The 8th edition of the exercise is scheduled at Umroi, Meghalaya.
The theme is counter terrorism under United Nations mandate.
Two tactical exercises - counter terrorism scenario and Humanitarian and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations are scheduled.
The aim of the exercise is to practice joint planning and conduct of counter terrorist operations in semi urban terrain.
Manufacturing PMI
Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is an indicator of the economic health and investor sentiments about the manufacturing sector (Manufacturing PMI) and services sector (Services PMI).
Recent PMI survey has showed that Manufacturing activity increased in November from a two-year low in the previous month.
The value of the Index rose to 51.2 in November, up from 50.6 in October.
It is driven by a modest increase in the growth of new orders and production.
PMI - Its purpose is to provide information about current business conditions to company decision makers, analysts and purchasing managers.
It is based on five major indicators: new orders, inventory levels, production, supplier deliveries, and the employment environment
For India, the PMI Data is published by Japanese firm Nikkei but compiled and constructed by Markit Economics.
In a PMI survey, a standard questionnaire is administered to business entities.
The respondents can either give a “Positive, Neutral or Negative” response and each response is marked as “1, 0.5 or 0” on the score card respectively.
In adding up the response, a reading above 50 indicates economic expansion, while a reading below 50 points shows contraction of economic activities.
IIP - IIP measures actual production output across the industrial sector.
It shows the change in production volume in major industrial subsectors like manufacturing, mining and electricity. It covers broader industrial sector compared to PMI.
As it is a comparison over the previous year, it is season neutral.
PMI shows the growth oriented positive trends and not just the volume of past production that can be traced in an ordinary Index of Industrial Production.
The PMI is released on the 1st of every month and the IIP is known on the 12th, the PMI score is assumed to be a precursor to the IIP.
But the correlation between PMI and IIP isn’t strong and the relationship between the two variables is quite low and insignificant.
Power of Siberia Gas Pipeline
Russia, one of the world's largest exporters of natural gas, is launching a major pipeline from Siberia to China.
The power of Siberia gas pipeline is the first cross-border gas pipeline between Russia and China.
The pipeline will cover 8,000 km connecting Siberia to China’s Yangtze river delta in Shanghai.
Route – Gas is being sourced from Chayandinskoye and Kovytka fields in eastern Siberia, and is then piped to Blagoveshchensk, the last town on the Russian side of the border.
From there, it is tunnelled under the Amur River, before entering Heihe on the Chinese side which stretches for 5,111 km inside china.
Under the agreement, Russia will deliver 1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas to China over the next 30 years.
The project is anchored by a $400 billion gas deal.
Operation Clean Art
Operation Clean Art is the first pan India operation to crackdown on the smuggling of mongoose hair in the country.
It was conceived by the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) with the aim of closing down the mongoose hairbrush trade across the country.
An adult mongoose yields over 30-40 gm of long hair, from which only 20-25 gm of “brush-making hair” is recovered.
The mongoose is listed in Schedule II Part 2 of the Wildlife Protection Act.
Any smuggling or possession of its body part is a non-bailable offence.
Most of these animals were poached by hunting communities across the country and its hair is used as brushes by artists community for its superior quality and better colour.
Tiger Corridors
The National Tiger Conservation Authority in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India has mapped out 32 major tiger corridors across the country.
The management interventions in these corridors will be operationalised through a Tiger Conservation Plan, mandated under section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
