Daily G.

K Updates

6 th December Current Affairs

Government & Polity

‘Big bird’ to take Internet to villages

 India’s first six-tonne-class ‘big bird’ in space, advanced communication satellite GSAT-11, was
put into orbit from the European spaceport in Guiana in South America.
 Its mission is to enable high-speed satellite-based Internet services to users in rural and
remote areas and to businesses down home over the next 15 years. Hence it would help in
achieving the goals under Bharat Net.
 This, along with GSAT-29 and GSAT-19, smaller satellites already launched from within India,
will herald a new era of satellite-driven reliable high-throughput data services.

Launched in October 2011, Bharat Net (earlier called the National Optical Fibre Network) aims
to provide 2.5 lakh village panchayats with e-banking, e-education, e-health and e-
governance, among others, through reliable broadband connectivity.

International
India, Japan air forces undertake joint air exercise

 The Japanese Air Self Defence Force (JASDF) is in India for a bilateral air exercise "SHINYUU
Maitri-18" with the Indian Air Force (IAF) from December 3-7.
 The theme of the exercise, held at the Air Force station in Agra in northern state of Uttar
Pradesh, is joint mobility and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) on transport
aircraft.

States
SMART initiative to provide market to farmers

 Maharashtra launched a scheme SMART State of Maharashtra’s Agribusiness and Rural

Transformation, to revamp agriculture value chain and improve price realization for farmers.
 It received support of Rs.1500 cr from World Bank for Rs.2000 cr scheme.
 Over 49 companies including ITC, Patanjali Tata Group etc. signed MoUs under the scheme.
Economy & Banking
Reserve Bank stands pat on rates

 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has left the key interest rate or the repo rate unchanged at
6.5% during the fifth bimonthly monetary policy review.
 Consumer price index-based inflation is projected at 2.7-3.2% for the second half of the
current financial year and 3.8-4.2% in the first half of the next financial year.
 The RBI decided to retain GDP growth rate for 2018-19 at 7.4% and estimated growth at 7.5%
for the first half of the next financial year.
 To boost credit flows, It has decided to reduce SLR to 18% of net demand and time liabilities
from 19.5% over the next six quarters, by 25 bps each in every quarter. The first reduction of 25
basis points will take effect in the quarter starting in January 2019.

Person/Event/Award
Sahitya Academy awards for 2018 announced

 Sahitya Akademi today announced its annual Awards in 24 languages. Seven books of poetry,
six novels, six short stories, three of literary criticism and two of essays have won the Sahitya
Akademi Awards, 2018.
 Winners include Anees Saleem in English, Rama Kant Shukla in Sanskrit, Rajesh Kumar Vyas in
Rajasthani, Rahman Abbas in Urdu, Lok Nath Upadhyay in Nepali, Chitra Mughal in Hindi and S.
Ramakrishnan in Tamil.
 Writers who won the awards for short stories include Sanjib Chattopadhyay in Bengali,
Mushtaq Ahmed Mushtaq in Kashmiri and Prof Bina Thakur in Maithili.
 Inderjeet Kesar in Dogri, Anees Salim in English, Chitra Mudgal in Hindi are among the
awardees in the novel category.
The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the
promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954.