Current Affairs: June 16, 2020

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan launched an Integrated Flood Warning System called ‘IFLOWS-Mumbai’.
The warning system has been jointly developed by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). It would relay alerts of possible flood-prone areas at 6 to 72 hours in advance. After Chennai, Mumbai is only the second city to get such system.

Notes:
The Union Defence Ministry has recently extended the delivery period for all existing capital acquisition contracts with Indian vendors by four months.
As per the Defence Minster, ‘force majeure shall be applicable for a period of four months i.e. 25th March 2020 to 24th July 2020’. A force majeure refers to unexpected circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract. This step has been taken because of supply chain crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

Notes:
India’s foreign exchange reserves crossed the half-a-trillion mark for the first time in the week ended June 5.
As per the recent data from the Reserve Bank of India, the forex reserves increased by $8.22 billion the week, which made the overall reserves cross the USD 500 billion mark to reach USD 501.70 billion. A huge rise in the Foreign Current Assets (FCA) is the main reason for the rise in reserves. The reserves stood at USD 493.48 billion in the previous week.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted an internal working group to review the guidelines on ownership and corporate structure of private sector banks.
The working group will be headed by PK Mohanty, an Executive Director at RBI. The group will examine the licensing guidelines of banking and regulations on ownership of private sector banks. It will also review the regulations on holding of financial subsidiaries through a non-operative financial holding company.

Notes:
India’s leading SUV and farm vehicle maker, Mahindra and Mahindra announced that it is set to exit from its US-based e- bike company GenZe.
As the firm suffered a substantial loss in the March quarter due to losses at foreign subsidiaries, it is also set to give up control of its Korean subsidiary SsangYong. The company said that it will stop investments in the loss-making SsangYong firm. Mahindra and Mahindra is also relooking all its ventures to reduce expenses.