Why in news?

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) will be regulated and supervised as an All India Financial Institution by it under the Sections 45L and 45N of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Act, 1934.
• NaBFID has been set up as a Development Financial Institution (DFI) to support the development of long-term infrastructure financing in India.
• It shall be the 5^th AIFI after Export Import (EXIM) Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), National Housing Bank (NHB) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).

Background:

• The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Act, 2021, received the assent of the President on March 28, 2021 and came into force with effect from April 19, 2021.

Key points

• The Bill seeks to establish NaBFID as the principal development financial institution (DFIs) for infrastructure financing.
• DFIs are set up for providing long-term finance for commercial banks that are beyond the acceptable limits of commercial banks and other ordinary financial institutions.
• Unlike banks, DFIs do not accept deposits from people and source funds from the market, government, as well as multilateral institutions, and are often supported through government guarantees.

About NaBFID

• NaBFID is being set up as a corporate body with authorized share capital of one lakh crore rupees.
• Shares of NaBFID is held by central government, multilateral institutions, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurers, financial institutions, banks, and any other institution prescribed by the central government.
• Initially, the central government will own 100% shares of the institution which may subsequently be reduced up to 26%.

Objectives of NaBFID

• Financial objectives – This will directly or indirectly lend, invest, or attract investments for infrastructure projects located entirely or partly in India.
• Developmental objectives – This includes the development of the market for bonds, loans, and derivatives for infrastructure financing.

Functions

• NaBFID extends loans and advances for infrastructure projects, refinances existing loans, attracts investment from private sector investors and institutional investors for infrastructure projects, organises and facilitates foreign participation in infrastructure projects, facilitates negotiations with various government authorities for dispute resolution in the field of infrastructure financing, and provides consultancy services in infrastructure financing.

Governance:

• NaBFID will be governed by a Board of Directors and members that includes,
• Chairperson appointed by the central government in consultation with RBI.
• Managing Director (MD) along with 3 Deputy Managing Directors.
• A body constituted by the central government will recommend candidates for the post of the Managing Director and Deputy Managing Directors.
• Two directors nominated by the central government with up to three directors elected by shareholders and also few independent directors (as specified).
• The Board will appoint independent directors based on the recommendation of an internal committee.

Why in news?

• World Kidney Day(WKD) is annually observed across the globe on the 2nd Thursday of March to create awareness about several kidney diseases and to educate about the significance of kidneys in our overall health.
• The day also aims to advance kidney health education and focuses on preventive interventions to prevent the onset and progression of kidney diseases.
• World Kidney Day 2022 falls on 10th March 2022.
• The theme of World Kidney Day 2022 is “Kidney Health for All: Bridge the knowledge gap to better kidney care”.
• World Kidney Day was first launched on 9th March 2006 and the day was fully inaugurated on 8th March 2007.

About Chronic Kidney Disease:

• Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a progressive loss in kidney function over a period of months or years.
• About 85 crore people across the globe have some form of a kidney illness. Based on rough estimates, about 10 crore people have chronic kidney disease (irreversible kidney failure) in India.
• Between 8 and 10% of the adult population have some form of kidney damage, and every year millions die prematurely of complications related to CKD.
• High blood pressure (hypertension) and diabetes are the most common causes of kidney disease.

Why in news?

• The United Nations(UN) celebrated the first-ever annual observance of the International Day of Women Judges on 10th March 2022.
• Starting from 2022 the 10th March will be annually celebrated across the globe as International Day of Women Judges to promote the full and equal participation of women at all levels of the judiciary.
• The day also celebrates the progress that has been made and raises awareness about the challenges ahead.
• The United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) adopted the resolution in April 2021 and proclaimed the 10th March of every year as the International Day of Women Judges. The resolution was drafted by the State of Qatar.
• Gender Equality & Women Judges:
• Gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls – Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 is one of the crucial steps to achieve progress across all the SDG.
• Observance in India:
• The Supreme Court of India commemorated the first-ever International Day of Women Judges with special programmes organised by the Supreme Court Registry.
• First Women Judge of SC: In 1989, Fathima Beevi (from Kerala) became the first female judge in the Supreme Court, a position she held till her retirement on 29 April 1992.

Why in news?

• Cabinet has approved the establishment of the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine (GCTM) in Jamnagar, Gujarat by signing a Host Country agreement between the Government of India and the WHO.
• This would be the first and only global outposted Centre, under Ministry of AYUSH for traditional medicine across the globe.
• Benefits of GCTM
• To position AYUSH systems across the globe.
• To provide leadership on global health matters pertaining to traditional medicine.
• To ensure quality, safety and efficacy, accessibility and rational use of traditional medicine.
• To develop norms, standards, and guidelines in relevant technical areas for collecting data undertaking analytics, and assess impact.
• To develop specific capacity building and training programmes in the areas of relevance to the objectives and conduct training programmes.
• Other steps taken to promote traditional medicine
• Scheme for Voluntary Certification of Yoga Professionals.
• Yoga Certification Board (YCB) has been established to bring synergy, quality and uniformity in knowledge.
• AYUSH Information Cell have been set up in 31 countries to disseminate authentic information about AYUSH system.

About Traditional medicine:

• It refers to health practices, approaches, knowledge, and beliefs incorporating plant, spiritual therapies, etc to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being.
• It composes of Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) and Sowa Rigpa.

Why in news?

• Indian researchers have built a low-energy security chip to prevent side channel attacks (SCA) on loT (Internet of Things) devices.
• SCA aims to extract sensitive information like cryptographic keys, proprietary machine learning models and parameters by measuring things like timing information, power consumption and electromagnetic leaks of a system.
• They are also referred to as sidebar attack or an implementation attack.
• They are difficult to detect and defend against.
• Types of SCAs: Timing attack, Electromagnetic (EM) attack, Acoustic, Power, Optical, memory Cache, hardware weaknesses.

Why in news?

• On 7th March, Gujarat government marked 100 years of the Pal-Dadhvav killings.
• Pal-Dadhvav massacre took place in the Pal-Chitariya and Dadhvaav villages of Sabarkantha district part of War state (was princely state in Gujarat).
• The movement was to protest against the land revenue tax (lagaan) imposed on the peasants by the British and feudal lords.
• British officer Major H.G. Sutton from Mewad Bhil Corps ordered to open fire at the innocent tribals.

Why in news?

• Assam’s Manas National Park witnesses sharp rise in tiger, rhino population.

About Manas National Park

• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tiger Reserve, Elephant Reserve, Biosphere Reserve, National Park and also a Wildlife Sanctuary.
• Located in the Himalayan foothills, it is contiguous with the Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan.
• It spans the Manas River and is bounded to the north by the forests of Bhutan.
• Manas river is a major tributary of Brahmaputra River, which passes through the heart of the national park.
• It provides habitat to rare and endangered species, including tiger, greater one-horned rhino, swamp deer, pygmy hog and Bengal florican.

Why in news?

• Introduced by: National Health Authority (NHA)
• GCP aims to expedite insurance claim adjustments for empaneled hospitals treating AB PM-JAY beneficiaries.
• Under it, Hospitals with good records will be instantly reimbursed 50% of the bill for any treatment under scheme through this channel.
• Currently, the empanelled hospital receives payment once its claim is approved and paid by the State Health Agency (SHA) which is 15 days for non-portability claims and 30 days for portability claims.
• Significance of GCP
• Timely and judicious adjustments of claims raised by hospitals, which is key to the effective implementation of AB PM-JAY scheme.
• Encourage greater participation of hospitals in providing treatment to AB PM-JAY beneficiaries.

 About AB PM-JAY:

• It is an insurance scheme that offers cashless and paperless annual healthcare services benefits of up to Rs. 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.
• It is the world’s largest Government funded health assurance scheme. > Beneficiary families under AB-PMJAY are identified from the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011
• Launched in 2018, it is implemented by NHA (attached office of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare).
• It is implemented in all States and UTs barring West Bengal, NCT of Delhi and Odisha.

Why in news?

• Ministry of Coal said that imports of all grades of Non-Coking Coal has come down by around 20% during April to December 2021 as compared to the corresponding months of 2020.
• Non-Coking Coal does not have any caking properties and it is mainly used as thermal coal for power generation.
• It has higher ash content.
• It is used in industries like cement, fertilizer, glass, ceramic, paper, chemical and brick manufacturing.
• Coking coal, also known as metallurgical coal, is used to create coke, one of the key irreplaceable inputs for the production of steel

Why in news?

• It has been launched by: RBI and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
• UPI123pay is a three-step method to initiate and execute services for users which will work on Feature phones.
• It can be used to make digital payments without the need for an internet connection.
• Users can perform a few offline steps and easily make UPI payments.
• This helps in digital innovations which will further deepen the digital ecosystem and financial inclusion in the country.
• Additionally, RBI launched DigiSaathi – a 24×7 Helpline to address the queries of digital payment users across products.