About IRDAI:

• The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority is a statutory agency established by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority Act of 1999.
• IRDAI was founded as an independent body with its headquarters in New Delhi. In 2001, its headquarters were relocated to Hyderabad, Telangana. The Chairman and other members of the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority are appointed by the Indian Government.
• According to experts, IRDAI’s decision to permit ‘use and file’ facility for most of the insurance products will encourage insurers to come out with innovative covers quickly to the benefit of customers and also deepen the insurance penetration in the country.
• The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) extended the ‘use and file’ procedure for most of the life insurance products, thereby allowing insurers to launch new products without prior approval of the regulator.
• Earlier, similar relaxations were extended to all the health insurance products and almost all the general insurance products.
• According to experts, the relaxed norms for launching insurance products will also make insurers more responsible as they would be held accountable for the products which are offered in the marketplace without prior approval of IRDAI.
• It will support customer centricity and fuel product innovation, which in turn will boost insurance penetration in the country.

• Jammu and Kashmir, assessed for the first time, ranked the highest among Union Territories with an overall compliance of nearly 90 per cent for national e-governance service delivery assessment (NeSDA).
• The Report provides suggestions for governments to further enhance their e-governance service delivery systems.
• In the Union territories category, Jammu and Kashmir was assessed for the first time in NeSDA 2021 and scored the highest amongst all UTs for six sectors.
• Meghalaya and Nagaland are leading State Portals with an overall compliance of more than 90 per cent across all assessment parameters among northeast and hill states.
• Among Union territories, Jammu and Kashmir ranked highest with an overall compliance of nearly 90 per cent.
• Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh had a compliance of more than 85 per cent among the Remaining States category.
• Kerala had the highest overall compliance score amongst all the States and UTs.
• Among the Services Portals for North-East and Hill States, the highest-ranking states of Meghalaya and Tripura showed improvement across all six sectors compared to NeSDA 2019.
• Among the Remaining States, the overall score of Tamil Nadu increased the most in 2021 compared to 2019.
• Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab, Goa, and Odisha also improved the compliance of their Services Portals by 100 per cent.
• Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan are the leading states with compliance of more than 75 per cent across all parameters for their Services Portals.
• The second edition of the NeSDA has been prepared covering the assessment of states, Union Territories.
• It focuses on Central Ministries on their effectiveness in delivering online services to citizens.

• The European Union (EU) and India held the first-ever Security and Defence.
• The two sides reviewed their defence relations and evolving security situation in Europe, India’s neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific.
• The maiden dialogue between India and the EU took place in Brussels pursuant to a decision taken at the India-EU Summit in July 2020.
• The two sides noted a number of positive developments in the area of security and defence cooperation in recent years, including the establishment of a regular maritime security dialogue, which met for the second time in February 2022, the first-ever joint naval exercises held in June 2021, and a number of joint workshops on the subject of fostering maritime security.
• The two sides during the consultations also discussed various means of increasing India-EU cooperation on maritime security, implementation of the European code of conduct on arms export to India’s neighbourhood, cooperation in co-development and co-production of defence equipment, including India’s participation in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in the area of security and defence policy.
• Both sides agreed to increase India-EU defence and security cooperation as an important pillar of the bilateral strategic relations.
• According to the Embassy of India, Brussels, the next consultations will be held in Delhi at a mutually agreed convenient time.
• The dialogue took place at a time when the Ukraine conflict is raging and many European nations condemning Russia for it.
• India, so far, has abstained from voting against Moscow in the United Nations. However, India has all along called for dialogue to end the conflict at the earliest.

• In its bid to reduce the pain of animals like dogs and horses, a top veterinarian of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) has presented the country’s first clinical paper on the use of medical cannabis on canines to record the efficacy of the organic drug in alleviating the suffering from inflammation.
• It was a clinical use of medical cannabis on dogs belonging to private parents. This clinical paper, first time in India, is purely a social service initiative without any monetary angle.
• The production of the full spectrum cannabis extract is being done in India under the approval of Ayush and is being successfully used in humans but the clinical trial of the medical cannabis is a first for animals.
• Medical cannabis acts as a painkiller to alleviate various kinds of pain due to inflammatory conditions without many side effects, as against the inorganic drugs that will have deleterious effects on vital organs due to long-term use.
• Full-spectrum cannabis extract was obtained under veterinary prescription from a Noida-based firm Noigra.
• According to Study, this is an effective long-term strategy to maintain the canines painfree, reduce inflammation with overall improved quality of life.

• Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar has launched the country’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine “Anocovax” for animals, developed by Haryana-based ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines (NRC).
• Anocovax is an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Delta (COVID-19) vaccine for animals.
• The immunity induced by Anocovax neutralises both Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Key points:

• The vaccine contains inactivated SARS-CoV-2 (Delta) antigen with Alhydrogel as an adjuvant. It is safe for dogs, lions, leopards, mice and rabbits, it added.
• The COVID-19 vaccine for animals, Anocovax, is effective and capable of neutralising both Delta and Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2.

• Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, and Switzerland were elected to the United Nations Security Council as non-permanent members for the 2023-2024 term, and took over the horseshoe table from India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, and Norway on January 1, 2023.

KEY POINTS:

• India’s two-year as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council will finish in December 2022, when it will simultaneously hold the Presidency of the UN body.
• On the question of “categories of membership,” the G4 nations of Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan have stated that the Council’s decisions can only reflect the interests of the entire membership if permanent seats are enlarged.

• According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), India jumped one position to 7th among the top recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the last calendar year (2021) despite FDI inflows into the country declining.
• In its latest World Investment Report, UNCTAD said FDI inflows into India declined to $45 billion in 2021 from $64 billion in the preceding year.
• Outward FDI from India rose 43 percent to $15.5 billion in 2021.
• While the United States ($367 billion) remained the top recipient of FDI, China ($181 billion) and Hong Kong ($141 billion) also retained second and third position, respectively.
• Among the top 10 host economies for FDI, only India saw a decline in its FDI inflows.

• The World Health Organisation has awarded the Resource Centre for Tobacco Control (e-RCTC) of the Department of Community Medicine and School of Public Health at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh with the Regional Director Special Recognition Award.
• The Resource Centre for Tobacco Control provides information related to tobacco control in India, including circulars and orders, policies and legislations, multidisciplinary publications

Key points:

• Besides being a resource hub, the centre has achieved heights in capacity building by organising more than 50 workshops and webinars for around 3,500 program managers and academicians.
• The Resource Center for Tobacco Control, a joint initiative of the PGIMER and the UNION-SEA, was set up in 2018 by 25 organisations working over tobacco control in India with an aim to showcase tobacco control initiatives.
• e-RCTC portal has attracted 4.2 lakh visitors from 100 countries in three years.

• The annual Piplu Fair began at the Nar Singh temple in Piplu village of the Kutlehar Assembly segment.
• The temple is located on the Solasinghi Dhaar.
• The Piplu Fair is held on the day of ‘Nirjala Ekadashi’.
• Devotees from Una, Hamirpur and Kangra districts visit the temple during the fair to offer a part of their agriculture produce to deity.
• The fair has been given the status of a district-level fair by the Art, Language and Culture Department.

• A Nature interpretation centre is being constructed at 10,280-feet high Jalori Jot, a beautiful tourist spot on Aut-Luhri NH-305.
• The centre will introduce tourists to culture, food and lifestyle of Kullu district.
• The data concerning forests, occupation of people and ancient heritage will be made available.
• Tourists will get information about the local culture of the district, living conditions of the people, the forest wealth, animals, natural species, types of forests, food, ancient culture, etc, at this centre.
• “Tourists coming from the all over the country and abroad will get acquainted with the folk culture.”
• The space will be provided to self-help groups. This will boost tourism in the region.
• There are many picturesque places like Serolsar Lake, Mata Budhi Nagin temple, Lambalambari Jot, Raghupurgarh, Tarkasi, Khanag, Chauhani Kamand, Kohila, etc near Jalori Jot.