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       Daily Current affairs updated
              Date-14/10/2020
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Mars ‘Opposition’ Event

•   According to NASA, the opposition, which takes place every two years
    and two months will happen on October 13, which will give the planet
    its “biggest, apparent size of the 2020s”.
•   Mars’s next close approach will happen on December 8, 2022.when
    the planet will be 62.07 km away from the Earth. Even so, the closest
    approach does not mean that Mars will appear to be the same size as that
    of the moon.

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what is opposition?
   ➢ Opposition is the event when the sun, Earth and an outer planet (Mars in this
     case) are lined up, with the Earth in the middle. The time of opposition is the
     point when the outer planet is typically also at its closest distance to the Earth
     for a given year, and because it is close, the planet appears brighter in the sky.
   ➢ An opposition can occur anywhere along Mars’ orbit, but when it happens
     when the planet is also closest to the sun, it is also particularly close to the
     Earth.

            When does opposition happen?
   ➢ Earth and Mars orbit the sun at different distances (Mars is farther apart from
     the sun than Earth and therefore takes longer to complete one lap around the
     sun).
   ➢ In the case of Mars, roughly every two years, the Earth passes between sun and
     Mars, this is when the three are arranged in a straight line.
   ➢ Further, as the Earth and Mars orbit the sun, there comes a point when they are
     on the opposite sides of it, and hence very far apart. At its farthest, Mars is
     about 400 million km from the Earth.

In case of opposition, however, Mars and Sun are on directly opposite sides of the
Earth. In other words, the Earth, sun and Mars all lie in a straight line, with the Earth
in the middle.

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Farm reforms to help farmers: Modi

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said his government’s “historic”
  farm reforms will create opportunities to take farmers to entrepreneurship
  and added his regime is focused on increasing their income.
• Referring to high milk, sugar, and wheat production in Gujarat,
  Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab, Modi said such models of local
  enterprise will take the country forward.
• “The government’s priority then was to increase food production. So the
  entire focus was on increasing production. Farmers toiled hard to achieve
  the objective,”.
• The Prime Minister also spoke of direct transfer of Rs 1 lakh crore in the
  bank accounts of farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi
  Yojana.

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About Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana:
➢ The Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) is the first universal
  basic income-type of scheme targeted towards farmers. Initially, the scheme
  was targeted at small and medium farmers, but with the declining growth in
  gross value added of the agricultural sector, it was extended to all farmers in
  May 2019.
➢ The scheme aims to provide income support to farmers for easing their
  liquidity needs to facilitate timely access to inputs.

    Significance:
➢ Around 12 crore small and marginal farmer families are expected to benefit
  from this.
➢    It would not only provide assured supplemental income to the most
    vulnerable farmer families, but would also meet their emergent needs
    especially before the harvest season.
     It would pave the way for the farmers to earn and live a respectable living.

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Indian economy to contract by 10.3% in 2020
            To bounce back with 8.8% growth in 2021: IMF

 • The Indian economy, severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is projected
   to contract by a massive 10.3 per cent this year, the International Monetary
   Fund.
 • However, India is likely to bounce back with an impressive 8.8 per cent
   growth rate in 2021, thus regaining the position of the fastest growing
   emerging economy, surpassing China’s projected growth rate of 8.2 per
   cent, the IMF said in its latest ‘World Economic Outlook’ report.
 • The IMF in its report said that revisions to the forecast are particularly large
   for India, where Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted much more
   severely than expected in the second quarter. “As a result, the economy is
   projected to contract by 10.3 per cent in 2020, before rebounding by 8.8
   per cent in 2021.

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• In the report, the World Bank said the spread of the virus and containment
    measures have severely disrupted supply and demand conditions in India.

About International Monetary Fund (IMF):
     •   The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an organization of 189
         countries.
     •   It works to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability,
         facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable
         economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.
     •   The IMF, along with the World Bank, was conceived in 1944 at a
         conference in Bretton Woods, in the US state of New Hampshire.

Objective:
             ➢   Foster global monetary cooperation.
             ➢   Secure financial stability.
             ➢   Facilitate international trade.
             ➢   Promote high employment and sustainable economic growth.
And reduce poverty around the world.

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Highlights of 5th India-Mexico High level Group on Trade,
               investment and cooperation

• The fifth meeting of the India-Mexico Bilateral High-Level Group on Trade,
  Investment and Cooperation (BHLG) was held on 9 October 2020 through
  video conference. The meeting was co-chaired by the Commerce Secretary
  of the Government of India, Dr. Anup Wadhawan and the Vice Minister for
  Foreign Trade of the Government of Mexico, Ms. Luz María de la Mora.
  Several Ministries, Departments and Business Chambers from both
  countries participated in the meeting.

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Agreement:
     MoU include:
       ➢ MoU between the Mexican Chamber of Electronics telecommunication and
           information Technologies (CANIETI) and Electronics and Computer software
           export Promotion Council of India.

         ➢ MoU between the Mexican Business Council of foreign trade investment and
           Technology (COMCE) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
           industry (FICCI).

Highlights:
          ➢ They also discussed about the cooperation in intellectual property rights.
          ➢ Both the sides discussed their bilateral investment treaty and audio-visual co-
             production.
          ➢ They discussed the ways to promote tourism and people to people contact
             between both the countries.
Market access for Agricultural Products, cooperation framework for phytosanitary and
sanitary products, and technical barriers to trade were also discussed.

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