Today’s GSBYTE

India on 19 January 2018 became a member of Australia Group, aimed at checking proliferation of chemical and biological weapons.

With this, India has gained entry in three of the four multilateral export control regimes even as its quest for a seat in the most significant of them all Nuclear Suppliers Group continued to be blocked by China. The Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) admitted India in June 2016 and the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA) in December 2017.

What
  1. On 19 January 2018 India formally became the 43rd member of the Australia Group (AG), the cooperative and voluntary group of countries working to counter the spread of materials, equipment and technologies that could contribute to the development or acquisition of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) by states or terrorist groups.
  2. The Australia Group (AG) announced that India’s plea for membership of the cartel had received widespread support from its members at its last plenary in Paris in June last year.
  3. New Delhi said that India’s entry into the AG would be “mutually beneficial and further contribute to international security and non-proliferation objectives”.
  4. The Ministry of External Affairs, said that India’s membership would help further strengthen its impeccable non-proliferation credentials.
  5. India was continuing its pursuit for membership of the NSG and remained engaged with the members of the cartel, which controlled global nuclear commerce to check proliferation of atomic weapons.
  6. India, like all other members of the AG, is a signatory to both the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).
  7. The MTCR’s primary objective is to restrict proliferation of missiles, complete rocket systems, unmanned air vehicles, and related technology for systems capable of carrying a 500 kg payload at least 300 km, as well as systems intended for the delivery of weapons of mass destruction.
  8. The WA controls global commerce of conventional arms and dual-use goods and technologies.
  9. China has been blocking India’s bid for NSG membership arguing that the NSG should reach agreement on a non-discriminatory formula to deal with the issue of granting membership to countries which had not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.

GST Council, the apex decision making body on Goods and Services Tax (GST), on 18 January 2018 revised rates on 29 items and 53 categories of services, finance minister Arun Jaitley said after the council’s 25th meeting held in New Delhi.

The revised items
  1. Council cuts GST on mehendi cones to 5 per cent from 18 per cent earlier
  2. GST Council cuts rates on sugar boiled confectionery to 12 per cent from 18per cent earlier.
  3. GST Council cuts tax rate on bio-diesel to 12 per cent from 18 per cent earlier.
  4. GST Council cuts tax rate on drinking water packed In 20 litres bottles to 12 per cent from 18 per cent.
  5. Rice Bran will now attract 0 per cent tax from 5 per cent earlier.
  6. GST Council cuts tax rate on velvet fabric to 5 per cent from 12 per cent earlier.
  7. GST Council cuts tax rate on drip irrigation system, mechanical sprayer to 12 per cent from 18 per cent
  8. GST Council cuts tax rate on domestic LPG by private companies to 5 per cent from 18 per cent earlier.
  9. Motor vehicle will now attract 18 per cent tax from earlier 28 per cent.

 

A six-member, all-girls team of Indian Navy on 19 January 2018 rounded the Cape of Horn in South America – the roughest patch of the sea in the world as a part of their voyage to circumnavigate the globe.

They crossed the notorious Drake Passage where the sea is extremely rough because of the meeting between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the nearest land mass is the Antarctica that lies 600 nautical miles south of the passage.

What
  1. They rounded the Cape Horn earlier in the day. It’s a huge feat akin to scaling Mt Everest in mountaineering. While crossing the Drake passage, they hoisted the tricolour in the mast of their sail boat INSV Tarini,” said a Navy official.
  2. This is the second of the three great Capes that the Indian team has to cross in its voyage to qualify as a circumnavigation. INS Tarini crossed Cape Leeuwin in Australia on November 9, 2017.
  3. Skippered by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi, the 56 ft long sailing boat with crew members Lt Cdr Pratibha Jamwal, P Swathi, and Lt S Vijaya Devi, B Aishwarya and Payal Gupta was on its way to the third stop in their journey at Port Stanley in the Falklands. They are scheduled to cross the Cape of Good Hope in some times in March.
  4. The all-girls around-the-high seas trip was flagged off by the Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, from Goa on September 10.
  5. INSV Tarini will return to Goa in April after nearly 7 months on the high seas with four stopovers at Fremantle (Australia), Lyttleton (New Zealand), Port Stanley (Falklands), and Cape Town (South Africa).
  6. The team of women officers did a Goa-to-Cape Town trip in December 2016 and another trip to Mauritius in May 2017 as the practice drill for Navika Sagar Parikrama – the third ocean circumnavigation trip from Navy. The previous two trips were undertaken by Comm Dilip Donde and Abilash Tomy.
  7. Tomy was the first Indian and second Asian to complete a solo non-stop unassisted circumnavigation between November 2012 and April 2013.

The Ministry of Defence has released the second part of the simplified Make-II, the Make in India policy for the defence sector, in order to attract more private industries for manufacturing arms and ammunition.

It has also initiated a first of its kind industry meet in Chennai and launched a Defence Investor Cell to facilitate industry participation.

Under the simplified form, the industry can approach the defence departments on its own with products and ideas, which will then be considered by the concerned defence agency. So far, the industry has been supplying products that have been sought by the divisions according to their requirement.
What
  1. Another feature is that once the prototype is submitted and the department agrees to the product and its quality, a Request for Proposal (RFP) will be issued and there is a guarantee that the product will be purchased.
  2. This will allay the concerns of the industry that whether the product will not be purchased even after spending time and developing it for defence.
  3. First of its kind Defence Industry Development Meet in Chennai for forging a partnership with the industry for defence production.
  4. Make-II deals with industry-funded projects primarily for import substitution, subsystems, and others. If it is an MSME (Micro, small and medium enterprise) or start-up, it will have government support if the prototype is under an outer limit of Rs 30 million.
  5. The ministry is offering around 50 potential projects with an assurance of orders on prototype completion and foreclosure protection.
  6. The new Make-II will reduce the timeline by almost 50 per cent, said Defence Production Secretary Ajay Kumar. The timeline will come down from around two to four years to one to two years.
  7. The dependence on the import of defence products has been reduced in the past three years and efforts are underway to further reduce imports and enable Indian firms to export to other companies.
  8. Every year, the country procures around Rs 1.25 trillion worth of defence products, of which the public sector manufacturers and ordinance factories manufacture around Rs 500-550 billion and procurement is around Rs 450-500 billion.
  9. The rest of the requirement is addressed through imports. The micro, small and medium industry in the country is supplying around Rs 50 billion worth of products and they have a potential to increase it to Rs 100 billion by 2020.
  10. The minister proposed a plan to develop a corridor for the defence segment in South India, with L&T Shipbuilding facility at Kattupalli, the six ordinance factories in Tamil Nadu, the small manufacturers’ cluster in Coimbatore and Hosur and the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd in Bengaluru.
  11. The Defence Expo biennial event would be held in Chennai this year. The event, which is delayed, will be held from April 11 to 16, in a place provided by the state government between Chennai and Mahabalipuram. Usually, it is held towards the end of February and, most of the time, in Delhi.

 

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