Portal for Affordable Credit and Interest Subvention Access was recently launched by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
It is a centralized electronic web platform for processing interest subvention on bank loans to beneficiaries under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM).
Allahabad Bank is the nodal bank for this portal.
It enables the government to connect directly with the beneficiaries and ensuring greater transparency and efficiency in delivery of services.
All the States & UTs, all scheduled commercial banks, RRBs and Cooperative Banks are expected to deploy this portal.
Virtual Climate Summit
It is an innovative climate summit which is an entirely online event to be a carbon neutral event.
It is the world’s first ever political global meeting to be held in online.
Its focus is on to renew political momentum in tackling climate change.
It was announced in the Global Environment Facility (GEF) assembly recently held in Vietnam.
It is the brainchild of Marshall Islands President who insisted upon such summit in the GEF assembly.
The summit is convened by the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in its capacity as the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) chair.
Its main aim is to encourage the international community to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Climate Vulnerable Forum
The climate vulnerable forum is an international partnership of countries highly vulnerable to a warming planet.
The Forum serves as a South-South cooperation platform for participating governments to act together to deal with global climate change.
It brings together climate vulnerable developing countries from across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific.
The forum held its first meeting in Maldives in the year 2009.
CVF High-level meeting was last convened during the UNFCCC Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21).
The Manila-Paris Declaration and the 2016-2018 Roadmap of the CVF, adopted at this meeting, spell out the CVF’s planned efforts during this time period.
The forum has a rotating chairmanship that has been held by Maldives, Kiribati, Bangladesh, Costa Rica and Philippines, Ethiopia and currently held by Republic of Marshall.
Hantaviruses
Hantaviruses are a group of viruses that may be carried by some rodents.
It was first identified in the year 1993.
It can cause severe and sometimes fatal respiratory infections and are known to infect lung cells.
It can cause a rare but deadly disease called Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS).
It is transmitted to humans who inhale the virus from the urine, faeces, or saliva of infected rodents.
No treatments or vaccines are available.
Infections caused by them are expected to increase in the coming decades as temperatures across the globe rise due to climate change.
Migration Pact
The Australian government has recently decided to withdraw from the UN’s Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
Earlier, USA, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland had withdrawn from the agreement.
The agreement was signed in the UNGA by adopting a political declaration “New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants” in 2016.
The declaration pledged to uphold the rights of refugees, help them resettle and ensure they have access to education.
The pact is not binding on member countries.
It is aiming to make migration all over the world safer.
It addresses issues such as how to protect migrants and how to integrate them into new countries or how to return them to their original home countries.
Under the agenda, member States committed to cooperate internationally to facilitate safe, orderly and regular migration.
Hausla – 2018
It is the national festival for children of child care institutions (CCI) organized by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
The theme of the event is “Child Safety”.
It will host an inter CCI competition for children who reside in child care institutions to showcase their talents.
