Banking, Financial and Economic Awareness of 14 and 15 July 2020

1. June 2020 WPI disinflation narrows

• WPI disinflation or reduction in rate of Wholesale Price Inflation (WPI) has narrowed from 3.21% in May 2020 to 1.80% in June 2020.
• In June 2019, Wholesale Price Inflation (WPI) or Wholesale Price Index (WPI)-based inflation was at 2.02%.
• In June 2020, food articles inflation stood at 2.4%. In June 2019, it stood at 7.33%. In May 2020, food article inflation stood at 1.13%.
• In June 2020, disinflation for fuel and power category was (-) 13.60%. In May 2020, it was (-) 19.83%.
• In June 2020, inflation for manufacturing products was at 0.08%.
• WPI Food Index based inflation has increased to 3.05% in June, 2020. In May 2020, it was 2.31%.
• The data about WPI and WPI based inflation are released by the office of economic adviser in Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.

2. UK announces complete removal of Huawei kits  

• UK has announced complete removal of Huawei kits from its 5G networks by 2027.
• UK has also banned buying of 5G kits from Chinese telecommunications manufacturer, Huawei after December 31, 2020.
• Recently, Indian telecom sector has also decided to ban Huawei and ZTE technology from bidding for 5G technology related auctions.
• Also, the US has banned these two Chinese companies citing them as national security threats.
• United Kingdom or UK is the common name for Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
• It lies in north-western Europe. UK's capital, London is located in England. UK's currency is pound sterling.

3. Airtel's video conferencing app BlueJeans

• BlueJeans is the name of the Airtel's newly launched video conferencing app.
• The app has been launched in partnership with Verizon, which is a US based telecom company.
• JioMeet was launched by Reliance Jio just two weeks ago.
• Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams and JioMeet are other competitors available in market.
• BlueJeans will be available free for first three months. Later, it will have nominal charges.
• BlueJeans have various security features such as meeting lock, randomised meeting IDs.
• It is available on Android, iOS, desktop and uses WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) and HTML5 (HyperText Markup Language) standards for browser-based access.

4. Google to invest Rs 75,000 crore in India

• Investment worth Rs 75,000 crore was recently announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
• The investment will be made through Google for India Digitisation Fund.
• Sundar Pichai also addressed sixth annual edition of the Google for India virtual event on July 13, 2020.
• He announced that the money will be used during next 5 to 7 years to accelerate India's digital economy. 

5. $1.2 billion raised by Flipkart

• Flipkart has raised $1.2 billion in a funding round under the leadership of Walmart.
• In 2018, Walmart has acquired majority stake in Flipkart for $16 billion.
• Other US based companies have also announced investment in Indian companies.
• In January, Amazon had invested $1 billion in India operations.
• In April, Facebook has invested $5.7 in Reliance Jio.
• Google has also announced $10 billion investment in India.

Read Banking Awareness PDF - 14 and 15 July 2020