Current Affairs February 07th 2023| Current Affairs News

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CURRENT AFFAIRS : BANKING & FINANCE

SEBI Strengthened framework for green bonds

• Markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) strengthened the framework for green bonds by introducing the concept of ‘blue’ and ‘yellow’ bonds as new modes of sustainable finance.
• Blue bonds relate to water management and the marine sector, while yellow bonds pertain to solar energy.
• These are sub-categories of green debt securities.

Key Highlights :

• For this, the SEBI amended norms governing the issue and listing of non-convertible securities.
• These measures have been taken in the backdrop of increasing interest in sustainable finance in India as well as around the globe, and with a view to align the extant framework for green debt securities with the updated Green Bond Principles (GBP) recognised by IOSCO.
• SEBI defines Green Debt Securities as debt securities issued for raising funds that are to be utilised for projects or assets falling under certain categories.
• Indian companies raised nearly USD 7 billion through ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and green bonds in 2021 compared to USD 1.4 billion in 2020 and USD 4 billion in 2019.
• With regard to the period of subscription, SEBI stated that a public issue of debt securities or non-convertible redeemable preference shares would be kept open for a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 10 working days.

About GBP :

• The GBP seeks to support issuers in financing environmentally sound and sustainable projects that foster a net-zero emissions economy and protect the environment.
• The GBP, updated as of June 2021, are voluntary process guidelines that recommend transparency and disclosure and promote integrity in the development of the Green Bond market.

About Green Bonds :

• Green bonds are fixed-income financial instruments which are used to fund projects that have positive environmental and/or climate benefits.
• It can finance various projects, most often related to renewable energy (e.g. wind, solar, hydro), recycling, and clean transportation.

About SEBI :

• Established : 12 April 1988 as an executive body and was given statutory powers on 30 January 1992 through the SEBI Act, 1992
• Headquarters : Mumbai, Maharashtra
• Chairman : Madhabi Puri Buch
• SEBI is the regulatory body for securities and commodity markets in India under the ownership of the Ministry of Finance (MoF),GoI.

 Fund Of Funds For Startups Committed INR7,980 Cr To 99 AIFs Till Dec 31

• As on 31st December 2022, under the Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) for startups, Rs. 7,980 crore has been committed to 99 Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).
• Of this, ₹3,400 crore has been disbursed to 72 AIFs which have, in turn, made investments of ₹14,077 crore in 791 start-ups.
• As reported by SIDBI, FFS has played an important role in wealth creation, employment generation, inclusive growth and recognition for startups.
• Further, a total of ₹25 crore has been approved to 133 incubators under the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme (SISFS) of which ₹211.63 crore has been disbursed as on December 31, 2022.

Key Highlights :

• Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana and Tamil Nadu (TN) are the top 5 states in terms of investments received under the FFS scheme.
• Karnataka secured INR 4,687 Cr for 240 startups, Maharashtra bagged INR 3,426 Cr for 176 startups, Delhi received INR 2,254 Cr for 138 startups, Haryana bagged INR 1,148 Cr for 60 startups, and TN received INR 826 Cr investments for 29 startups.

About FFS :

• The FFS Scheme was established in 2016 in a move to prop up the Indian start-up ecosystem and enable access to domestic capital.
• A corpus of ₹10,000 crore was earmarked for the scheme, with contributions spread over the 14 th and 15 th Finance Commission cycle based on progress of implementation.
• Under FFS, the Scheme does not directly invest in startups, instead provides capital to SEBI-registered AIFs, known as daughter funds, who in turn invest money in growing Indian startups through equity and equity-linked instruments.
• Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has been given the mandate of operating this Fund through selection of suitable daughter funds and overseeing the disbursal of committed capital.
• AIFs supported under FFS are required to invest at least 2 times of the amount committed under FFS in startups.

About Ministry of Commerce & Industry :

• Cabinet Minister : Piyush Goyal
• Minister of State : Anupriya Patel, Som Parkash

Instant personal loan up to Rs 5 lakh with zero pre-closure charges  launched by Fi Money                          

• Money management platform Fi Money has launched its lending services to offer users instant credit, in partnership with Federal Bank.
• The instant personal loan service will provide borrowers with immediate access to credit through a paperless and pre-approved application process.
• The instant loans will be rolled out in a phased manner, with a certain number of users gaining initial access to avail credit from Rs 50,000 up to Rs 5 lakh, followed by a full-scale launch for all users in the coming weeks.

About Fi Money :

• Co-founder and CEO : Sujith Narayanan
• Fi is a Neo Bank in India with a financial app that has a digital savings bank account with features that help you get better with your money.

About Federal Bank :

• Headquarters : Kochi, Kerala
• CEO : Shyam Srinivasan
• Tagline : Your Perfect Banking Partner

RailTel Corp receives ₹253.35 crore project from SBI for 4G connectivity to ATMs

• RailTel Corporation of India Ltd (RailTel), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Railways, has received a Work Order from the State Bank of India (SBI) for providing 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) connectivity to 15,000 offsite Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) spread across India.
• The work order, valid for 5 years, is valued at Rs 253.35 crore (excluding taxes).

What is LTE?

• LTE is a fourth-generation (4G) wireless standard that provides increased network capacity and speed for cellphones and other cellular devices compared with third-generation (3G) technology.

Key Highlights :

• RailTel has been selected through competitive bidding and this SBI project is one of the largest projects providing last-mile connectivity on 4G LTE technology in India.
• The project also includes the establishment of a Network Operations Centre (NOC), backhaul connectivity to the Data centre & Disaster Recovery centre (DC-DR) of SBI, a live dashboard for SLA monitoring, 24X7 helpdesk, etc.

About RailTel :

• Founded : September 2000
• Headquarters : New Delhi, Delhi, India
• Chairman and Managing Director : Sanjai Kumar
• It is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure & Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Solutions & Services providers in the country, owning a pan-India optic fibre network covering several towns & cities and rural areas of the country

SBI gave Rs 21,000-cr loans to Adani Group firms                               

• Country’s largest public lender State Bank of India (SBI) has given loans of as much as Rs 21,000 crore ($2.6 billion) to Adani Group firms.
• SBI’s exposure includes $200 million from its overseas units.
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asked lenders for details of their exposure to the conglomerate following a rout in group companies’ stock prices.
• The exposure by various financiers to companies controlled by Gautam Adani has come under increasing scrutiny after their shares plunged following a scathing report from US-based Hindenburg Research.
• State-run Punjab National Bank’s exposure to Adani companies was 70 billion rupees.
• Private sector IDFC First Bank Ltd stated in an exchange filing that the funded outstanding exposure to the Adani Group was less than 0.1% of its total loans.
• Meanwhile, IndusInd Bank Ltd with a loan book of 29 trillion rupees stated its exposure to the conglomerate accounted for 0.5% of its loan book.

About SBI :

• Founded : 1 July 1955
• Headquarters : Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
• Chairman : Dinesh Kumar Khara

About Adani Group :

• Founded : 20 July 1988
• Headquarters : Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
• Chairman : Gautam Adani

Bajaj Allianz Launches Customisable Health Policy – My healthcare plan                                          

• Bajaj Allianz General Insurance announced the launch of its modular health insurance product ‘My Health Care Plan’, an umbrella product for customizable packages.

About ‘My Health Care Plan’:

• My Health Care Plan offers Sum Insured (SI) options up to Rs 5 crore.
• The policy is offered on an individual and floater basis with a policy term of 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years.
• The plan also consists of mandatory coverages like in-patient hospitalisation expenses, pre- and post-hospitalisation expenses, modern treatment methods and advancement in technologies, organ donor expenses, ayurvedic and homeopathic hospitalisation cover, maternity package expenses, and airlift cover, among others.
• The policy also offers three optional covers – loss of income cover, major illness and accident multiplier covers, and international cover.

About Bajaj Allianz General Insurance :

• Founded : 2001
• Headquarters: Pune, Maharashtra
• MD & CEO : CEO: Tapan Singhel

IDFC to invest ₹2,200 crore as growth capital in IDFC First Bank                         

• The board of IDFC Limited gave its in-principle approval to infuse ₹2,200 crore into IDFC First Bank, providing growth capital to the lender.
• The capital infusion will take IDFC’s shareholding in the bank to up to 40% from the existing 36.38%.
• IDFC Ltd and IDFC Financial Holding have begun the process of merger with IDFC First Bank.
• Further, the IDFC board has declared a special interim dividend of Rs 11 per share, due to which the Government of India (GoI), the largest shareholder in IDFC, would receive a payout of Rs 287 crore.
• In December 2021, the boards of IDFC, IDFC Financial Holding Company and IDFC First Bank had accorded an in-principle approval to merge IDFC and IDFC Financial Holding with IDFC First Bank.

About IDFC First Bank :

• Founded : October 2015
• Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
• MD & CEO: V. Vaidyanathan.
• Tagline : Always You First
• IDFC First Bank is an Indian private sector bank formed by the merger of the banking arm of Infrastructure Development Finance Company and Capital First, an Indian non-bank financial institution.
• It is the first universal bank to offer monthly interest credit on savings accounts, lifetime free credit cards with dynamic and low annual percentage rates.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: NATIONAL NEWS

Atal Innovation Mission inaugurates ACIC-CBIT centre

• Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog inaugurated the ACIC-CBIT centre in Hyderabad.
• The AIM team visited the centre to understand the different lab setups, technology and infrastructure for incubatees.
• Along with the inauguration of the centre, ACIC-CBIT hosted the first Startup 20X event in the form of talks from four startup founders working in different areas ranging from infrastructural development, millet manufacturing, mental health and upskilling rural innovators.
• These startups are working to bring about change for the betterment of the community and the nation at large.
• ACIC-CBIT has been established with the aim to build a community innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to nurture innovators and startups in unserved and underserved regions.
• ACIC believes in and mandates the creation of a strong community innovation ecosystem to include expert mentors; access to infrastructural support such as maker space; funding facilitation; building capacities through training and mentoring.
• ACIC CBIT focuses on Health-tech, Smart Engineering Products Renewable Energy & Environmental Sustainability.
• It has supported 37 innovators out of which 12 are female-led startups.

Govt blocks 232 foreign apps, including Chinese ones, for gambling, money laundering

• The government has blocked 232 apps operated by overseas entities, including Chinese for being involved in betting, gambling and unauthorised loan service.
• Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has issued orders to block these apps following the Ministry of Home Affairs instructions.
• The order to block 138 apps that were involved in betting, gambling and money laundering were issued.
• Separately, an order to block 94 apps engaged in unauthorised loan service has also been issued.
• These apps were being operated from offshore entities, including Chinese.
• They were posing a threat to the economic stability of the country
• The official did not disclose the name of the apps that have been blocked.
• An official query sent to MeitY did not elicit any immediate response.

CURRENT AFFAIRS : INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Russian crude oil imports create another record in January 2023

• According to energy cargo tracker Vortexa, India imported a record volume of crude oil from Russia in January,2023 accounting for 28% of its total imports.
• In January,2023 India received 1.27 million barrels per day (mbd) of Russian crude, 6% more than in December, while China received 0.98 mbd of seaborne Russian crude and Europe 0.27 mbd.

Key Highlights :

• Russia remained the top crude supplier to India for the fourth month in a row in January, improving its market share from 26% in December.
• Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also expanded their share in a month by one percentage point each to 20%, 17%, and 8%,
• The share of the US rose from 7% to 9% while that of Africa fell from 9% to 6% in January.
• India’s overall crude imports fell 6% over the previous month to 4.6 mbd in January.
• Private sector refiners such as RIL and Russia-backed Nayara Energy accounted for 47% of the total Russian crude imports in January.

About Russia :

• President : Vladimir Putin
• Prime Minister : Mikhail Mishustin
• Capital : Moscow
• Currency : Russian rouble

CURRENT AFFAIRS : STATE NEWS

Uttar Pradesh to be major  beneficiary of hike  in ethanol blending

• Uttar Pradesh (UP) will be a major beneficiary of the hike in ethanol blending to 20% with petrol in the next two years.

Key Highlights :

• The total number of distilleries in the state is 75 with a total production capacity of 49 crore litres per annum.
• The total number of ethanol producing distilleries is 55 with a production capacity of 166.17 crore litres per annum.
• Establishment of 17 new distillery units is underway and expected to be commissioned in the next two years.
• The UP has become the largest producer of ethanol in the country with 10% blending, the highest among all the states.
• The UP government is promoting ethanol production under the Ethanol Augmentation Scheme of Government of India and is on path of becoming the largest ethanol supplier of the country.

About UP :

• Governor : Anandiben Patel
• Chief Minister : Yogi Adityanath
• Capital : Lucknow
• National Park : Dudhwa National Park
• Wildlife Sanctuaries : Chandraprabha WS, Hastinapur WS, Pilibhit WS
• Airports : Kushinagar International Airport, Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport

Uttarakhand will be drug free by year 2025 – CM Pushkar Singh Dhami                                         

• Uttarakhand Chief Minister (CM) Shri Pushkar Singh announced that the state government will be drug-free by the year 2025.
• He inaugurated de-addiction workshop ‘Mission Drugs Free Devbhoomi’ organised in the district jail of Dehradun.
• He stated that it is our resolution that by 2025 not even a single person of Devbhoomi should be addicted to drugs.
• For the accomplishment of this resolution, the government, society, youth, Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs), celebrities, successful people and various social-educational institutions will have to come forward and work together.
• He also announced that the name of the Prisons Department would be changed to “Prison Administration and Correctional Service”.
• Awareness regarding drug-freeness will also be brought in all the prisons of the state.
• The Uttarakhand government will celebrate its Silver jubilee of the establishment in 2025.

About Uttarakhand :

• Governor : Gurmit Singh
• Chief Minister : Pushkar Singh Dhami
• Airports : Bharkot Airport, Gauchar Airport, Jolly Grant Airport

Jharkhand  govt launches water conservation scheme with over Rs 467cr outlay

• Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Shri Badal Patralekh launched a water conservation scheme with an outlay of Rs 467.32 crore to provide benefits to farmers in Jharkhand that experienced drought in 2022.
• Under the ‘Water Conservation Scheme’, 2,133 ponds will be renovated and 2,795 percolation tanks will be constructed in all blocks of 24 districts of Jharkhand
• He also laid the foundation for the renovation work of 71 ponds and 184 percolation tanks.

What is a percolation tank?

• A percolation tank is an artificially created surface water body to recharge groundwater storage.

Key Highlights :

• The state government has received 31.33 lakh applications from drought-hit farmers and 8.5 lakh of them have been given financial assistance so far.
• The state government’s effort is to provide Rs 1,200 crore as relief to 30 lakh drought-hit farmers soon.
• On October 29, 2022 the government declared 226 of the state’s 260 blocks as drought-affected areas and decided to provide a cash relief of Rs 3,500 to each farmer family affected by the rain deficit.

About Jharkhand :

• Governor : Ramesh Bais
• Chief Minister : Hemant Soren
• Capital : Ranchi
• National Park : Betla National Park
• Wildlife Sanctuary : Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, Hazaribagh Wildlife Sanctuary

CURRENT AFFAIRS: BUSINESS NEWS

Valuation rules to be scanned for Angel Tax on foreign Investments

• The government is examining the different valuation criteria prescribed under two separate laws which could lead to disputes and litigations.
• Such overseas investment is valued differently under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the Income Tax Act.
• The government has proposed an amendment to the angel tax provision or section 56(2) (vii) of the Income Tax Act in the budget.
• The angel tax is levied when an unlisted company issue shares at a price that exceeds the fair market value.
• The difference is taxed at 20% or more.
• The government has now proposed to bring foreign investors under the ambit of the angel tax which hitherto applied to Indian residents and funds not registered as Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs)

About FEMA:

• The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, is an Act of the Parliament of India “to consolidate and amend the law relating to foreign exchange with the objective of facilitating external trade and payments and for promoting the orderly development and maintenance of foreign exchange market in India

Govt hikes windfall tax on crude oil, export of diesel, ATF:

• The government has hiked windfall profit tax levied on domestically-produced crude oil as well as on the export of diesel and ATF, in line with firming international oil prices.
• The levy on crude oil produced by companies such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has been increased to ₹5,050 per tonne from ₹1,900 per tonne.
• Crude oil pumped out of the ground and from below the seabed is refined and converted into fuels like petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel (ATF).
• The government has also hiked the tax on export of diesel to ₹5 per litre from ₹5, and the same on overseas shipments of ATF to ₹6 a litre from ₹3.5 a litre.
• The new tax rates came into effect from February 4.
• India first imposed windfall profit taxes on July 1, joining a growing number of nations that tax super normal profits of energy companies.
• Reliance Industries Ltd, which operates the world’s largest single-location oil refinery complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat, and Rosneft-backed Nayara Energy are primary exporters of fuel in the country.
• The government levies tax on windfall profits made by oil producers on any price they get above a threshold of $75 per barrel.
• The levy on fuel exports is based on cracks or margins that refiners earn on overseas shipments.
• These margins are primarily a difference between the international oil price realised and the cost.

CURRENT AFFAIRS : APPOINTMENTS & RESIGNATIONS

4 Indian-American lawmakers appointed as members of key US House committees

• Four Indian-American lawmakers– Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal, Ami Bera and Ro Khanna have been appointed as members of key US House Committees, reflecting the growing influence of the community in American politics.
• Indian-American US Representative Pramila Jayapal has been named Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, making her the first immigrant to serve in a leadership role for the subcommittee.
• She is the first South Asian woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
• She represents the 7th Congressional District of Washington State and succeeds Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren.
• The Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement will be chaired by Tom McClintock.
• Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera was appointed as a member of the influential US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for the 118th Congress.
• Raja Krishnamoorthi has been made a member of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
• Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna has been also selected as a member of this newly created committee.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: RANKING AND REPORTS

With $10.8 billion, Bengaluru top city on start-up funding in 2022

• Bengaluru topped the startup funding chart in India with $10.8 billion in 2022, followed by Mumbai at $3.9 billion, and Gurugram at a distant $2.6 billion.
• Startups based in Delhi and Chennai registered $1.2 billion each in funding, followed by Pune at $1 billion, according to data provided by Tracxn, a leading global market intelligence platform.
• In 2021, Bengaluru-based startups had raised $20.8 billion in funding and Mumbai-based startups had pocketed $5.2 billion in the same year, showing the impact of the deepening funding winter last year.
• There were 22 unicorns in 2022, compared to 46 in 2021, and average funding before the unicorn round was around $160 million.
• It is now taking an average of 5.1 years from Series A funding to the Unicorn round for the Indian startups.
• The months of April, October and November in 2022 saw no new unicorns.
• A total of 11 tech IPOs were launched in 2022, matching the number from the same period in 2021.
• Some of the major IPOs are Delhivery, Tracxn, eMudhra, among others.
• LetsVenture, AngelList, and Y Combinator have topped the list of most active investors in 2022 to date.
• Despite the impact on funding in edtech, Byju’s has topped the list of highest funding raised in 2022.
• It raised over $1.2 billion in 2022 from existing investors.
• This amounted to almost 50 per cent of the total funding received in the edtech sector.

About IPO:

• An initial public offering or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail investors.
• An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges

CURRENT AFFAIRS : SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

SSLV’s second launch attempt likely on feb 10, 2023                     

• The Indian Space Research Organ­isa­tion (ISRO) chair­man S Somanath stated that, will make a fresh attempt to accur­ately launch the Small Satel­lite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2023 around 5 months after the maiden ven­ture saw the rocket place its pay­loads on an incor­rect orbit.
• The first developmental flight of the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) lifted off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) on 7th August 2022.
• But the mis­sion failed after the rocket placed its payload two satel­lites in an ellipt­ical cir­cuit instead of a cir­cu­lar one.
• The launch vehicle was car­ry­ing EOS-02 (earth obser­va­tion satel­lite) and AzaadiSAT, a mini­ature satel­lite (referred to as a cube­sat) designed by girls across India to mark the coun­try’s 75th year of Inde­pend­ence.

About EOS-02 :

• It is an ima­ging microsatel­lite designed to address agri­cul­ture as well as dis­aster man­age­ment object­ives, while the cube­sat car­ried 75 microsatel­lites to con­duct exper­i­ments.

About SSLV :

• SSLV is a small-lift launch vehicle developed by ISRO with payload capacity to deliver 500 kg (1,100 lb) to low Earth orbit (500 km (310 mi)).
• Height: 34 metres
• Diameter: 2 metres
• Mass: 120 tonnes
• It is a three-stage vehicle with all solid propulsion stages and liquid propulsion-based Velocity Trimming Module (VTM).

About ISRO :

• Established : 15 August 1969
• Headquarters : bangalore, Karnataka
• Chairman : Sreedhara Somanath

CURRENT AFFAIRS : OBITUARIES

Former Indian National Team Footballer Parimal Dey Passed Away                         

• Former Indian National Team footballer Parimal Dey passed away at the age of 81.

About Parimal Dey :

• Parimal Dey was born on May 4, 1941, West Bengal.
• At the domestic level, he fondly called Jangla had the honour of winning the Santosh Trophy twice in 1962, 1969.
• He made 5 appearances for India and scored a goal in the country’s bronze medal finish in the 1966 edition of the Merdeka Cup in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & that was also his only goal for India.
• He holds the distinction of winning the Calcutta Football League and IFA Shield double thrice in 1966, 1970, and 1973.
• He also won the Durand Cup (1967, 1970), and Rovers Cup (1967, 1969, 1973)
• Having played as a forward for East Bengal, he netted 84 goals and also captained the club in 1968.

Awards & Honors :

• He received the lifetime achievement award from East Bengal in 2014.
• Dey was conferred with the Banga Bhushan title by the West Bengal government in 2019.

Legendary Playback Singer & Padma Bhushan Awardee Vani Jayaram Passed Away        

• A legendary playback singer & Padma Bhushan awardee Vani Jairam passed away at the age of 78 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu (TN).

About Vani Jairam :

• Vani Jairam born on November 30, 1945 in Vellore, TN.
• She started her career as a singer in 1971 & she recorded her first Telugu song for the film ‘Abhimanavanthulu’ (1973).
• In a career span of five decades, she sang over 10,000 songs in 19 languages including Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali etc.
• Her blockbuster and notable songs include Ennenno Janmala Bandham, Malar Pol Sirippathu Pathinaaru, Or Idam Unnidam, Ezhu Swarangalukkul, Naane Naana, Poojalu Cheya among many others.

Awards & Honors :

• Vani won the National Film Awards for Best Female Playback Singer three times in 1975, 1980 and 1991.
• She also has won State Government awards from the states of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and
• On January 25,2023 Vani was bestowed with the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award of the country by the Government of India, for her over 50 years of dedication to Indian music.

CURRENT AFFAIRS: IMPORTANT DAYS

International Development Week 2022: 6th – 12th February

• International Development Week is celebrated on 6th – 12th February every year.
• The theme of International Development Week 2022 is ‘Go for the goals’ which refers to the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
• The aim of International Development Week (IDW) is to draw attention to international development and shine a spotlight on the important contributions that Canadians are making through partnerships around the world.
• International Development Week is a national event promoted by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
• The Agency is concentrating more and more of its bilateral (country to country) aid in a group of 20 countries of focus.
• International Development Week was initiated in 1990 by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
• CIDA was established in 1968 to administer the bulk of Canada’s official development assistance (ODA) program.
• CIDA works in concert with its development partners, fragile states and countries in crisis, countries of focus, and the Canadian population and institutions.
• The first event of IDW was held in 1998.

About CIDA:

• The Canadian International Development Agency was a federal Canadian organization that administered foreign aid programs in developing countries.
• The agency was merged into the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2013 by the federal government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
• Founder: Maurice Strong
• Founded: 1968

Daily CA on February 7:

• Markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) strengthened the framework for green bonds by introducing the concept of ‘blue’ and ‘yellow’ bonds as new modes of sustainable finance.
• As on 31st December 2022, under the Fund of Funds Scheme (FFS) for startups, Rs. 7,980 crore has been committed to 99 Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).
• Money management platform Fi Money has launched its lending services to offer users instant credit, in partnership with Federal Bank.
• RailTel Corporation of India Ltd (RailTel), a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Railways, has received a Work Order from the State Bank of India (SBI) for providing 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) connectivity to 15,000 offsite Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) spread across India.
• Country’s largest public lender State Bank of India (SBI) has given loans of as much as Rs 21,000 crore ($2.6 billion) to Adani Group firms.
• Bajaj Allianz General Insurance announced the launch of its modular health insurance product ‘My Health Care Plan’, an umbrella product for customizable packages.
• The board of IDFC Limited gave its in-principle approval to infuse ₹2,200 crore into IDFC First Bank, providing growth capital to the lender.
• According to energy cargo tracker Vortexa, India imported a record volume of crude oil from Russia in January,2023 accounting for 28% of its total imports.
• Uttar Pradesh (UP) will be a major beneficiary of the hike in ethanol blending to 20% with petrol in the next two years.
• Uttarakhand Chief Minister (CM) Shri Pushkar Singh announced that the state government will be drug-free by the year 2025.
• Jharkhand Agriculture Minister Shri Badal Patralekh launched a water conservation scheme with an outlay of Rs 467.32 crore to provide benefits to farmers in Jharkhand that experienced drought in 2022.
• Four Indian-American lawmakers– Raja Krishnamoorthi, Pramila Jayapal, Ami Bera and Ro Khanna have been appointed as members of key US House Committees, reflecting the growing influence of the community in American politics.
• The Indian Space Research Organ­isa­tion (ISRO) chair­man S Somanath stated that, will make a fresh attempt to accur­ately launch the Small Satel­lite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) on Feb­ru­ary 10, 2023 around 5 months after the maiden ven­ture saw the rocket place its pay­loads on an incor­rect orbit.
• Former Indian National Team footballer Parimal Dey passed away at the age of 81.
• A legendary playback singer & Padma Bhushan awardee Vani Jairam passed away at the age of 78 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu (TN).
• Dr Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog inaugurated the ACIC-CBIT centre in Hyderabad.
• The government has blocked 232 apps operated by overseas entities, including Chinese for being involved in betting, gambling and unauthorised loan service
• The government is examining the different valuation criteria prescribed under two separate laws which could lead to disputes and litigations.
• The government has hiked windfall profit tax levied on domestically-produced crude oil as well as on the export of diesel and ATF, in line with firming international oil prices.
• Bengaluru topped the startup funding chart in India with $10.8 billion in 2022, followed by Mumbai at $3.9 billion, and Gurugram at a distant $2.6 billion.
• International Development Week is celebrated on 6th – 12th February every year.