Current Affair 1:

Global Health Security (GHS) Index 2020

 

The document was jointly released by non-profits Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

It has assessed countries across six categories, 37 indicators and 171 questions, using instantly available information.

 In South Asia, India, with a score of 42.8 (out of 100) too, has slipped by 0.8 points since 2019.

You don’t need much details.

 

 

Current Affair 2:

Zonal Councils in India

 

The idea of creation of Zonal Councils was mooted by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1956. This can be again a part of your Prelims Question. If you remember, something similar was asked in Prelims 2019:

Zonal Councils were set up under States Re-Organisation Act, 1956. There is total five Zonal Councils- North, South, West, East and Central.

Don’t include North-Eastern Zonal Councils in it. North Eastern Council is a statutory advisory body constituted under the NEC Act 1971.

One more important thing to understand here is Standing Committee to Zonal Councils.

Nothing more than this is required for your Exam.

Current Affair 3:

Non-Convertible Debentures (NCD)

 

Non-convertible debentures (NCDs) are financial instruments that are issued by companies to raise medium to long-term capital. NCDs are debt instruments with a fixed tenure and people who invest in these receive regular interest at a certain rate.

Why is it called non-convertible?

Some debentures can be converted into shares after a certain point in time. This is done at the discretion of the owner. However, this is not possible in the case of NCDs. That’s why they are known as non-convertible.

NCDs are of two types:

(i) Secured NCDs: The issuer pledges specific assets as collateral against defaults on the NCDs

(ii) Unsecured NCDs: No specific assets are pledged as security/collateral for the loan

Liquidity

Since they are listed on the stock exchanges, NCDs are easy to withdraw. Redeeming/withdrawing NCD investment may be a little tougher than selling regular stocks/shares, but they are more liquid than bank fixed deposits.

Higher interest rate

They generally have higher interest rate than the Bank fixed deposits. The unsecured NCDs offer much higher rate in double digits. The major players which raise funds through NCDs are housing finance companies, gold loan companies and NBFCs.

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