27th September, 2021 Current Affairs

20th September, 2021 Current Affairs

NATIONAL

PM Modi launched Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

• In a historic initiative, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission on 27th September 2021 at 11 AM via video conferencing.
• The pilot project of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission had been announced by the Prime Minister from the ramparts of Red Fort on 15th August, 2020.
• Currently, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission is being implemented in pilot phase in six Union Territories.
• The nation-wide rollout of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission coincides with NHA celebrating the third anniversary of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY).

About Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission

• The key components of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission include a health ID for every citizen that will also work as their health account, to which personal health records can be linked and viewed with the help of a mobile application; a Healthcare Professionals Registry (HPR) and Healthcare Facilities Registries (HFR) that will act as a repository of all healthcare providers across both modern and traditional systems of medicine.
• This will ensure ease of doing business for doctors/hospitals and healthcare service providers.
• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission Sandbox, created as a part of the Mission, will act as a framework for technology and product testing that will help organizations, including private players, intending to be a part of National Digital Health Ecosystem become a Health Information Provider or Health Information User or efficiently link with building blocks of Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission.
• This Mission will create interoperability within the digital health ecosystem, similar to the role played by the Unified Payments Interface in revolutionizing payments. Citizens will only be a click-away from accessing healthcare facilities.

India’s clean energy commitments at UN summit

• During the first leader-level meeting on energy, under the UN General Assembly, India has made commitments to increase the renewable energy installed capacity to 450 GW by 2030.
• India has also committed to develop and implement a National Hydrogen Energy Mission in order to boost the annual green hydrogen production to 1 MT by 2030.
• It also announced to start a Production Linked Incentive Scheme which will help in adding 10 GW solar PV manufacturing capacity by 2025.
• India’s commitments were the part of new multi-billion-dollar commitments that countries made in order to increase renewables and access to electricity & clean cooking technologies at the critical summit.
• The summit was aimed at boosting efforts towards reducing the ranks of about 800 million people living in energy poverty. It also seeks to set the world on a trajectory towards net-zero-emissions by 2050.
• India also announced to establish a 15 MMT production capacity of compressed biogas by 2024 and achieve 20 per cent ethanol blending in petrol by the year 2025-26. It seeks to enhance energy efficiency in agriculture, industry, buildings and transport sectors besides promoting energy-efficient appliances & equipment in a bid to reduce India’s emissions intensity of GDP by 33-35 per cent by 2030.

Anurag Thakur announces month-long nationwide Clean India Drive from Oct 1

• The Government will launch a month-long nationwide Clean India Drive to clean waste, mainly single-use plastic from 1st October to 31st October this year.
• It is our resolve to create a plastic-free India, an India of Gandhiji’s dreams and as per the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which Swachchta occupies the topmost priority.
• The Minister has urged everybody to join the drive with fervor and help achieve the goal of Sankalp Se Siddhi.
• It will be the largest cleanliness drive of the world in which more than 75 lakh tonnes of waste, primarily plastic waste, from different parts of the country will be collected and further processed in a Waste to Wealth model. The drive aims to propagate the mantra of Clean India: Safe India.

INTERNATIONAL
Iceland falls just short of female majority parliament

• Iceland briefly celebrated electing a female-majority parliament before a recount produced a result just short of that landmark for gender parity in the North Atlantic island nation.
• The initial vote count had female candidates winning 33 seats in Iceland’s 63-seat parliament, the Althing, in an election that saw centrist parties make the biggest gains.
• A recount in western Iceland changed the outcome, leaving female candidates with 30 seats, a tally previously reached at Iceland’s second most recent election, in 2016. Still, at almost 48% of the total, that is the highest percentage for women lawmakers in Europe. Only a handful of countries, none of them in Europe, have a majority of female lawmakers.
• According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Rwanda leads the world with women making up 61 percent of its Chamber of Deputies, with Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico at or just over the 50 percent mark. Worldwide, the organization says just over a quarter of legislators are women.

Bangladesh: ADB approves USD 250 million loan for economic recovery programme

• The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a USD 250 million loan to Bangladesh for economic recovery following the COVID 19 pandemic in the country. This is the first installment of the USD 500 million Sustainable Economic Recovery Programmes for Bangladesh.
• The Sustainable Economic Recovery Programme aims to generate employment and expand economic activities for micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses.
• The loan will support the government’s planned investment in education, health, social protection and infrastructure to help stimulate economic activities and recovery. It is also aligned with Bangladesh’s aspiration to become an upper middle-income country by 2031.
• ADB Principal Financial Management Specialist Srinivasan Janardanam said that the programme is expected to increase the efficiency in public investment management and create a favorable environment for access to credit, particularly for the poor and vulnerable.
• The program aims to expand the tax base, improve compliance and strengthen enforcement, rationalize tax exemptions, and modernize tax administration. It will also encourage more women-led start-ups by earmarking 10 percent of new start-up financing for them.

US hands over 157 artefacts & antiquities to India

• 157 artefacts & antiquities were handed over by the United States during Prime Minister Modi’s visit.
• PM conveyed his deep appreciation for the repatriation of antiquities to India by the United States. PM Modi & US President Biden committed to strengthening their efforts to combat the theft, illicit trade and trafficking of cultural objects.
• The list of 157 artefacts includes a diverse set to items ranging from the one and a half metre bas relief panel of Revanta in sandstone of the 10th CE to the 8.5cm tall, exquisite bronze Nataraja from the 12th CE. The items largely belong to the period of 11th CE to 14th CE as well as historic antiquities such as the copper anthropomorphic object of 2000 BC or the terracotta vase from the 2nd CE. Some 45 antiquities belong to the Before Common Era.
• While half of the artifacts (71) are cultural, the other half consists of figurines which relate to Hinduism (60), Buddhism (16) and Jainism (9).
• Their make spreads across metal, stone and terracotta. The bronze collection primarily contains ornate figurines of the well-known postures of Lakshmi Narayana, Buddha, Vishnu, Siva Parvathi and the 24 Jain Tirthankaras and the less common Kankalamurti, Brahmi and Nandikesa besides other unnamed deities and divine figures.
• The motifs include religious sculptures from Hinduism (Three headed Brahma, Chariot Driving Surya, Vishnu and his Consorts, Siva as Dakshinamurti, Dancing Ganesha etc), Buddhism (Standing Buddha, Boddhisattva Majushri, Tara) and Jainism (Jain Tirthankara, Padmasana Tirthankara, Jaina Choubisi) as well as secular motifs (Amorphous couple in Samabhanga, Chowri Bearer, Female playing drum etc).
• There are 56 terracotta pieces (Vase 2nd CE, Pair of Deer 12th CE, Bust of Female 14th CE) and an 18th CE sword with sheath with inscription mentioning Guru Hargovind Singh in Persian).
• This continues the efforts by the Modi Government to bring back our antiquities & artefacts from across the world.

China declares all Cryptocurrency transactions illegal

• Central bank of China has declared all the Cryptocurrency transactions illegal on September 23, 2021.
• The global values of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin have massively fluctuated in during 2020-2021 partly due to Chinese regulations that sought to prevent speculation and money laundering.
• According to People’s Bank of China (PBOC), Virtual currency-related business activities are illegal financial activities.
• Offenders will be “investigated for criminal liability” in accordance with the law.
• Chinese notice has banned all the related financial activities involving cryptocurrencies like transactions involving virtual currency derivatives, selling tokens, trading crypto, and illegal fundraising.
• According to People’s Bank of China, trading of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies had become widespread and are disrupting economic & financial order. It also gave rise to money laundering, fraud, illegal fund-raising, pyramid schemes and other illegal & criminal activities. These disruptions were seriously endangering the safety of assets of the people. Considering these facts, China has declared all the Cryptocurrency transactions illegal.

Switzerland legalises Same-sex Marriage

• Voters in Switzerland decided to legalize same-sex marriage on September 26, 2021. It makes Switzerland one of the last countries in Western Europe to do so.
• Apart from opening up the option of marriage to all couples, government also approved an amendment to Switzerland’s marriage law which was put to voters in a referendum.
• This law also grants lesbian couples to get access to sperm banks as well as allows same-sex couples to adopt children.
• Under the amended law, same-sex couples will be able to have a civil wedding. They will be granted the same institutional and legal rights as heterosexual couples.
• They will be granted simplified naturalization for foreign partner.
• Law was approved through a referendum, in which polls predicted widespread approval for same-sex marriage in the country.
• Same-sex couples in Switzerland have been able to enter into a civil partnership since 2007. It grants them some legal rights. However, it is not equal to a marriage.
• Italy is the only country in Western Europe which does not allow marriage between same-sex couples. It only allows civil unions.

 

ECONOMY

RBI permits transfer of fraud loans to ARCs.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed, on September 23, 2021, lenders to sell loans that are tagged as fraud to the Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs).
• This permission by RBI potentially paves the way for focussed recovery efforts on loans worth trillions of rupees.
• As per RBI’s annual report, banks have reported frauds of about Rs. 95 trillion in between Financial Year 2019 and Financial Year 2021.
• With RBI’s permission, now banks can sell stressed loans in default for more than 60 days or those classified as bad loan including the fraudulent loans. However, this permission is subject to some conditions.
• However, transfer of these exposures to an ARC does not absolve the lender from fixing staff accountability which is required under the extant instructions on frauds.
• Currently, lenders are not permitted to transfer fraudulent loans to asset turnaround companies. But the recent change in norms will allow ARCs to buy more assets as well as the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) to partake in more asset resolutions. It will thus lead to a faster clean-up.

World Tourism Day is being observed

• World Tourism Day is being observed on 27-09-2021. This day is celebrated every year to foster awareness among the international community on the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political and economic value.
• Tourism Ministry will launch NIDHI 2.0 and India Tourism Statistics – At a Glance, 2021 in New Delhi.

India is in the unlocking phase and domestic tourism has re-started slowly and steadily. The Covid-19 pandemic has had an immense socio-economic impact worldwide and a gradual increase in domestic tourism will help for recovery and growth in many folds of the society.

Published date : 28 Sep 2021 05:44PM