CURRENT AFFAIRS: DAYS
World Cotton Day
- The World Cotton day is celebrated on 7 October as a global celebration of cotton and its stakeholders, from field to fabric and beyond.
- World Cotton Day also aims to highlight the challenges faced by the world’s cotton economies, as cotton is significant for the least developed, developing and developed economies worldwide.
- This is the second edition. The first-ever World Cotton Day (WCD) was hosted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva on October 7, 2019.
CURRENT AFFAIRS: NATIONAL
Piyush Goyal Inaugurates Renaming Of Naugarh Railway Station To Siddharthnagar
- Railway Minister Piyush Goyal through a video link inaugurated the renaming of Naugarh railway station to Siddharthnagar railway station situated at Siddharthnagar district in Uttar Pradesh.
- The approval has been given for the construction of a new railway line of 240 km from Khalilabad to Bahraich via Dumariyaganj-Utraula-Balrampur-Shravasti. With the completion of this project, the development of Sant Kabir Nagar, Siddharthnagar, Shravasti, Bahraich and Gonda districts will be accelerated.
About Uttar Pradesh
- Governor: Anandiben Patel
- Capital: Lucknow
- Chief minister: Yogi Adityanath
India’s first 5 Animal bridges to come up on this greenfield expressway
- The road infra structure development is currently one of the major focuses of the government as various expressway projects are underway in the country. The construction of one such highway project and also the most awaited is Delhi-Mumbai greenfield expressway. This upcoming expressway is tipped to be the longest greenfield expressways that is expected to be completed by 2024
- While there are many features of this upcoming expressway that will lead to better connectivity between the two metropolis, one such highlights of the Delhi-Mumbai expressway is going to be animal bridges or animal overpasses.
- The upcoming expressway project will have India’s first animal bridges or animal overpasses that will be designed keeping in mind not to disturb the environment and wildlife section that comes up on way of over 1,200 km long expressway.
- In total, the Delhi-Mumbai expressway will have 5 such animal overpasses with a combined length of over 2.5 km.
- These bridges have been planned to abide by the concerns of not disturbing the wildlife movement on a section of Ranthambore Wildlife Corridor that comes on way connecting Ranthambore and Mukundra (Darrah) wildlife sanctuaries in Rajasthan.
Integration between PM SVANidhi & SBI portals ‘API’ launched to ease processing of loan applications
- Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra launched the Application Programming Interface, integration between the PM SVANidhi Portal and the State Bank of India portal to ease processing of loan applications.
- This integration will facilitate seamless flow of data between the PM SVANidhi Portal and SBI’s e-Mudra Portal in a secure environment and expedite the loan sanctioning and disbursement process, which will benefit the street vendors seeking working capital loan under the scheme.
- The Ministry is implementing Prime Minister Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi, PM SVANidhi Scheme since 1st June this year, for providing affordable working capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to COVID-19 lockdown.
- This scheme targets to benefit over 50 lakh Street Vendors who had been vending on or before 24th of March this year, in urban areas. Under the scheme, the vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to ten thousand, which is repayable in monthly installments in the tenure of one year.
About MoHUA:
- Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs and Civil Aviation: Hardeep Singh Puri
- Constituency: Amritsar
About SBI:
- Chairperson: Rajnish Kumar
- Headquarters: Mumbai
- Founded: 1 July 1955
My Ganga My Dolphin campaign launched at six sites across river Ganga
- The National Mission for Clean Ganga, the Wildlife Institute of India and the Forest Department launched the My Ganga My Dolphin campaign on the occasion of Ganga River Dolphin Day.
- A Dolphin-based ecotourism programme was launched at various sites along the Ganga River. It was started in six sites across the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.
- “This is a joint venture of WII, NMCG and the State Forest Departments, for sustainable tourism linking livelihood through Dolphin Conservation for ecotourism along the Ganga river,”
- The Ganga Praharis in all the sites have been trained in biodiversity-based eco-tourism and will take the tourists on boat rides to view Dolphin and another biodiversity present in the Ganga River.
- “In the My Ganga My Dolphin campaign, Dolphin census will be conducted in the 250 km stretch from Bijnore to Narora, many community awareness campaigns will be carried out and young volunteers will be encouraged to enrol as Ganga Mitras,” the statement added
CURRENT AFFAIRS: BANKING AND FINANCE
ICICI Bank offers debit card to borrowers availing Loan Against Securities
- ICICI Bank has introduced a debit card facility for those borrowers who are availing the Loan Against Securities (LAS) from the Bank. The card is available on the Visa platform.
- It can be used by customers across all domestic merchant establishments to make seamless POS and online transactions like payments on e-commerce portals among others, using their sanctioned LAS amount.
- The ICICI Bank is the first bank in the country to launch the facility after the RBI allowing banks to issue electronic cards to customers who avail an OD facility, which is of the nature of a personal loan with no specific end-use restriction.
- Customers get a digital debit card within one business day of availing LAS, which can be accessed on the Bank’s mobile app
Key benefits of the debit card include:
- Transaction limit: The card offers a maximum daily transaction limit of Rs. 3 lakh each for POS and online transactions.
- Digital card: The Bank provides a digital card to customers, which is made available on iMobile app within one business day.
- Automatic renewal: The card is automatically renewed upon renewal of the LAS account.
About ICICI Bank
- CEO: Sandeep Bakhshi
- Headquarters: Mumbai
Sebi introduces very high risk category in mutual fund schemes
- The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has introduced detailed guidelines for determining the place of a mutual fund on its risk o meter tool.
- The new system introduces a fresh category of ‘very high’ risk. It replaces the old model based simply on a scheme’s category without adequately considering its actual portfolio.
- The circular goes into effect on 1st Jan 2021.
- Mutual Funds have to update the riskometer on a monthly basis on their websites and the AMFI website, within 10 days from the end of the month. In case of a change in riskometer position, they have to send out communications to investors. Mutual Funds also have to publish a history of riskometer changes every year.
- Separately, Sebi introduced labelling norms for the dividend options of mutual funds which will come into effect from 1st April 2021. Under the new norms, mutual funds will have to rename dividend options as income distribution cum capital withdrawal.
- Under the new riskometer, there are six categories of risk, going from low to very high.
About SEBI
- Founded: 12 April 1992
- Headquarters: Mumbai
- Chairperson: Ajay Tyagi
