• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has approved a 4 billion euro capital increase that will enable the bank to double its Ukraine investments once reconstruction there begins.

ABOUT EBRD

• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution created with the aim to assist countries of the former Eastern Bloc in developing their private sector.
• Established- 1991
• Headquarters – London, UK
• The EBRD is owned by 72 countries and two EU institutions- European Union and the European Investment Bank.
  • India was inducted as 69^th member of EBRD in 2018.
• It provides project financing mainly for private enterprises, usually together with other commercial lending partners, in countries that are committed to, and apply, democratic principles.
• It also works with public partners to support privatisation, restructuring and improvement of municipal services.
• It prioritizes support for countries in Central and West Asia, and North Africa.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced an extension of the Payments Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) scheme until December 31, 2025.
• This extension aims to continue fostering financial inclusion and supporting the country’s payment infrastructure.
• The corpus of PIDF stands at Rs 1026.4 crore as of November 30,2023.

ABOUT PIDF SCHEME

• Launched in January 2021 for a three-year period.
• The PIDF scheme is designed to offer financial aid to banks and non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) for the deployment of point-of-sale terminals and other payment acceptance infrastructure.
• It promotes digital payment infrastructure in tier-3 to tier-6 centers, northeastern states, and the UTs of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
• Beneficiaries of the PM Vishwakarma Scheme nationwide have been incorporated as merchants eligible for deployment under PIDF.
• PIDF is governed through an Advisory Council and managed and administered by RBI.

NEW CHANGES

• Sound Box devices and Aadhaar-enabled biometric devices are now eligible for subsidies under the scheme.
• The subsidy for specific focus areas, including the North Eastern states and Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, has been standardised at 90% of the device cost, irrespective of the device type.

• Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change launched the National Transit Pass System (NTPS) pan-India to facilitate the seamless transit of timber, bamboo, and other forest produce across the country.
  • Currently, the transit permits are issued for transport of timber and forest produce based on state specific transit rules.

ABOUT NTPS

• The NTPS is envisioned as a “One Nation-One Pass” regime, which will enable seamless transit across the country.
• This initiative will streamline the issuance of timber transit permits by providing a unified, online mode for tree growers and farmers involved in agroforestry across the country, contributing to the ease of doing business.
• Presently, 25 States and Union Territories have embraced the unified permit system, streamlining interstate business operations for producers, farmers, and transporters.
• This move is expected to provide a significant impetus to the agroforestry sector.

FEATURES

• It is a role based and work flow based application available as desktop based web portal as well as mobile application.
• Online registration and submission of the applications for Transit Permit (TP) or No Objection Certificate (NOC) through web-portal and mobile app
• Transit permits will be issued for tree species which are regulated, while the users can self-generate No Objection Certificates for exempted species.
• E-payment system: Payment can be made online through mobile app/web portal before downloading T.P.

• Amid international criticism of Israel for its continued bombing of Gaza, South Africa moved the International Court of Justice (ICJ), for an urgent order declaring that Israel was in breach of its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
• As per the UN’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such-
  • Killing members of the group;
  • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

About ICJ

• It is a United Nations platform for resolving disputes between states.
• Also known as the World Court.
• Established- June 1945 by the Charter of the United Nations
• The seat of the Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague (Netherlands).
• It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
• The hearings of the ICJ are always public.
• Official languages of the Court- French and English
• It is composed of 15 judges, all from different countries, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and the Security Council (UNSC).
  • Elections are held every three years when one-third of the court judges retire.
• The International Court of Justice has no jurisdiction over individuals who are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
• It cannot take up cases on will and has to be requested to do so by the States.

• Former European Commission President Jacques Delors, who was a key figure in the creation of the euro currency died
  • He was 98.
• From 1985 to 1995, he served as the head of the European Commission, overseeing a transformative decade marked by significant strides in the bloc’s integration.
• This period witnessed milestones such as the establishment of the common market, the implementation of the Schengen accords for travel, the initiation of the Erasmus programme for student exchanges, and the introduction of the euro as the bloc’s single currency.

• Cybersecurity researchers have identified a potent variant of the infamous ‘Chameleon Trojan’ malware, posing a substantial risk to Android device users.
• This advanced version exhibits the alarming ability to disable biometric authentication methods, including fingerprint and face unlock, to sneakily access sensitive information.
• The malware strategically attaches itself to legitimate Android applications, such as the widely used Google Chrome, effectively avoiding immediate detection.

Operating discreetly in the background, Chameleon Trojan can disable biometric security measures, specifically targeting PINs.

• An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale occurred in Japan’s Kuril Islands

ABOUT KURIL ISLANDS

• The Kuril Islands are stretched from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula separating the Okhotsk Sea from the North Pacific Ocean.
• These are located on Pacific Ring of Fire and contain at least 100 volcanoes, of which 35 are still active, and many hot springs.
• Dispute
  • The Kuril Islands dispute between Japan and Russia is over the sovereignty of South Kuril Islands that comprise of Etorofu island, Kunashiri island, Shikotan island and the Habomai island.

• An international team of researchers have developed a method to model the observable signs of a kilonova explosion from the explosive merger of two orbiting neutron stars.
• Neutron stars are superdense astrophysical objects formed at the end of a massive star’s life in a supernova explosion.
  • Sometimes, neutron stars orbit each other in binary systems.
  • These systems constantly lose energy by emitting gravitational waves until they eventually collide and merge.
  • Such mergers let researchers study the physical properties of the most extreme conditions in the universe.
  • For example, the conditions of these high-energy collisions lead to the formation of heavy elements like gold.

• Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft entered into orbit around the moon after a months-long journey, and ahead of its planned moon-landing attempt in January 2024.
• Its apogee (farthest point) in this orbit is 4,000 km and perigee (closest point) is 600 km above the lunar surface.
• If the attempt succeeds, Japan will become only the fifth country to soft-land a robotic craft on the natural satellite, months after India succeeded with its Chandrayaan 3 mission in August.

About SLIM

• SLIM is a spacecraft built and launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on September 7, 2023, from the Tanegashima spaceport.
• It weighed only 590 kg at launch.
• SLIM was launched together with XRISM, a next-generation X-ray space telescope, onboard an H-2A rocket.
  • The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) is a joint mission of the JAXA and NASA, with contributions from the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canadian Space Agency as well.
  • It aims to observe X-rays coming from deep space and to identify their wavelengths with unprecedented precision.

• New royal Bengal tiger pictures have been clicked by trap cameras installed at the Neora Valley National Park.

ABOUT NEORA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

• The Neora Valley National Park (NVNP) is located in Darjeeling, West bengal, covers a total area of 88 km².
• NVNP is a compact patch of virgin forest, rich in biodiversity located in the Eastern Himalayas, a global ‘biodiversity hotspot’.
• It is contiguous with Sikkim and Bhutan at its northern and north-eastern boundaries respectively and links the Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary in Sikkim and the Toorsa Strict Reserve of Bhutan.
• It was notified as a National Park in 1992.
• It is also an integral part of the Kanchenjunga Landscape.
• It is unique and ecologically important as it includes a relatively inaccessible patch of late successional forests and with rich diversity and a wide range of environment gradients.
• Vegetation includes – Subtropical Mixed Broadleaf Forest, Lower Temperate Evergreen Forest, Upper Temperate Mixed Broadleaf Forest and Rhododendron Forest.
• Flora- Rhododendrons, Oaks, Bamboo, Ferns and Medicinal plants.
• Fauna– Red Panda, Himalayan Tahr, Himalayan Black Bear, Clouded Leopard, Barking Deer, Sambar Deer etc.