India Volatility Index
Recently, India VIX surged above the critical threshold of 21, indicating heightened volatility in India’s stock market.
- A measure of the amount by which an underlying Index is expected to fluctuate, in the near term (30 calendar days).
- Higher the India VIX values, higher the expected volatility and vice-versa.
- Based on – Index option prices of NIFTY
- Uses computation methodology of Chicago Board of Options Exchange (CBOE), the 1st to introduce a volatility index for US markets in 1993.
Sahul
Archaeologists have found evidence of a lost landscape known as Sahul in the ancient times.
- A supercontinent exposed on the Earth’s surface during the last ice age due to glaciation, which lowered global sea levels.
- Sahul was above sea levels around 70,000 years ago and connected Australia, New Guinea, and neighboring islands like the Aru Islands.
- It helped humans travel across continents, from Asia to Australia almost 7,000 decades ago
Exercise Tarkash
The seventh edition of the Indo-U.S. joint counter-terrorism exercise ‘Tarkash’ was recently held in Kolkata.
- Held between – India’s National Security Guard (NSG) and U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF)
CAATSA
US State Department warned India of sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) after India-Iran deal on Chabahar port.
- A US federal law, enacted in 2017, which aims to punish countries having deep engagements with Russia, North Korea, and Iran using economic sanction.
- It entails economic & financial penalties for any nation that have significant transactions with Russian intelligence and military agents.
- In 2018, US House of Representatives passed an amendment to exempt India from economic sanctions under CAATSA for purchasing S-400 missile defence system from Russia.