DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

According to a new study, active equity funds witnessed higher net inflows than passive equity funds in the Q2 of FY24.

• Equity fund – It is a mutual fund that invests principally in stocks and thus called as stock funds which generally carry a high risk for long-term investments but can yield substantial returns over time.
• These are categorized into small, mid, and large-cap based on the size of the company.

A mutual fund collects money from investors and invests the money, on their behalf, in securities (debt, equity or both).

Expense ratio is the annual maintenance charge levied by mutual funds to finance its expenses that includes annual operating costs, including management fees, allocation charges, advertising costs, etc. of the fund.

Capital gains taxes are owed on the profits from the sale of most investments if they are held for at least 1 year.

According to the Global TB Report 2023, India accounts for 27% of the total TB cases in the world.

• It is annual report by World Health Organisation (WHO) since 1997.
• Global Tuberculosis Report 2023 – It provides a comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of
  • TB epidemic
  • Progress in prevention, diagnosis and treatment
  • At global, regional and country levels.
• Data source – Data from national ministries of health.
• Coverage – 192 countries and areas (out of 215) with more than 99% of the world’s population and TB cases reported data.
• Report Findings – TB remains the world’s second leading cause of death from a single infectious agent.
• The net reduction from 2015 to 2022 was 8.7%, far from the WHO End TB Strategy milestone of a 50% reduction by 2025.
• COVID-related disruptions have resulted in almost half a million excess deaths from TB in the three years 2020–2022.
• The treatment success rates improved to 88% for people treated for drug-susceptible TB and 63% for people with MDR/RR-TB.

Findings of report for India

• Infected population – Nearly 28.2 lakh people got TB in India in 2022, meaning 1 person gets TB every 11 seconds in India.
• India’s contribution to the global burden – It is at 27%, which is 1% down from the previous year’s 28%.
• Reporting of TB cases – It increased crossing even the pre-pandemic high with 24.2 lakh cases in 2022.
• Treatment coverage - It increased to 80% and India was among only 4 countries among the 30 high-burden countries to achieve this.
• TB Mortality - A reduction in India’s contribution towards global mortality from 36% in the previous years to 26% in 2022.
• India was the only country to have completed a National TB prevalence survey since 2019.
• Currently, 199 new TB cases per lakh population is observed in India.

• White goods are large home appliances and electrical goods for the house which were traditionally available only in white.
• Example - Stoves, Refrigerators, Freezers, Washing machines, Tumble driers, Dishwashers, Air conditioners, LED lights, Water heaters, Microwave ovens, Induction cookers.
• It also refer to white fabrics, especially linen or cotton that are historically used to be made of white cloth.

In the beverage industry, white goods are colorless spirits, such as vodka or gin.

• Location - South West Iceland, on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
• It is a volcanically active region that runs along the Mid-Atlantic Rift, where the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates are drifting apart.

Recently, the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted in this region.

• Also known as “LockBit Black”, LockBit 3.0 is a ransomware, a type of malware that locks a victim’s data or device unless the victim pays a ransom to the attacker.
• It operates under the business model of "ransomware-as-a-service".

Recently, the US arm of the China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), world’s largest lender in terms of assets, was hit by Lockbit 3.0.

• It is a proposed canal through Israel that would connect the Gulf of Aqaba (Red Sea) to the Mediterranean Sea.
• It was named after David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father and 1^st Prime Minister.
• The project was envisioned in the 1960s to create an alternative route to the Suez Canal and challenge Egypt's monopoly on the shortest trade route between Europe and Asia.

• They are fireworks made with a reduced shell size without ash, and use additives such as dust suppressants to reduce emissions and particulate matter.
• These crackers lack barium compounds that is responsible for the green hue and noise pollution.
• The idea was introduced by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Environmental Engineering Research Insititute (CSIR-NEERI) in 2018.
• 3 broad categories of green crackers - SWAS (safe water releaser), SAFAL (safe minimal aluminium) and STAR (safe thermite cracker)