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Current Affairs June 9 2023 PDF by AffairsCloud 1
Current Affairs June 9 2023 PDF by AffairsCloud 1
• Approved the third revival package for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL)
• Approved the increase in the Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for all mandated Kharif Crops
• Approved the continuation of the ‘Exploration of Coal and Lignite scheme’
• Approved Metro Connectivity from HUDA City Centre to Cyber City in Gurugram
Third revival package for BSNL:
i.The cabinet has approved the third revival package for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) with a total outlay
of Rs 89,047.82 crore that includes allotment of 4G/5G spectrum through equity infusion.
ii.The authorized capital of BSNL was increased from Rs 1,50,000 crore to Rs. 2,10,000 crore.
iii.With the third revival package, BSNL will emerge as a stable telecom service provider focused on providing
connectivity to remotest parts of India.
The details of Budget and Specturm allotment :
Band Spectrum allotted Budgetary support
700 MHz 10 MHz paired in 22 licensed service areas (LSAs) Rs 46,338.60 Crore
3300 MHz 70 MHz in 22 LSAs Rs 26,184.20 Crore
26 GHz 800 MHz in 21 LSAs and 650 MHz in 1 LSA Rs 6,564.93 Crore
2500 MHz 20 MHz in 6 LSAs and 10 MHz in 2 LSAs Rs 9,428.20 Crore
Miscellaneous items Rs 531.89 Crore
Total Rs 89,047.82 Crore
Key Points:
i.With the above budget allotment, BSNL could provide pan-India 4G and 5G services, provide 4G coverage in
rural and uncovered villages under various connectivity projects, fixed wireless access (FWA) services for high-
speed Internet, and services/ spectrum for captive non-public network (CNPN).
ii.Union Government had approved the first revival package for BSNL/Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (
MTNL) in 2019 amounted to Rs. 69,000 Crore. In 2022, Government approved second revival package for
BSNL/MTNL amounting to Rs 1.64 Lakh Crore.
• Due to these two packages, BSNL has started earning operating profits since FY 2021-22. Total debt
of BSNL has reduced from Rs 32,944 Crore to Rs 22,289 Crore.
iii.It provided financial support for capex (Capital Expenditure), viability gap funding for rural landlines,
financial support for de-stressing the balance sheet and settlement of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues and
merger of BBNL with BSNL.
Highlights of US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to India from June 4 to 5 2023
United States (US) Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was on a two-day visit to India from June 4 to 5, 2023, to
strengthen bilateral defence cooperation between both nations, especially in areas of transfer of critical
technologies for co-development of military hardware.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
IEA report: Global Renewable Capacity Additions to increase by 107 GW in 2023
According to Renewable Energy Market Update – June 2023 of International Energy Agency (IEA), the Global
renewable capacity additions are set to increase by 107 gigawatts (GW), the largest absolute increase ever, to
more than 440 GW in 2023.
• The growth in renewable capacity is fueled by the expanding policy support, growing energy
security concerns and improving competitiveness against fossil fuel alternatives.
Global perspective:
i.Solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, including both large utility-scale and small distributed systems, accounts for
two-thirds of 2023’s projected increase in global renewable capacity.
BCI Signs MoU With Bar Council Of England & Wales For Mutual Exchange Program Of Lawyers
& Law Students
On June 5, 2023, The Bar Council of India (BCI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bar
Council of England and Wales and the Law Society of England and Wales for an exchange programme of
Lawyers and Law Students for mutual exchange of training & learning amongst each others jurisdiction.
• Banks issue bonds as a means to secure funding and strengthen their capital base.
Reason behind the expected decrease in bond issuances:
Stronger foreign institutional investor (FII)/foreign portfolio investment (FPI) inflows, derecognition of the Rs
2,000 note, and a potential dividend from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) are anticipated to alleviate liquidity
conditions temporarily.
Key Points:
i.Regarding Tier-I or Additional Tier I (ATI) bonds, issuances are projected to be lower than the levels observed
between FY2022 and FY2023, estimated at Rs 30,000-33,400 crore due to lower scheduled call options.
• Public sector banks (PSBs) will remain larger issuers of tier-I bonds in the current financial year.
• ATI bonds are unsecured bonds with no pre-determined maturity date, and are issued to raise
long-term capital.
ii.There will be a slight increase in outstanding Tier-I bonds, which are expected to reach Rs 1.3 lakh crore by
March 2024 compared to Rs 1.2 lakh crore as of March 2023.
iii.As for Tier-II bonds, a moderation is expected after the peak observed in FY23, which amounted to Rs 49,600
crore. However, some banks may still opt to raise infrastructure bonds.
iv.According to the latest RBI’s money market operation data, liquidity surplus has risen from around Rs
56,000 crore to Rs 2.11 lakh crore.
v.Bank credit growth, which was 15% in FY23 could moderate in FY24. Deposits grew by 9.6% in FY23.
vi.Combined issuances by banks and AIFIs ( All India Financial Institutions) touched a high of Rs. 2.0 lakh crore
in FY2023, with gross bond issuances by banks reaching an all-time high of Rs. 1.1 lakh crore.
Jagdish Bakan, Ramanathapuram DFO, wins UNESCO’s 2023 Michel Batisse Award
Jagdish Sudhakar Bakan, wildlife warden and District Forest Officer (DFO) of Ramanathapuram district,
Tamil Nadu (TN) has been selected for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO)’s 2023 Michel Batisse Award for Biosphere Reserve Management.
Indian-origin scientist Joyeeta Gupta honoured with NWO Spinoza Prize 2023
On 7th June 2023, Dutch Research Council (NWO) has named Indian-origin Scientist Joyeeta Gupta, Professor
of Environment and Development in the global South at the University of Amsterdam, as the recipient of
the 2023 NWO Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific awards in the Netherlands, for her scientific work
promoting a fair and sustainable world.
• She was honoured for her remarkably broad and interdisciplinary research approach. Her research
work primarily focuses on addressing the challenges posed by climate change through good
governance.
• She is the 12th researcher from the University of Amsterdam to receive the Spinoza Prize.
Note:
• NWO has named Joyeeta Gupta and Toby Kiers, Professor of Mutualistic Interactions, University
Amsterdam as the recipients of the 2023 NWO Spinoza Prize.
• Bram Nauta, professor of Integrated Circuit Design at the University of Twente, and Corien Prins,
professor of Law and Information Technology at Tilburg University, were named the recipients of
the 2023 NWO Stevin Prizes.
About Joyeeta Gupta:
i.Joyeeta Gupta is also working as a professor of Law and Policy in Water Resources and Environment at the
International Institute for Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering (IHE)Delft Institute for Water
Education,The Netherlands.
ii.She served as the co-chair of the Earth Commission (2019-2021), set up by Future Earth and supported by
the Global Challenges Foundation. She was co-chair of United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s
Global Environment Outlook-6 (2016-2019)
iii.She was also the lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) between 1988 and
2014, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, former United States of America (USA) Vice
President.
About the NWO Spinoza Prize:
i.Spinoza Prize, named after Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), renowned Dutch scientist and philosopher, was
established in 1995.
ii.The award is annually presented by the NWO to two best researchers to increase the visibility of excellent
British Writer Paterson Joseph wins 2023 RSL Christopher Bland Prize
On 8th June 2023, British actor and writer Paterson Joseph won the 2023 Royal Society of Literature(RSL)
Christopher Bland Prize (5th edition of the award) for his debut novel titled “The Secret Diaries of Charles
Ignatius Sancho”. The book is a historical fiction about Charles Ignatius Sancho, who was the first Black man to
vote in England.
• The jury for RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2023: Lemn Sissay (chair), Meena Kandasamy and Simon
Savidge.
• RSL Christopher Bland Prize is an annual award which honours a debut writer for their work of
fiction or non-fiction, who is first published at the age of 50 or over. The award carries a cash prize
of 10,000 Pound sterling.
• The Prize was launched in 2018 in memory of British Politician Sir Christopher Bland who died in
2017.
• The project marked Tata Elxsi’s entry into mechanical design for space.
• This is the first time ISRO has outsourced the mechanical design and development work to an
external partner for a critical system.
• Currently, two Recovery-Models CMRM and Ground Support Fixture (GSF) have been delivered to
Naval training teams at Kochi (Kerala) and Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) to train the recovery
teams.
Objective:
ISRO’s Gaganyaan Mission aims to demonstrate Human Spaceflight capability by launching a three-member
crew onto an orbit of 400 km for a three-day mission and bringing them back to Earth safely by landing in
Indian sea waters.
Key Points:
i. Safe recovery of the crew is one of the key requirements of this project, which must be carried out with
minimum lapse time and hence CMRMs are designed and fabricated.
ii. The CMRMs for recovery team training, are mock-up models, which simulate details of mass, Centre of
gravity, outer dimensions, interfaces, and externals of the actual Crew Module.
iii. Tata Elxsi executed activities from developing the design configuration in accordance with ISRO
requirements, to carrying out structural analysis for various load cases, material procurement and testing,
fabrication, carrying out load tests, and transportation of the CMRM and the GSF.
iv. Tata Elxsi has also carried out the design and delivered hardware meeting a highly challenging delivery
schedule of 6 months, demonstrating excellent program management skills, which enabled timely
commissioning recovery training exercises to meet Gaganyaan mission requirements.
Additional info:
On February 7, 2023, ISRO, along with the Indian Navy carried out initial recovery trials of Crew Modules in the
Water Survival Test Facility (WSTF) of the Indian Navy, at Kochi, Kerala.
DRDO successfully fight-tested “Agni Prime” Ballistic Missile off Odisha coast
On 7th June 2023, Agni Prime or Agni-P, a New Generation Ballistic Missile was successfully flight-tested by
Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast
of Odisha.
• This was the first pre-induction night launch conducted by users after three successful
developmental trials of the missile, validating the accuracy and reliability of the system.
v.The Agni series of missiles are among the prime weapons in India’s arsenal as it faces an increasingly
aggressive China along the mountainous Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Additional Info:
In 2022, India has carried out a successful launch of a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM), with
India’s first ballistic missile nuclear submarine (SSMN) Indian Navy Ship (INS) Arihant, validating India’s
second strike nuclear capability.
SPORTS
India Bagged 3 Bronze at IBA Men’s World Boxing Championships 2023 in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan
3 Indian boxers, Deepak Kumar Bhoria, Mohammed Hussamuddin and Nishant Dev, have won the bronze
medal at the 22nd edition of the International Boxing Association (IBA) Men’s World Boxing
Championships (2023), held at the Humo Arena in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from 30 April-14 May 2023.
• Uzbekistan topped the overall medal tally with 9 medals (5 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze) followed
by Kazakhstan in 2nd place with 5 medals (4 gold and 1 silver) and Russia at 3rd with 6
medals (2 Gold and 4 bronze).
Note:
• For the first time, India has won 3 medals at a single edition of the tournament.
• With this win, India has won a total of 10 medals (to date) at the IBA Men’s World Boxing
Championship.
Vijender Singh won India’s 1st-ever medal (Bronze) at Men’s World Boxing Championships in 2009
OBITUARY
Renowned Doordarshan anchor, Gitanjali Aiyar passes away
Gitanjali Aiyar, one of India’s first English news presenters on national broadcaster Doordarshan(DD), passed
away. She was born on 29th January 1947.
• She worked with DD for over 3 decades since 1971 and was awarded the best anchor 4 times. She
was also honoured with Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini Award for Outstanding Women in 1989.
• In 2002, she switched to corporate communications, government liaison and marketing.
• She has also worked with the Taj and Oberoi group of hotels and worked as a consultant at the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
• She also worked as the Head of the Major Donors department World Wildlife Fund (WWF) India.
IMPORTANT DAYS
World Oceans Day 2023 – June 8
United Nations(UN) World Oceans Day is annually observed across the globe on 8th June to create awareness
about the importance of the oceans, a life source which supports the sustenance of humanity and every other
organism on earth.
• The theme of World Oceans Day 2023 is “Planet Ocean: tides are changing”.
Background:
i.The concept of a ‘World Oceans Day’ was first proposed in 1992 at the Earth Summit 1992, held in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, a parallel event at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
ii.The United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) adopted the resolution A/RES/63/111 on 5th December 2008
and proclaimed the 8th June of every year, starting from 2009, as World Oceans Day.
• The first-ever World Oceans Day was observed on 8th June 2009.
Note:Since 2002, the World Ocean Network sponsored by Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
(IOC), has been instrumental in building support towards ocean awareness.
• The IOC of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation(IOC-UNESCO) is the only
UN body specialized in ocean science and services.
• Brain Tumour is an unusual growth of cells in the brain or around it, which causes pressure inside
the skull and it can be cancerous (malignant) or non-cancerous (benign).
The theme for World Brain Tumour Day 2023 is “Protect yourself- keep away from stress.”
• The 2023 theme emphasises the significance of developing stress management techniques to
prevent brain tumours.
Symbol: The Gray ribbon is the official symbol of raising awareness for Brain Tumour and Brain Cancers.
Background:
i. World Brain Tumour Day was established by the Deutsche HirntumorhilfeV. (German Brain Tumour
Association), a Leipzig (Germany)-based non-profit organisation in 2000.