem cells from a healthy donor cornea were mixed together with alginate and collagen to create a solution that could be printed, a ‘bioink’

Details: Newcastle University researchers have devised a groundbreaking experimental technique that could help millions on the corneal transplant waiting list. By using a simple 3D bio-printer a team of scientists was able to combine healthy corneal stem cells with collagen and alginate (a type of sugar sometimes used in tissue regeneration) to create ‘bio-ink’ — a printable solution that enabled them to reproduce the shape of a human cornea in just 10 minutes.

This unique gel – a combination of alginate and collagen – keeps the stem cells alive whilst producing a material which is stiff enough to hold its shape but soft enough to be squeezed out the nozzle of a 3D printer.

Before printing the corneal replicas, researchers scanned patients’ eyes to ascertain the necessary dimensions and coordinates. While its likely patients will have to wait “several years” before these 3D-printed corneas are available in an official capacity, they still represent incredible hope for those with more severe corneal-related impairments.

The cornea has a significant role in helping us focus and barricading our eyes against dirt and bacteria. However, since it’s located on the outermost layer of the eye, it’s also pretty vulnerable to injury. Worldwide, approximately 10 million people risk corneal blindness due to infectious disorders like trachoma, but there’s a dearth of readily available transplants. Because 3D-printed corneas utilize stem cells, corneal replicas could potentially provide a limitless supply of much-needed transplants.

Moody’s cuts 2018 growth forecast to 7.3% (Eco)

Moody’s Investors Service has cut India’s 2018 growth forecast to 7.3% from the previous estimate of 7.5%.
It was said that the economy is in cyclical recovery but higher oil prices and tighter financial conditions will weigh on the pace of acceleration.

Details: Moody’s, however, maintained its 2019 growth forecast at 7.5%.

The Global Macro Outlook of Moody’s said that the Indian economy is in cyclical recovery led by both investment and consumption. However, higher oil prices and tighter financial conditions will weigh on the pace of acceleration. We expect GDP growth of about 7.3% in 2018, down from our previous forecast of 7.5%. Our growth expectation for 2019 remains unchanged at 7.5%.

Moody’s said growth should benefit from acceleration in rural consumption, supported by higher minimum support prices and a normal monsoon.

The outlook also said that the private investment cycle will continue to make a gradual recovery, as twin balance-sheet issues — impaired assets at banks and corporate — slowly get addressed through deleveraging and the application of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

Also, ongoing transition to the new Goods and Service Tax regime could weigh on growth somewhat over the next few quarters, which pose some downside risk to the forecast.

However, these issues are expected to moderate over the course of the year.

For the world economy, Moody’s expected 2018 to be a year of robust global growth, similar to 2017. However, global growth will likely moderate by the end of 2018 and in 2019 as a result of a number of advanced economies reaching full employment, and because of rising borrowing costs and tighter credit conditions in both advanced and emerging market countries that will hamper further acceleration.

The G20 countries, it said, would grow 3.3% in 2018 and 3.2% in 2019. The advanced economies will grow at a moderate 2.3% in 2018 and 2% in 2019, while G20 emerging markets will remain the growth drivers, at 5.2% in both 2018 and 2019, down from 5.3% in 2017.

The ongoing financial market turbulence in emerging market countries poses risks of a broader negative spillover effect on growth for a range of countries beyond Argentina and Turkey, while there is a risk that high oil prices will be detrimental to consumption demand. A re-escalation of trade tensions between the U.S. and China is another risk factor to growth. Political concerns add to downside risks in Brazil, Mexico and Italy.

The outlook for global monetary policy is broadly unchanged with the U.S. Federal Reserve on a predictable and gradual tightening monetary policy path. Three additional increases in the U.S. federal funds rate this year are expected to be followed by three more in 2019. The European Central Bank will likely stop additional asset purchases by the year-end and start increasing the deposit facility rate in the first half of 2019. The Bank of Japan will maintain its current monetary policy over the next two years.

The Twin Balance-sheet problem: A balance sheet is a financial statement that summarizes a company/institution’s assets, liabilities and shareholder’s equity at a specific point of a time.

Twin Balance Sheet Problem (TBS) deals with two balance sheet problems, one of Indian companies and the other of Indian Banks.

Thus, TBS is two two-fold problems for Indian economy which deals with:

Overleveraged companies – Debt accumulation on companies is very high and thus they are unable to pay interest payments on loans. 40% of corporate debt is owed by companies who are not earning enough to pay back their interest payments. In technical terms, this means that they have an interest coverage ratio less than 1.
Bad-loan-encumbered-banks – Non Performing Assets (NPA) of the banks is 9% for the total banking system of India. It is as high as 12.1% for Public Sector Banks. As companies fail to pay back principal or interest, banks are also in trouble.

Origin of TBS problem can be traced to the 2000s when the economy was on an upward trajectory. During that time, the investment-GDP ratio had soared by 11% reaching over 38% in 2007-08. Thus non-food bank credit doubled and capital inflows in 2007-08 reached 9% of GDP. Due to such a boom in the economy, firms started taking risks and abandoned their conservative debt/equity ratios and leveraged themselves up to take advantage of the upcoming opportunities.

But Global Financial Crisis (2007-08) reduced growth rates and thus revenues from the investment. Projects that had been built around the assumption that growth would continue at double digit levels were suddenly confronted with growth rates half that level. Firms that borrowed domestically suffered when RBI increased interest rates to avoid inflation increasing financial costs. Environment and land clearances in infrastructure sector delayed the projects. Thus higher cost, lower revenues, greater financial costs-all squeezed corporate cash flow leading to NPAs in the banking sector.

India, Indonesia elevate ties ( IR)

India and Indonesia on Wednesday elevated their bilateral ties to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The two countries also signed 15 agreements, including one to boost defense cooperation, and called for freedom of navigation in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.

Details: Mr. Modi reached Jakarta on his first ever official visit to Indonesia. The two leaders discussed areas of strategic cooperation and ways to ensure better economic ties and closer cultural relations, besides regional and global issues of mutual interest. In a joint press statement after the meeting, Mr. Modi said India’s Act East Policy and the vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for all in the Region) matched Mr. Widodo’s Maritime Fulcrum Vision.

Mr. Modi announced a free 30-day visa for Indonesian citizens and invited the Diaspora to travel to their country of origin to experience the ‘New India.’

India and Indonesia have shared two millennia of close cultural and commercial contacts. The Hindu, Buddhist and later Muslim faith travelled to Indonesia from the shores of India. The Indonesian folk art and dramas are based on stories from the great epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata. The shared culture, colonial history and post-independence goals of political sovereignty, economic self-sufficiency and independent foreign policy have unifying effect on the bilateral relations.

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