1. NATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY (NDMA)

The Supreme Court directed the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to frame guidelines for payment of ex-gratia compensation to family members of persons who succumbed to COVID-19.

About:

It also directed the NDMA to ascertain within six weeks ex-gratia amount that can be paid to the family members of those who died due to the infection.

The court’s order came in response to a plea seeking ex-gratia of four lakh rupees each to the families of all those who succumbed to the virus.

NDMA:

Parent body: Ministry of Home Affairs.

Primary Objective: To coordinate response to natural or man-made disasters and for capacity-building in disaster resiliency and crisis response.

Origin: NDMA was established through the Disaster Management Act enacted by the Government of India in 2005.

Organisation setup:

• The Prime Minister is the ex-officio chairperson of the NDMA, who chairs a 9-member board.
• The remainder of the board consists of members nominated based on their expertise in areas such as, planning, infrastructure management, communications, meteorology etc.
• The day-to-day management of the agency is overseen by the office of the Vice Chair.

Source : The Hindu

2. INDRAJAAL

Hyderabad-based technology R&D firm Grene Robotics has designed and developed India’s first indigenous drone defence dome called “Indrajaal”.

About:

• The drone defence dome has the capability to autonomously protect an area of 1000-2000 sq km against the aerial threats by assessing and acting on aerial threats such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), loitering munitions, and Low- Radar Cross Section (RCS) targets.
• The ANTI-UAV systems will not only provide protection to defence bases but it will be beneficial for linear infrastructures like international borders against advanced weaponry.

Salient features of Indrajaal

• Real-time situational awareness
• Integrated and Intelligent meshed network
• Integrated all current weapons suite and infrastructure
• Honeycombed cell structure for seamlessly built
• Synergic combination of 9-10 technologies
• 24×7 persistent and autonomous monitoring, action and tracking

Important Info :

Background

• The path-breaking development is imperative because manual weapons and point-based defence systems can’t defend modern warfares, which are operated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics.
• For the first time in India and many times, globally rogue forces have adopted cutting-edge technologies such as UAVs, Smart Swarms, etc.
• Jammu Air Base on June 27th was attacked by such technologies to drop explosives next to the Mi-17 hangar.
• Capable of real-time situational awareness, Indrajaal comprises all current weapons suite and infrastructure along with a honeycombed cell structure to provide a seamlessly built over a combination of 9-10 technologies for 24×7 persistent monitoring, tracking and action.

Source : All India Radio

3. DEEPIKA KUMARI

After securing a hat-trick of gold medals at the Archery World Cup stage 3 in Paris, Deepika Kumari has become the top-ranked archer among women when the new rankings are announced.

About:

• Deepika Kumari Mahato was born in 1994 in Ranchi, Jharkhand.
• she is an Indian athlete who competes in the event of archery and is currently ranked World No. 1.
• She won a gold medal in the 2010 Commonwealth games in the women's individual recurve event and also a gold medal in the women's team recurve event.
• She also won a record 3 gold medals at the 2021 Paris World Cup.
• She was conferred the Arjuna Award in 2012 and Padma Shri in 2016. 

Source : All India Radio

4. MICRO ATMs

In Ladakh, Cooperative Banking Service with Micro ATMs where both deposition and withdrawal of cash can be availed by the users will be introduced in far-flung areas.

What are Micro ATMs?

• Micro ATMs are card swipe machines through which banks can remotely connect to their core banking system. This machine comes with a fingerprint scanner attached to it.
• In other words, micro ATMs are handheld point of sale terminals used to disburse cash in remote locations where bank branches cannot reach.
• Micro ATMs are similar to point of sale (PoS) terminals and are a doorstep mobile banking arrangement cum-mobile ATM device.

How does micro ATM work?

• Bank will assign a correspondent who will sign up customers in remote areas after verifying their identity (fingerprint can be used as an authentication tool for rural people ).
• The fingerprint and personal details may also be linked to the Aadhaar Card, which will then serve as the ID proof required to withdraw money.

Background:

In the aftermanth of demonetisation event, Government of India introduced micro ATMs to ensure people can withdraw money.

Important Info :

How is it more convenient ?

• The cost of deployment of a micro ATM is lesser than that of an ordinary ATM. ATMs need at least 80-100 transactions a day to be viable as they costs several lakhs. A micro ATM costs less than Rs 20,000.
• It is portable Micro ATM has connectivity through GSM, hence it can travel from village to village

Disadvantages:

• Micro ATM cannot provide 'anytime' money. Hence if the bank correspondent is unavailable or the shop keeper has shut his shop, the account holder will not be able to undertake any financial transaction.

Source : All India Radio

5. ACCREDITED INVESTORS

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) introduced a framework for accredited investors.

About:

• SEBI defines accredited investors as “a class of investors who may be considered to be well informed or well advised about investment products”.
• The accredited investors could be individuals, HUFs, sole proprietorships, family trusts, partnership firms, trusts and body corporates based on financial parameters.
• Anyone is eligible to become an accredited investor provided their annual income stands at Rs 2 crore or their net worth pegged at Rs 7.5 crore and financial assets should be at least 3.75 crore.
• "Accreditation Agencies" like subsidiaries of depositories and specified stock exchanges, and/or any other specified institutions can offer this title for one to become an accredited investor. 

Important Info :

Benefits of becoming an accredited investor

• Accredited investors will have the flexibility to participate in investment products with an investment amount lesser than the minimum amount mandated in the Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) Regulations and Portfolio Managers (PMS) Regulations.
• The Alternative Investment Funds for accredited investors where each investor invests minimum investment amount of Rs 70 crore may avail relaxation from regulatory requirements such as portfolio diversification norms, conditions for launch of schemes and extension of tenure of the AIF. 

Source : Business Standard

6. INDEPENDENT DIRECTORS

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) overhauled the norms pertaining to the appointment, removal, and remuneration of independent directors.

About:

• The appointment, re-appointment, and removal of independent directors shall be through a special resolution, which requires 75 per cent votes in support instead of 51 per cent, as in the case of an ordinary resolution.
• Also, the nomination and remuneration committee (NRC), which selects candidates for appointment as independent directors, will be required to have two-thirds IDs, as against the existing requirement of a majority.
• Further, the NRC will have to disclose and justify the skill-sets while selecting a candidate.
• Key managerial personnel and their relatives or employees of the promoter group will have to observe a three-year cooling-off period before they get appointed as an independent director.
• Sebi has also tightened rules related to the resignation of independent directors. The regulator has said the new framework will come into play from January 1. 

Source : Business Standard

7. REITs; InvITs

SEBI has reduced the minimum application amount for real estate investment trusts (REITs) and infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs) to Rs 10,000-15,000 from Rs 55,000 at present, aligning them with equity initial public offerings (IPOs).

About:

• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) are looked upon as attractive investment avenues with many entities looking at such structures to raise money from the capital markets.
• While the underlying assets in REITs are income-generating commercial or residential properties, InvITs are backed by infrastructure projects. Currently, there are three REITs and two InvITs listed on the Indian stock exchanges.
• Earlier, the minimum application size was around Rs 55,000 in REITs and InvITs, which has now been reduced to between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000.
• The trading lot size has also been brought down to just one unit.
• The lower application size and trading lot would help in attracting more retail investors to the segment.

Source : Indian Express

8. GLOBAL CYBERSECURITY INDEX 2020

According to a United Nations report released, India has jumped 37 places to 10th position in the Global Cyber Security Index (GCI) 2020.

About the index:

• The GCI is a composite index created, analyzed and published by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations.
• It measures the commitment to cybersecurity of its 194 member countries to raise cybersecurity awareness.
• The latest report is the fourth GCI edition by the ITU, the first version of which was launched six years ago.

Each country’s development or engagement is assessed along five pillars –

(i) Legal measures, (ii) Technical measures, (iii) Organizational measures, (iv) Capacity development, and (v) Cooperation- and then aggregated into a composite score. 

Global rankings

• The top rank in the GCI was achieved by the US with a score of 100.
• The UK and Saudi Arabia finished second, tied for next place with a score of 99.54.
• In the Asia Pacific region, South Korea and Singapore are on top with a score of 98.52, which ranks fourth globally.
• Other countries at the top of the index include Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia (98.06) at fifth place, Lithuania at sixth, Japan at seventh and Canada, France and India at the subsequent positions.
• Among other countries, Turkey (97.49) was ranked 11th, Germany (97.41) at 13th, China (92.53) at 33rd and Israel (90.93) at 36th position.

India’s ranking

• India ranked 10th in the fourth edition of the Global Cyber ​​Security Index 2020 (GCI), a significant jump of 37 places from its previous GCI rank in 2018.
• India also ranks fourth in the Asia-Pacific region.

Source : All India Radio

9. NATRAX

Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises inaugurated NATRAX- the High Speed Track(HST) in Indore which is the longest such track in Asia. It is a 11.3 km long High Speed Track.

About:

• NATRAX, developed in an area of 1000 acres of land, is a one stop solution for all sorts of high speed performance tests for widest categories of vehicles from 2 wheelers to heavy tractor trailers.
• The NATRAX centre has multiple test capabilities like measurements of maximum speed, acceleration, constant speed fuel consumption, emission tests through real road driving simulation, high speed handling and stability evaluation during manoeuvred such as lane change, high speed durability testing, etc. and is a Centre of excellence for Vehicle Dynamics.
• HST is used for measuring the maximum speed capability of high-end cars like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Tesla and so forth which cannot be measured on any of the Indian test tracks.
• Being centrally located in Madhya Pradesh, it is accessible to most of the major OEMs. Foreign OEMs will be looking at NATRAX HST for the development of prototype cars for Indian conditions
• Vehicle can achieve max speed of 375 Kmph on curves with steering control and it has less banking on ovals making it also one of the safest test track globally.

Source : Times of India

10. ENFORCING CONTRACTS PORTAL

The Department of Justice launched the “Enforcing Contracts Portal”.

About:

• The portal aims to promote ease of doing business and improve ‘Contract Enforcement Regime’ in country.
• It is envisioned to be a comprehensive source of information pertaining to the legislative and policy reforms being undertaken on the “Enforcing Contracts” parameters.
• It includes the latest data related to the functioning and disposal of commercial cases in the Dedicated Commercial Courts of Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. These Dedicated Commercial Courts have been established for speedy resolution of commercial disputes.

Important Info :

Background

• The Doing Business Report of World Bank Group benchmarks business regulations across 191 economies of the world.
• The Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) index is a ranking system of economies across 11 areas of business regulation.
• The “Enforcing Contracts” indicator is one such essential area that measures time and cost to resolve a standardized commercial dispute as well as a series of good practices in the judiciary.
• Currently, only the cities of Delhi and Mumbai are under the purview of the Ease of Doing Business survey by World Bank.
• Kolkata and Bengaluru are likely to be included in the Doing Business Report in future.

Source : PIB