Interest Rate
Category: Economy
- The benchmark interest rate of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) fell below 6% for the first time since 2010 as the monetary policy committee (MPC) cut repo rates by 25 basis points (bps) to 5.75% in order to address growth concerns.
- The stance of the policy has also been changed from neutral to accommodative, which means a hike in interest rates is ruled out.
- The RBI has revised GDP growth projection for the current financial year from 7.2% to 7%.
Leverage Ratio
Category: Economy
- The Reserve Bank of India’s decision to bring leverage ratio for banks in line with Basel-III standards will improve the lendable resources.
- RBI has mandated leverage ratio of 3.5% for all the banks except for the domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs), which will have a 4% ratio.
- The leverage ratio was introduced for banks post the financial crisis of 2008, as one of the underlying features of the crisis was the build-up of excessive on- and off-balance sheet leverage in the banking system. In many cases, banks built up excessive leverage while still showing strong risk-based capital ratios.
- The easing of the leverage ratio requirement will boost bank lending.
Ai-Da
Category: Sc/tech
- Billed as “one of the most exciting artists of our time”, Ai-Da differs from generations of past masters in one inescapable way: she is a robot.
- Ai-Da is the world’s first ultra-realistic humanoid artist, able to draw creatively.
- The humanoid uses artificial intelligence to make images.
- The robot uses her camera “eyes” to capture what is in front of her, which an internal computer — and its machine-learning technology — translates into the coordinates of a corresponding image to be plotted on a page.
New Species
Category: Environment
- Scientists and taxonomists have documented 596 new species of flora and fauna from India in the year 2018.
- Of the 596 species, 372 come under fauna (311 invertebrates and 61 vertebrates).
- About 31% of the plant species were discovered in the Himayalas.
- In the case of animals, the Western Ghats remained a biological hotspot from where about 50% of the species were found.
Dragonfish
Category: Environment
- The dragonfish has virtually transparent teeth that help it thrive in the deep, dark ocean.
- The teeth are made of the same materials as human teeth, but their microscopic structure is so different that light doesn’t reflect off them. Hence, its mouth seems almost invisible.
- Some other predatory deep-sea fish also have transparent teeth, so this might be a common strategy.
