Notes:
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) decreased India’s GDP growth forecast to 4.8 per cent for this fiscal year, which is 1.3 percentage point lesser than its previous estimates.
The IMF also projected that India’s economy will grow by 5.8 per cent next year and 6.5 per cent in 2021-2022. The Global economic growth rate was also lowered by the IMF to be 3.3 % in the current year and 3.4 % in 2022. India’s GDP forecast dip was mainly due to the NBFC crisis and weak demand in rural India. The slowdown in India is said to be the reason for cut in global growth rate.

Notes:
The Ministry of Agriculture recently released the State-wise horticulture production data for the year 2018-19. As per the data, West Bengal was the top State in vegetable production with 29.55 million tonnes (mt) of vegetables last year. The state accounted for 15.9 % of the country’s total vegetable production in 2018-19.
The number one state during 2017-18 was Uttar Pradesh, which is pushed to the second place this year, with 27.71 mt vegetables. In fruit production, Andhra Pradesh continued to hold the top spot with 17.61 mt, followed by Maharashtra with 10.82 mt.

Notes:
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the proposal of the Department of the Financial Services (DFS) for appointing Challa Sreenivasulu Setty as the Managing Director of the State Bank of India (SBI).
Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, who is currently serving as the Deputy managing director of the country’s largest lender, has been appointed as the MD of the SBI for a period of three years. Last year, an MD of SBI, Anshula Kant was appointed as the MD and Chief Financial Officer of World Bank.

Notes:
In the recently released World Economic Forum’s Social Mobility Index, India was ranked at 76 out of 82 countries. Denmark was placed at the first rank in the inaugural edition of the index.
The index assessed the countries across five key dimensions, which are health, education, technology, work and protections& institutions and ten pillars distributed among the five dimensions. According to the index, the most socially mobile societies in the world are all European, the first five spots being held by Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland.

Notes:
Oxfam, a confederation of charitable organizations and rights group recently released the ‘Time to care’ report, which focussed on global inequalities. The report said that inequalities pertaining at the global level is deep-rooted and vast while the number of billionaires has doubled in the last decade.
It also revealed a comparison that the total wealth of 63 Indian billionaires is higher than the total Union Budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19 (Rs 24,42,200 crore). It also suggested that gender inequalities must be resolved for an inclusive development.