Goaltide Daily Current Affairs 2021
Current Affair 1:
NCRB Report on Environment related offence
During the year 2020, a total of 61,767 cases were registered under Environment Related Offences as compared to 34,676 cases in the year 2019, showing an increase of 78.1%. Crime head-wise cases revealed that the cases registered under The Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) with 80.5 % (49,710 Cases) were the highest followed by Noise Pollution Acts (State/Central) with 11.8% (7,318 Cases).
Current Affair 2:
UNESCO declares world’s first 5-country biosphere reserve in ‘Amazon of Europe’
The UNESCO September 15, 2021, designated Mura-Drava-Danube (MDD) as the world’s first ‘five-country biosphere reserve’, according to a statement by the World-Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature.
The biosphere reserve covers 700 kilometers of the Mura, Drava and Danube rivers and stretches across Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Serbia.
The total area of the reserve — a million hectares — in the so-called ‘Amazon of Europe’, makes it the largest riverine protected area on the continent.
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The World-Wide Fund for Nature is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. Mission is to: To stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature by:
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Current Affair 3:
Cabinet clears Govt. guarantee for bad bank
The above is news from Hindu. Following are some relevant points.
Govt. of India has created a "bad bank" named "National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL)". NARCL is owned by Government of India, which basically means NARCL/bad bank is a PSU.
Let us understand what the article is trying to say through an example:
Suppose SBI had earlier given loan worth Rs. 1000 crore and it turned into NPA. So, SBI would like to sell this NPA/bad loan to the bad bank (NARCL) and recover the money and would like to focus on its banking business.
So, Bad bank will purchase this NPA from SBI but not in Rs. 1000 crore. The bad bank will try to estimate how much money it would actually be able to recover from the NPA and accordingly it would quote a price for it. If SBI also agrees then, SBI will sell this NPA/bad loan (paper) to bad bank, let us say in Rs. 300 crores. But the bad bank will not immediately pay in cash Rs. 300 crores to SBI. Rather, the bad bank will pay 15% of the agreed amount (of the Rs. 300 crore) i.e., Rs. 45 crores in cash and the rest 85% i.e., Rs. 255 crores in securities (a kind of debt paper). But what if the bad bank/NARCL in future does not pay the amount mentioned in the security?? i.e., bad bank does not repay its debt of Rs. 255 crores.
So, as per the news article, Govt. of India has agreed to provide "Government Guarantee" on the securities that will be issued by the bad bank.
You may be wondering that why there is a need of Govt. guarantee, when the bad bank is already a Govt. company. You should know that a Govt. company can also default. Govt. of India is not legally bound to pay the liabilities of a Govt. company.
Current Affair 4:
Emergency use listing
The World Health Organisation (WHO) may take a decision on granting Emergency Use Listing (EUL) to Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin this week.
About:
The WHO Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL) is a risk-based procedure for assessing and listing unlicensed vaccines, therapeutics and in vitro diagnostics with the ultimate aim of expediting the availability of these products to people affected by a public health emergency.
This will assist interested UN procurement agencies and Member States in determining the acceptability of using specific products, based on an essential set of available quality, safety, and efficacy and performance data.
Eligibility of candidate products
The EUL concerns three product streams (vaccines, therapeutics and in vitro diagnostics), each of which has specific requirements for products to be eligible for evaluation under the EUL procedure.
The following criteria must be met:
- The disease for which the product is intended is serious or immediately life threatening, has the potential of causing an outbreak, epidemic or pandemic and it is reasonable to consider the product for an EUL assessment, e.g., there are no licensed products for the indication or for a critical subpopulation (e.g., children);
- Existing products have not been successful in eradicating the disease or preventing outbreaks (in the case of vaccines and medicines);
- The product is manufactured in compliance with current Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) in the case of medicines and vaccines and under a functional Quality Management System (QMS) in the case of IVDs; and
- The applicant undertakes to complete the development of the product (validation and verification of the product in the case of IVDs) and apply for WHO prequalification once the product is licensed.
