India’s economy grew by 8.2% in FY24, with projections of 6.5-7% growth in 2024-25, reflecting strong resilience and recovery from the pandemic.
- ๐ Economic growth: India’s real GDP grew by 8.2% in FY24, showing resilience to global and external challenges, driven by stable consumption demand and improving investment demand.
- ๐ฎ Future projections: Real GDP is projected to grow between 6.5-7% in 2024-25. The Indian economy has rapidly recovered from the pandemic, with FY24 GDP 20% higher than pre-Covid FY20 levels.
- ๐ Sectoral contributions: Agriculture, industry, and services sectors contributed 17.7%, 27.6%, and 54.7%, respectively, to total Gross Value Added (GVA) at current prices in FY24.
- ๐ธ Inflation expectations: The Reserve Bank of India expects inflation to be 4.5% in FY25 and 4.1% in FY26.
- ๐ Global economy: Despite increased polarization in the global economy and higher financial market valuations, a growth estimate of 6.5-7% is still considered possible for India.
Captain Supritha CT’s deployment to Siachen Glacier marks a historic first for women in the Army Air Defence Corps, advancing gender equality in the Indian Armed Forces.
- ๐ก๏ธ Historic deployment: Captain Supritha CT becomes the first woman officer of the Army Air Defence Corps to be operationally deployed at Siachen Glacier, marking a significant milestone for gender equality in the Indian Armed Forces.
- ๐ Background: Captain Supritha hails from Mysore, Karnataka, with roots in Chamarajanagar district. Her father, Thirumalesh, is a sub-inspector of police near Mysore.
- ๐ Military career: She joined the Indian Army as a Lieutenant in 2021 and was initially posted in the Army Air Defence after training in Chennai.
- ๐๏ธ Rigorous training: Before her deployment to Siachen, Captain Supritha underwent extensive training to prepare for the extreme conditions and challenges of the world’s highest battlefield.
- ๐ Siachen Glacier: Located in the eastern Karakoram Range of the Himalayas, Siachen Glacier is renowned as the world’s highest battlefield.
The Government of India inaugurated the National Landslide Forecasting Centre in Kolkata to provide early warnings and mitigate landslide hazards, with plans to operationalise regional systems by 2030.
- ๐ Landslide Forecasting Centre: The Government of India has inaugurated the National Landslide Forecasting Centre in Kolkata, established by Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy to mitigate landslide hazards and provide early warnings.
- ๐จ Early warning systems: The centre will issue early warning bulletins for landslide-prone states and aims to operationalise regional Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS) across the country by 2030.
- ๐ข Location and facilities: The centre is set up at the Geological Survey of India’s Dharitri Complex in Salt Lake City, Kolkata, and is equipped with the latest technology for accurate landslide forecasts.
- ๐ง๏ธ Forecast accuracy: It will provide early warning information, update landslide inventory, and integrate real-time rainfall and slope instability data.
- ๐ป GeoSenset portal and app: The GeoSenset web portal and Landslide mobile app have been launched to facilitate data dissemination and initiate short-range and medium-range landslide forecasting.
- โฐ๏ธ Landslide-prone regions: The most landslide-prone regions in India are the Himalayan region, northeastern mountain ranges, Western Ghats, Nilgiris, Eastern Ghats, and Vindhya mountain ranges.
- ๐ Economic impact: Landslides cause significant economic losses in regions like Darjeeling, Sikkim, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh.
- ๐๏ธ Geological Survey of India (GSI): Established in 1851 to find coal-bearing areas for railways, GSI is headquartered in Kolkata with regional offices in Lucknow, Jaipur, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Shillong, and Kolkata.
A global outage caused by a faulty Microsoft-CrowdStrike software update disrupted services worldwide, including airlines and healthcare, highlighting digital dependency vulnerabilities.
- ๐ป Global outage: On July 19, 2024, a faulty update to the ‘Falcon Sensor’ antivirus software caused a Microsoft-CrowdStrike software outage, leading to a global technology disruption affecting airlines, healthcare, media, small businesses, and government offices.
- ๐ CrowdStrike at the center: The cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which provides software to thousands of companies, was at the heart of the disruption. Healthcare providers in the US, Canada, and England experienced significant service disruptions.
- ๐ Flight cancellations: Over 200 flights were cancelled by Indian carriers, including 192 flights by IndiGo, with more than 5,000 flights cancelled worldwide due to the IT outage.
- ๐ ๏ธ Historical comparison: This outage is the largest since Amazon’s cloud errors in 2017, which affected thousands of websites.
Uttarakhand launched the Gross Environmental Product Index to value natural resources and harmonize ecological and economic assessments, pioneering environmental awareness in India.
- ๐ณ GEP Index launch: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami launched the Gross Environmental Product (GEP) Index in Dehradun on July 19, 2024, making Uttarakhand the first state in India to assign a monetary value to its natural resources – air, water, forest, and soil.
- ๐ GEP data: The GEP index includes comparative data from 2020 to 2022, showing a growth of 0.9%. The index will now be released alongside the GDP to better harmonize ecological and economic assessments.
- ๐ฟ Environmental awareness: The GEP index aims to increase environmental awareness and assess contributions to environmental conservation, aiding in planning and development.
- ๐๏ธ Ecology and economy: The index will help balance development schemes and industrial activities with climate protection efforts, as envisioned by Chief Minister Dhami.
- ๐ Green Bonus: Introduced during 2014-15, the Green Bonus concept calculates that Uttarakhand provides services worth Rs 95,112 crore through its biodiversity, benefiting the country by Rs 1.5 crore annually.
- ๐๏ธ Natural wealth: Uttarakhand, with more than 71% of its area under forests, is home to the Himalayas and rivers like Ganga, Yamuna, and Sharda, along with wildlife sanctuaries like Corbett and Rajaji Tiger Reserve.
