News in Shorts: 07 August 2024

Yen Carry Trade

About Carry Trade: 

• Carry trade is a trading strategy that involves borrowing money at a low-interest cost and investing the same in other assets that provide higher returns.
• Yen Carry Trade: Investors have been taking advantage of Japan’s ultra-low interest rates to profit from a strategy known as the “yen carry trade.” 
  • This involves borrowing money in yen at a low-interest rate and investing it in assets with higher returns, like bonds or stocks, in other countries. 
• History: Japan kept interest rates ultra-low for decades following the implosion of an asset bubble in the 1990s that contributed to persistent deflation.
  • It continued holding rates low after the pandemic, in contrast to other major central banks that started hiking them.
  • Divergence: This created a divergence in monetary policy that impacted the Japanese yen, which sank to a near four- decade-low against the strong US dollar last month.
  • Carry Trade: The divergence helped carry trade that involves borrowing cheaply in yen and investing in some high-yielding currency or asset preferably backed by a strong macro argument.

Bagata tribe

About Bagata Tribe:

• The Bagata are an aboriginal tribe of India, primarily living in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. They are also known as Bagatha, Bagat, Bagodi, Bogad, or Bhakta.
• The Bagatas trace their community name to devoted warriors (Bhaktas) of the former rulers.
• Dance forms: Dhimsa is a popular dance enjoyed by Bagata tribes of all ages, who participate energetically. Their dances are collectively known as Sankidi Kelbar.
• Language: Bagata speak with one another in a form of the Oriya language. One of their main languages is Telugu. Their local dialect is Adivasi Oriya.
• Social Structure & Inheritance: Paternal property is equally divided among sons but the eldest son gets an extra share (jesty bhag). 
  • Daughters do not usually get any share from the parental property but may get some shares from mothers’ ornaments. 
  • Marriage: Bagatas generally prefer three types of marriages such as marriage by mutual consent, elopement and marriage by service.

Indian Siris (Albizia lebbeck)

About Indian Siris (Albizia lebbeck)

• Indian Siris, also known as Albizia lebbeck, is a tropical tree native to India and Southeast Asia.
• It’s a is a species of deciduous tree in the Fabaceae family
• It’s a thornless tree that can grow up to 20 m (65 ft) in height, with a rounded, spreading crown and pale bark. 
  • Leaves alternate, twice compound, with 2-5 pairs of pinnae, each pinna with 3-10 pairs of leaflets (even-pinnate) 
• Features: It’s usually asymmetrical at base, dull green above, paler green below
• The tree is also tolerant of drought and can survive in arid conditions, making it suitable for reforestation projects in dry regions.
• Ecological Role: The tree is capable of fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere, which helps to enrich the soil and support other plant species.

Capital Gain Tax

About Capital Gain Tax: 

• A capital gains tax is a tax levied on capital gains, profits an investor realizes when he sells a capital asset for a price that is higher than the purchase price.
• Capital gains taxes are only triggered when an asset is realized, not while it is held by an investor.
• It can be short-term or long-term.
  • Short-term Capital Gains Tax: It applies to assets held for a year or less and is taxed as ordinary income.
  • Long-term Capital Gains Tax: It is a levy on the profits from the sale of assets held for more than a year. 

Recent Announcement in Budget:

• Finance Minister had announced that the tax on long-term capital gains is being reduced from 20% with indexation benefits, to 12.5% without indexation benefits. 
• Choose between the two: An amendment is being made to The Finance Bill, 2024 to enable taxpayers to choose either of these two tax rates that work out lower for them, in cases involving transfer of immovable assets like land and building 
• About Indexation:  Indexation is the process of adjusting the original purchase price of an asset or investment in order to neutralise the impact of inflation on it. 
  • It involves revising upward the cost of acquisition of an asset based on the inflation over the period for which it was held.

Vampire Star

About Vampire Star:

• Vampire stars, known to astronomers as blue straggler stars (BSS), are identified easily in star clusters. 
• These stars defy simple models of stellar evolution and show many characteristics of younger stars. 
• Explanation: This anomalous youth is due to rejuvenation by eating up material from a binary stellar companion. 
• Once rejuvenated, these stars follow a different path of evolution when compared to Sun-like single stars. 

Highlights of the research:

• Significance: The study provides rare insights into the binary star evolution process and provides an important missing link in the rejuvenation in these stars.
• Process: The scientists studied the surface composition of the vampire star in M67, called WOCS 9005, using spectroscopy, 
  • Spectroscopy: It’s a technique where the light of the star is dispersed into its colors like the rainbow. 
  • The spectra of stars are bar-codes that decipher its surface/atmosphere chemistry. 
• They discovered that WOCS 9005’s atmosphere is unusually rich in heavy elements such as barium, yttrium, and lanthanum. 
  • These elements are typically associated with much older, more massive stars in their final stages of life.
• This star is expected to show chemistry very similar to our Sun, but they found that its atmosphere is rich in heavy elements. 
  • This chemical anomaly pointed to a possibility that the vampire stars are formed by acquiring polluted matter through transfer from their companion
  • The blue straggler star that we see now must have eaten up most of this barium-rich material due to its gravitational pull, and is now presenting itself as a rejuvenated star

Village Defence Guards

About Village Defence Guards:

• Formation of VDC: The Village Defence Committee (VDC) were first formed in the erstwhile Doda district (now Kishtwar, Doda and Ramban districts) in mid 1990s 
• Trigger: Demand arose after the 1993 massacre of 13 people in Kishtwar.
• Objective: It was formed as a force multiplier against militant attacks. 
  • The then Jammu and Kashmir administration decided to provide residents of remote hilly villages with weapons and give them arms training to defend themselves.
• Renamed as VDG: The VDCs have now been renamed as Village Defence Guards (VDG). 
• The new scheme to set up VDGs in vulnerable areas of J&K was approved by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs last year. 
  • Like a VDC member, each VDG will be provided a gun and 100 rounds of ammunition.

Great four-ring butterfly (Ypthima cantliei)

• This discovery is detailed in a paper by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS).

About Great four-ring butterfly (Ypthima cantliei): 

• Ypthima cantliei, commonly known as the great four-ring butterfly, is a species belonging to the Satyrinae subfamily of butterflies.
• Ypthima is a genus of Old World butterflies with over 100 species, 40 of which occur in India alone.
• Characteristics: The great four-ring has dull brown-grey wings with three yellow-ringed single eye spots (ocelli) on its hind wing and a large bi-pupilled apical ocellus obscurely ringed with yellow on the forewing above. 
  • It is larger compared to other species of the genus Ypthima.
• The highest Ypthima diversity is in China. The diversity is also vast in Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar apart from the northeastern part of India.
  • It belongs to Nymphalidae, the largest family of butterflies that has more than 6,000 species worldwide.
• Historical Context: The last sighting of the great four-ring was in 1957 in Margherita, Assam
• Northeast India, particularly Arunachal Pradesh, is a butterfly biodiversity haven, accounting for 23 of all the Ypthima species recorded in the country. 
  • The largest of these, the great four-ring butterfly, had not been encountered since the 1950s.

Astra Missile

About 200 Astra Mark 1 air-to-air missiles:

• The Astra Mark 1 missiles have been developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation with BDL as its production agency. 
• Astra is a Beyond Visual Range (BVR) class of air-to-air missile system designed to be mounted on fighter aircraft. 
• Guidance System: The missile uses an inertial guidance system driven by a fibre optic gyroscope with terminal guidance through active radar homing.
• LOBL& LOAL Feature : It offers the pilot option to choose between “Lock on Before Launch – LOBL” and “Lock on After Launch – LOAL” and later allows the aircraft to shoot and scoot to safety after firing the missile in the direction of the target.
• The missile is designed to engage and destroy highly manoeuvring supersonic aircraft.
• Range:  It has a range of 80-110 km reaching Mach 4.5 speed. 
• The missile has all weather day and night capability. 
• It is based on an advanced solid-fuel ducted ramjet (SFDR) engine technology.
• The missile is being developed in multiple variants to meet specific requirements. 

About Bharat Dynamics Limited:

• Established in 1970
• It is a government of India Enterprise under the Ministry of Defence and a manufacturer of surface-to-air missiles, air-to-air missiles, Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGMs), torpedoes, and allied defence equipment. 
• Headquarters of the company: It is located at Hyderabad. 
• Three manufacturing units: Located at Kanchanbagh, Hyderabad, Bhanur in Sangareddy district of Telangana and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.