Piyush Goyal to Launch MAARG Portal for Startup Mentorship
The MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth) platform will be launched by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
The MAARG (Mentorship, Advisory, Assistance, Resilience, and Growth) platform will be launched by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal. The Commerce Ministry said MAARG, a portal to facilitate mentorship for start-ups across diverse sectors, and geographies, will go live on January 16.
What’s More In The Line:
The minister will also award outstanding start-ups and enablers which have demonstrated exceptional capabilities not just in terms of financial gains, but also for the measurable impact on society. The winning start-ups will be given a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh each. One exceptional incubator and one accelerator each will get a cash prize of Rs 15 lakh.
Significance of MAARG Portal:
It will facilitate mentorship between start-ups and entrepreneurs across sectors, stages, and functions, the ministry said. The matchmaking phase of the portal will allow start-ups to connect with mentors and discuss their mentorship needs.
SEBI Allows AIFs to Participate in Credit Default Swap Transactions
SEBI allowed Alternative Investment Funds to participate in the Credit Default Swaps market as protection buyers and sellers in a bid to facilitate the deepening of the domestic corporate bond segment
Regulator SEBI allowed Alternative Investment Funds(AIFs) to participate in the Credit Default Swaps(CDS) market as protection buyers and sellers in a bid to facilitate the deepening of the domestic corporate bond segment. The new norms, which will come into force with immediate effect, allow business entities to hedge risks associated with the bonds market. In 2012, the capital markets regulator SEBI had allowed mutual funds to participate in Credit Default Swap transactions, which allow business entities to hedge risks associated with the bonds market.
More About This Regulation:
Category-I and Category-II AIFs can buy CDS on underlying investment in debt securities only for the purpose of hedging, while Category-III AIFs can purchase CDS for hedging or otherwise, within permissible leverage.
With regard to selling, SEBI said Category-II and Category-III AIFs may sell CDS by earmarking securities.
SEBI said in case the amount of earmarked securities falls below CDS exposure, such AIFs will be required to send a report to the custodian on the same day of the breach.
The AIF would bring the amount of earmarked securities equal to CDS exposure and report details regarding rectification of breach to the custodian by the end of next trading day. In case the AIF fails to rectify to rectify the breach, the custodian would report details of the breach to Sebi on the next working day.
Any unhedged position, which would result in gross unhedged positions across all CDS transactions exceeding 25% of investable funds of the scheme of an AIF, would be taken only after intimating to all unit holders of the scheme.
Category I and II AIFs would not borrow funds directly or indirectly and engage in leverage except for meeting temporary funding requirements for not more than 30 days, not more than four occasions in a year and not more than 10% of the investable funds. Further, such AIFs which transact in CDS will have to maintain a 30-day cooling off period between the two periods of borrowing or engaging in leverage.
What is Credit Default Swap(CDS):
A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap arrangement in which the buyer is compensated by the seller in the event of a debt default (by the debtor) or another credit event.
A credit event is a trigger in the CDS market that triggers the protection buyer to terminate and settle the contract.
Bonds and other debt securities carry the risk of the borrower defaulting on the debt or its interest payments.
Right to Sight, Rajasthan Becomes first state to implement Blindness Control Policy
Under its campaign of Nirogi Rajasthan, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has implemented the policy for Blindness Control with the objective of 'Right to Sight'.
Under its campaign of Nirogi Rajasthan, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has implemented the policy for Blindness Control with the objective of ‘Right to Sight’. With this, Rajasthan has become the first state to have such a policy. This policy has been brought with an aim to bring light in the lives of more than 3 lakh people suffering from visual impairment in the State. The prevalence rate of blindness in the country was 1.1% in 2020 and the initiatives under the Blindness Control Policy will help to bring it down to 0.3 percent.
What More Is In Line:
Under the policy for Blindness Control, the state government will mandatorily run Keratoplasty Centre and Eye Bank in all the government medical colleges. The government funded private organizations and NGOs that are collecting cornea will have to provide the collected cornea to the government institutions on priority.
Efforts to eliminate visual impairment would be made in the districts in collaboration with voluntary organizations, trusts, hospitals and other charitable institutions working in this field.
In this regard, the State Government will carry out a campaign for eye donation on an extensive level along with the private institutions.
Special training will be imparted to eye experts, eye surgeons, post graduate students, counselors working for eye donation and eye assistants etc.
Centre to launch National Urban Technology Mission for Municipal Services and ULBs
The Centre is about to launch a five-year National Urban Technology Mission which is able to infuse technological improvements in municipal providers.
The Centre is about to launch a five-year National Urban Technology Mission which is able to infuse technological improvements in municipal providers and infrastructure of 4,500 city native bodies within the nation. The mission, to be spearheaded by the ministry of housing and urban affairs, can have three main sub-heads. A be aware ready for the approval of the expenditure finance committee (EFC) pegs the mission outlay at ₹15,000 crore for 5 years.
More About National Urban Technology Mission:
The primary sub-head is online governance. The mission will establish six primary frequent citizen providers which each city native physique should provide on-line. These would essentially embrace issuing beginning and loss of life certificates, offering water and electrical energy connections, computation and assortment of property tax and grievance redress.
All city native bodies declare to supply a number of providers on-line. Some even listing very excessive numbers like 35 providers that are on-line. An in depth scrutiny of this listing exhibits that these are providers that don’t have an effect on the lives of residents, like library administration.
Beneath this mission, all city native bodies might be required to supply six frequent providers to residents. This may imply that the complete nation will provide these providers on-line to the folks. The second sub-head could be monitoring and environment friendly administration of the environmental infrastructure of 1,000 cities. Beneath the mission, sewage remedy, air high quality, flood administration and water our bodies of those cities might be monitored via technological interventions.
OneWeb launches 40 SpaceX satellites, to start global services this year
Airtel-backed OneWeb successfully launched and deployed 40 satellites onboard a SpaceX launcher.
Airtel-backed OneWeb successfully launched and deployed 40 satellites onboard a SpaceX launcher. This was the UK-based satellite network provider’s 16th successful launch, bringing the total number of satellites in its low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites up to 542. OneWeb originally sought to deploy a total of 648 satellites to enable its network of satellite-based internet connectivity around the world.
Internet connectivity based on its satellite constellation is presently active in Alaska, ‘wider Arctic area’, Canada, Greenland and the UK. Services in the US, Australia, Middle East and Southern Europe will “come online soon”.
The company was tipped to finish deploying its entire constellation of satellites sooner, but the Russia-Ukraine conflict saw 36 of its satellites held hostage by Roscosmos, Russia’s central space agency. The debacle saw OneWeb look to other launch operators, which included Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro)’s commercial arm, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), to launch some of its satellites. Isro launched 36 OneWeb satellites aboard its LVM3 rocket — which was also the latter’s first commercial launch mission.
OneWeb, backed by Bharti, is rivalled in an increasingly populous market by the likes of Elon Musk-helmed SpaceX’s Starlink, Jeff Bezos-backed Project Kuiper, homegrown telco Reliance Jio in partnership with Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES, and domestic telecom services firm Nelco Limited in partnership with Canadian satellite operator, Telesat.
What is LEO:-
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never more than about one-third of the radius of Earth.
The term LEO region is also used for the area of space below an altitude of 2,000 km (1,200 mi) (about one-third of Earth’s radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites.
All crewed space stations to date have been within LEO. From 1968 to 1972, the Apollo program’s lunar missions sent humans beyond LEO. Since the end of the Apollo program, no human spaceflights have been beyond LEO.
PM Modi announces ‘Aarogya Maitri’ for medical supplies to developing nations
PM Narendra Modi announced a new ‘Aarogya Maitri’ project under which India will provide essential medical supplies to any developing country affected by natural disasters or humanitarian crisis.
About Aarogya Maitri:-
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a new ‘Aarogya Maitri’ project under which India will provide essential medical supplies to any developing country affected by natural disasters or humanitarian crisis and proposed to set up a ‘centre of excellence’ to facilitate development solutions to these countries.
In his opening address at the concluding session of the Voice of Global South virtual summit, Modi also said that India will launch a ‘science and technology initiative’ to share its expertise with other developing nations. He announced that New Delhi will institute new scholarships for students from developing countries to pursue higher education in India.
The prime minister said India will launch the Global South Science and Technology Initiative to share its expertise in areas such as space technology and nuclear energy, and establish the Global South Center of Excellence for research on development solutions that can be scaled up and implemented around the world.
PM Modi also suggested a Global South Young Diplomats Forum that will help connect youthful officers to the Foreign Ministries.
‘Soul of Steel’ expedition to challenge high altitude endurance for civilians
In an effort to test one’s high-altitude endurance, a new challenge called “Soul of Steel” will be launched in India.
In an effort to test one’s high-altitude endurance, a new challenge called “Soul of Steel” will be launched in India. Spearheaded by venture CLAW Global, which is run by veterans and supported by the Indian Army, the challenge will take place in the state of Uttarakhand and is similar to the “Ironman triathlon” long-distance triathlon challenge in Europe. The expedition will officially launch on January 14th, and will include 12 Indian participants and six international teams, with the age group for applicants being between 18 and 30 years.
Purpose of the Challenge
The idea behind the “Soul of Steel” challenge, according to Major Vivek Jacob (Retd.) of CLAW Global, is “pooling of skillsets and creating a challenge that will unlock the human ability to survive, stabilize and thrive in high altitude areas.” The challenge will also provide life skill training, youth development, and global promotion of adventure tourism in Uttarakhand, in addition to showcasing the skills of veterans.
Location of the Challenge
The general area of the expedition will be the Nanda Devi national park, which has several peaks that are over 7000 feet tall. During the actual challenge, various situations will be presented to the participants through navigation points that they must cross.
Cost and Sponsorship
The total cost of the project is estimated to be around ₹30 crore, and the organizers are looking for companies to sponsor the challenge in addition to resources from the Army and CLAW. Participants will be asked to pay a token fee, which will be affordable for all Indians, according to Major Jacob.
About CLAW Global
CLAW Global was established in January 2019 by Major Jacob, a para special forces officer who had to retire from the Army after 14 years of service due to a combat skydive injury. In August 2021, a group of differently-abled people led by CLAW Global trekked up to Kumar post on Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield.