CURRENT AFFAIRS: NATIONAL
Govt aims to increase public health expenditure to 2.5% of GDP by 2025
- The Union Health Ministry has pushed for an increased expenditure on public health. In a meeting with the 15th Finance Commission, the Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, highlighted that the government aims at gradually increasing the public health expenditure to 2.5 per cent of the nation’s GDP by the year 2025.
- The Minister asserted that the outlay for primary health expenditure will also be made nearly two third of the total public health expenditure in the country. Reiterating the government’s target of the National Health Policy 2017, Dr. Vardhan emphasized on the importance of increasing the state’s health sector spending to nearly 8 per cent of their total budget.
- The Health Ministry apprised the Finance Commission of the need to further strengthen the public health sector, surveillance and public health management, preventive and promotive health care system in the country.
- The Health Ministry has also revised its requirement of around 9 lakh crores to 6.04 lakh crores in view of the COVID pandemic. It has asked for additional resources for the States which would be utilized for achievement of the National Health Policy targets.
About Ministry of Health and Family Welfare:
- Harsh Vardhan, Cabinet Minister
- Constituency: Chandni Chowk
- Ashwini Kumar Choubey, Minister of State
CURRENT AFFAIRS: INTERNATIONAL
United Nations organised 2020 Virtual Counter-Terrorism Week from 6-10 July 2020
- The Virtual Counter-Terrorism Week will be held from 6-10 July and convened under the overarching theme of “Strategic and Practical Challenges of Countering Terrorism in a Global Pandemic Environment”.
- The event will be launched on 6 July 2020 at 10:00 am (New York time) with an opening two-hour high-level session titled “Post COVID-19 World: Contours and Pivot Points and Benefits of Multilateral Collaboration.”
- Thereafter, the Week will include nine additional webinars and interactive discussions focusing on priorities such as bio and cyber terrorism, high-risk threats and trends, addressing the plight of victims of terrorism, flagship UN counter-terrorism programmes, human rights and counter-terrorism, countering the financing of terrorism, youth-led initiatives to build resilient societies, and civil society and media perspectives to prevent violent extremism, among others.
- The event will provide an opportunity to bring Member States, United Nations entities, thought leaders, civil society representatives and other stakeholders together to exchange views, through strategic and expert-level online events, on what the new circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic mean for the counter-terrorism landscape.
About United Nations
- Secretary general: António Guterres
- Headquarters: New York, New York, United States
CURRENT AFFAIRS: BANKING AND FINANCE
Nabard announces Rs.5,000-crore concessional refinance facility
- The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), announced a concessional refinance facility to the tune of 5,000 crore for banks and financial institutions for on-lending to beneficiaries in its 2,150 watershed development projects.
- The rural development financial institutions also announced earmarking of Rs.5,000 crore during FY21 for turning Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) into multi-service centres (one-stop shops for meeting the varied needs of the farmers).
- Nabard, in a statement, stated its watershed development projects cover 04 lakh hectares of rain-fed area watershed and tribal development project areas.
- “The concessional line of assistance will be available for three years from FY21 to FY23.
- “The scheme will help the reverse migrants, who have returned to their villages from urban areas following the Covid-19 crisis, take up new occupations,” it added.
- Nabard has launched a Rs.5,000-crore grant-based scheme for computerisation of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) to enable these ground-level entities provide seamless credit services to their farmer members.
- Under this initiative, assistance will be extended to each State, which will have to contribute a matching amount, to kick-start the process of computerization of PACS. These societies are the building blocks of India’s cooperative banking structure.
- As many as 5,000 PACS will be upgraded this year followed by 15,000 PACS each in FY22 and FY23.
- “Moreover, the recent reforms in APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) Act, Essential Commodities Act, Contract Farming Act also favour such a transformation of PACS.”
- Chintala observed that these upgraded PACS can be vehicles for creating investment opportunities for rural youth in agriculture, including those impacted by reverse migration in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
About Nabard :
- Founded: 12 July 1982
- Headquarters: Mumbai
- Chairman: Chintala Govinda Rajulu
NHB provides Rs.25,000 crore to housing fin cos as refinance assistance in last 4 months
- The National Housing Bank (NHB) has in the last four months (March to June 30, 2020) provided a total refinance assistance of over 25,000 crore to the housing finance companies (HFCs) alone.
- Total refinance disbursements during July-June 2020 grew 24 per cent year -on-year to touch 31,250 crore under its various refinance schemes.
- Under the Aatmanirbhar Package announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the NHB was provided a Special Liquidity Facility of 10,000 crore by the Reserve Bank of India to address the pandemic related liquidity issues of housing finance sector.
- Of this Rs.10,000 crore, as much as Rs.9,992 crore has been sanctioned to 53 housing finance companies/regional rural banks/small finance banks. The amount disbursed under this window stood at Rs.9,537 crore as of June 30.
About NHB:
- Founded: 9 July 1988
- Headquarters: New Delhi
- Shri Sriram Kalyanaraman (Managing Director)
CURRENT AFFAIRS: BUSINESS AND ECONOMY
