Daily Current Affairs 05 August 2025 – IAS Current Affairs

Current Affairs 05 August 2025 focuses on the Prelims-Mains perspective. Major events are :

India’s Economy Dead?

Source: Money Control
GS III: Indian Economy

Overview

1. News in Brief
2. Is India’s Economy Dead
3. Where India lags?

Why in the News?

Trump says India’s economy, the fastest growing in the world, is ‘dead’.

News in Brief

• United States President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on India, as well as an unspecified “penalty” for buying military equipment and energy from Russia.
• Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal pushed back, saying that India had rapidly transformed from being one of the ‘fragile five’ to the fastest-growing major economy in the world in just over a decade.
• Last decade, the government has taken transformative measures to promote India as the manufacturing hub of the world.
• India’s young, skilled and talented workforce is driving innovation and competitiveness of the Indian industry.

Is India’s Economy Dead

• Simply put, India’s Economy is not dead
• The data throw up a picture that is obviously contrary to Trump’s contention that India, or even Russia, is are “dead” economy.
• According to the IMF, India’s economy is today almost 12 times its size in 1995.
• Only three economies have grown in size relative to the US: China, India, and Russia.
• India was less than 5% the size of the US economy in 1995, but in 2025 it is almost 14%.

What about other nations?

• US has now become four times its 1995 size, its closest trade partners, like the United Kingdom, have grown by less than 3 times, and Germany has failed to even double its economy.
• Japan’s GDP in 2025 is lower than what it was in 1995, which would, by this metric, qualify it to be not just a “dead” but perhaps a decaying economy.
• India also has not achieved the pace of growth that China did during its own journey.

Where India lags?

• There are many sectors that India wants to protect when it comes to international trade.
• India’s farm economy is plagued with distress, with the bulk of the farmers living at subsistence levels.
• Official data show that since 2019-20, manufacturing has registered a slower growth rate (CAGR of 4.04%) than even agriculture and allied activities (4.72%).
• Quality of growth and its distribution is acutely skewed, leading to widening inequalities and persistently high poverty.
• Human development metrics such as health and education, the situation is concerning.
• Unemployment in India rises to very high levels with rising educational attainment.

What are Cloudbursts?

Source: Hindustan Times
GS III: Disaster and disaster management

Overview

1. News in Brief
2. What are Cloudbursts?
3. Cloudburst Events in India

Why in the News?

Over 20 people have been killed in destruction caused by cloudbursts and flash floods in different parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand over the last three days.

News in Brief

• Isolated areas in these two states have reported heavy rainfall during this time.
• It triggering landslides and flash floods that have disrupted rail and road traffic, and resulted in house and wall collapses.
• In Uttarkashi Dharali Village Cloudburst reportedly damaging some buildings, hotels, and shops.

What are Cloudbursts?

• A cloudburst is a localised but intense rainfall activity.
• Short spells of very heavy rainfall over a small geographical area can cause widespread destruction, especially in hilly regions where this phenomenon is the most common.
• Not all instances of very heavy rainfall, however, are cloudbursts.
• Definition
  • Rainfall of 10 cm or more in an hour over a roughly 10 km x 10-km area is classified as a cloudburst event.
  • By this definition, 5 cm of rainfall in a half- hour period over the same area would also be categorized as a cloudburst.

Comparison with rainfall in India

• India receives about 116 cm of rainfall over the entire year.
• If the entire rainfall everywhere in India during a year were spread evenly over its area, the total accumulated water would be 116 cm high.
• There are huge geographical variations in rainfall within the country, and some areas receive over 10 times more than that amount in a year.
• But on average, any place in India can be expected to receive about 116 cm of rain in a year.
• During a cloudburst a place receives about 10% of its annual rainfall within an hour.

Cloudburst Events in India

• All the events can’t be described as cloudburst.
• Cloudburst happens only in a small area.
• Most of these happen in the Himalayan states, where the local topology, wind systems, and temperature gradients between the lower and upper atmosphere facilitate the occurrence of such events.
• Most of the times, cloudbursts can’t be measured as this rainfall happens in localised areas where we lack og measuring instruments.

Increasing frequency of Cloudbursts

• Incidents of extreme rainfall, as also other extreme weather events, are increasing.
• As a result of climate change the events of cloudbursts may also incraese.

India Meteorological Department forecasts

• The weather forecast of IMD is well advanced, still it can’t predict the amount of rainfall.
• Scientists do not have the capability to predict exactly how much rain is likely to fall at any given place.
• Forecast is not possible to predict the situation of localised areas.
• The predictions that can be expected are warnings for heavy to very heavy rainfall events, and these are routinely forecast four to five days in advance.

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