30th October Newspaper Notes - 7 New Frog Species, World Children Prize for Malala, MSME Investment Cap Revision, Construction FDI Relaxed, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Established

1. 7 new frog species have being discovered with 6 discovered in Western Ghats and 1 in Sri Lanka. Indian and Sir Lankan researchers identified 14 unique Golden back frog species out of which 7  were unknown earlier.

They are –

Hylarana Serendipi in Sri Lanka

H. doni, H urbis, H. magma and H. Sreeni in Kerala.

H. Indica in Karnataka

H. Caesari in Maharashtra

2. Malala won World’s Children Price award at the ceremony in Mariefred, west of Stockholm. She shared the award with former Microsoft executive John Wood who is the founder of the Room to Read literacy group and Indira Ram nagar from Nepal for her efforts towards well being of the children of prisoners. 

3. Annual fair of week long cattle fair at Pushkar would start from 31th October. Pushkar is a town near Ajmer city of Rajasthan. 

4. Revision of investment caps in Micro, Small and Medium enterprises is under consideration by the Union Government – Current Investment limits – in accordance with MSMED Act, 2006, is Rs. 25 lakh for micro, between Rs. 25 lakh and Rs. 5 crore for small enterprises, and between Rs. 5 crore and Rs. 10 crore for medium enterprises. Above limit is for businesses operating in manufacturing sector.

Investment limit for MSME in Services sector- (a) less than 10 lakhs is micro (b) from 10 lakhs to Rs 2 crore is small (c) from Rs. 2 crore to Rs. 5 crore is medium.

If the above initiative is undertaken by the Central Govt. then it would be in line with “Make in India” initiative of Mr. Modi MSME are responsible for 8% of the manufacturing Gross Domestic Product of India. 45% of manufacturing sector output is produced by MSME. 

5. Foreign Direct Investment rules in construction sector have been relaxed – From 2005, FDI in – (a) Housing (b) Township (c) Built up infrastructure and construction development has been increased to 100% with certain rules on investment limits and minimum built up area. 

These rules now have been relaxed by the Union Govt. in order to increase the quantum of investment in the construction sector. 

Relaxations are – 

(a) Minimum built up are to be 20000 sq. metres down from the previous 50000 sq. metres. 

(b) MCR (Minimum capital requirement) to be $ 5 million down from the previous limit of $ 10 million.

Above steps are in line with the “Smart Cites” project of Mr. Modi for which Rs. 7000 crore have been allotted for developing 100 new smart cities in the country with 2020 as the deadline for the same. 

6. Australia banned the travel of people from three worst Ebola suffering countries – Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Temporary visa holders from the three countries are barred from travelling to Australia and persons who have permanent Australian visas would have to first undergo a quarantine process of 21 days before travelling to Australia. Australia has also decided not to send doctors to the three countries who are suffering the Ebola epidemic saying that this is out of the sphere of responsibility of Australia. 

Note: How does Ebola gets transmitted from an infected person to a healthy person?

Ebola is not an airborne disease. A healthy person will infect himself only and only if he comes in direct contact of the body fluids of the Ebola infected person. 

7. Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) established last week in Beijing all said to counter the hegemony of US dominated World Bank and Europe dominated IMF (International Monetary Fund). The establishment of this bank was opposed by the United states which most probably led to the non participation of Indonesia, Australia and South Korea in its establishment. This has resulted in India and China being the major share holder in the AIIB with several other small economies of Asia. As per Asian Development Bank assessment, every year around $ 800 billion of infrastructure investment is required in Asia till 2020. ADB invests no more than $ 10 billion dollar on infrastructure projects.