4th-5th December Current Affairs : Vision IAS Current Affairs

The President of India Draupadi Murmu approved the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development
Act Amendment Bill. This amendment will pave the way for redevelopment of dangerous or
dilapidated Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) owned residential
buildings, or Cess buildings.
i. With this, MHADA has been empowered to directly take over such cess buildings, where
redevelopment is stalled, and redevelop them.
ii. If any cess building is declared dilapidated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the
owner of the building is given a chance to submit a redevelopment proposal within six months.

The operational guidelines for the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for drones and drone
components has been notified by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA), after consultation with
stakeholders, including industry representatives.
• The PLI scheme, with a funding of Rs. 120 crore, has been authorized by the Government of
India (GoI), and it would be implemented during the 2022-23 to 2024-25 period.
i. The PLI will be extended only to companies in India that manufacture drones and drone
components.
ii. The scheme is open to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and startups in India that
manufacture drones and have an annual sales turnover of Rs. 2 crore.
iii. In order to claim PLIs, Indian non-MSMEs that manufacture drones must have an annual sales
turnover of Rs. 4 crore.

According to the Tribal Development Report 2022 launched by the Bharat Rural Livelihood
Foundation (BRLF), the Tribal communities(Adivasis) are at the bottom of India’s development
pyramid.
i. The Tribal Development Report, launched in 2 volumes, is the first of its kind report launched since
1947.
ii. According to the 2011 Census, tribal communities across India account for around 8.6% of the total
population.

As per the data by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), India’s unemployment rate
increased to a three-month high at 8% during November 2022.
i. The unemployment rate in urban India was higher at 8.96% as compared to 7.21% in October
2022.
ii. On the other hand, the rural unemployment rate slipped to 7.55% from 8.04% in October 2022.
iii. Among the states, Haryana continued to have the highest unemployment rate in November at
30.6%. It is followed by Rajasthan at 24.5%, Jammu and Kashmir at 23.9%, Bihar at 17.3% and
Tripura at 14.5%.

The Government of India (GoI) has revised the scheme for supporting Start-Ups Intellectual
Property Protection (SIPP), significantly raising the facilitation fees by at least 100%.
i. The revision was intended to encourage intellectual property (IP) facilitators to provide quality
services to startups in order to boost the number of IP applications filed by startups.
ii. The updated scheme is effective from December 2, 2022.

Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dr Justice D.Y. Chandrachud delivered at the 8th Dr L M Singhvi
Memorial Lecture that the Constitution of India is a ‘feminist document and a product of true
Indian imagination‘.
i. The 8th Dr L M Singhvi Memorial Lecture was hosted by the OP Jindal Global University (JGU), on
the theme ‘Universal Adult Franchise: Translating India’s Political Transformation into a Social
Transformation‘.
ii. Jagdeep Dhankhar, Vice President of India, was the chief guest at the event.
iii. The Supreme Court of India launched an online portal that will help citizens file and access
applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in matters related to the court.

According to the report “Turning the Tide on Internal Displacement: A Development Approach to
Solutions,” more than 100 million people were forcibly displaced in 2022 for the first time, the
majority of whom were forcibly displaced within their own countries.
i. The report was created by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership
with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
ii. The IDMC gathered the data from January 2021 to January 2022.

William, Prince of Wales, announced the winners of the Earthshot Prize 2022, the 2nd edition of the
annual awards, at the awards ceremony held at the MGM Music Hall in Boston, the United States of
America (USA).

Atul Patidar, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Farmkart Online Services Private
Limited (central India’s first agritech innovation startup) was awarded the prestigious ‘Pride of
Central India 2022’ award for transforming the lives of rural farmers.
i. Dainik Bhaskar’s ‘Pride of Central India’ honours people with exceptional and inspirational work in
education, health, art, business, and social work.

Canara Bank received the Banker’s Bank of the Year Award 2022 for the India segment (Under
Asia Pacific Region) at the Global Banking Summit, held in London, United Kingdom (UK) from 29th
November 2022 to 1st December 2022.
i. The bank has been adjudged as the ‘Best Bank in India for 2022’

The Reserve bank of India (RBI) launched its pilot on retail digital currency/ rupee called ‘Digital
Rupee – Retail segment (e₹-R)’, a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) which is an electronic form of
sovereign currency.
i. In this regard, RBI issued Rs 1.71 crore to four participating banks (State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI
Bank, YES Bank, and IDFC First Bank) based on their indents.
• In the first phase, four banks including State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank, YES Bank, and
IDFC First Bank will take part.
• Four more banks viz. Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Kotak Mahindra
Bank will join this pilot subsequently.
ii. e₹-R can provide access to safe money for payment and settlement as it is a direct liability of the
RBI. It can be converted to other forms of money, like deposits with banks. The retail digital rupee will
not earn any interest.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and ABIS Exports India Private Limited (ABIS) entered into an
agreement on sustainability-linked and blue-debt facility, a non-convertible debenture worth USD 16
million (in equivalent Indian rupee).
i. This is to enhance food security in India by supporting the construction of a micro fish feed plant
and by training up to 6,000 farmers in climate-resilient fish farming practices as well as financial
literacy.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has extended the deadline for limiting volume cap
to 30% for Third Party Payment Application Providers (TPAP) in Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
by two years till December 31, 2024.
i. At present, there is no volume cap.
ii. The cap will avoid concentration risk, and protect the UPI ecosystem.

Saurashtra won the Vijay Hazare Trophy Final 2022- 2023 title by defeating Maharashtra by 5
wickets (249/5 & 248/9) in the final at Narendra Modi Stadium Ground ‘A’, Motera, Ahmedabad
(Gujarat).
• It is the 2nd Vijay Hazare Trophy victory for Saurashtra.
i. Saurashtra won its 1st Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2007-2008 against Bengal by 6 wickets.
• Sheldon Jackson scored an unbroken 133 runs off 136 balls, which helped Saurashtra defeat
Maharashtra in the final.
• Ruturaj Gaikwad set a milestone by becoming the 1st cricketer to score 4 centuries in a single
Vijay Hazare Trophy season twice.

India will assume the chairmanship of the Wassenaar Arrangement (WA), a multilateral technology
control agreement, on 1st January 2023, for a period of one year.
i. Ireland’s ambassador Eoin O’Leary handed over the chairmanship to India’s ambassador Jaideep
Mazumdar, permanent representative to the UN and international organizations in Vienna at the 26th
annual plenary of the WA held in Vienna between 30th November and 1st December 2022.
ii. The WA is a multilateral export control regime established in 1996, monitors the transfers of
conventional weapons and dual-use goods. It has 42 members and operates on a voluntary basis,
where decisions are made by consensus.

Mahua Acharya, Managing Directors (MDs) and Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of state-owned
Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL) has resigned from the top post.
i. According to Mahua Acharya’s resignation letter, 13th January 2023 will be her last day in the
position.

Veteran Odia film actress Jharana Das passed away in Cuttack, Odisha at the age of 77. She was born
in 1945 and started her acting career in the 1960s and also served as station director of Doordarshan.
i. In 1997, Jharana Das received the state government’s prestigious ‘Jaydev Puraskar‘ for her lifelong
contribution to the Odia cinema industry.
ii. She won several accolades for her brilliant performance in films like ‘Shree Jagannath’, ‘Nari’,
‘Adinamegha’, ‘Hisabnikas’, ‘Pujafula’, ‘Amadabata’, ‘Abhinetri’, ‘Malajanha’ and ‘Heera Nella’.

The Government of India (GoI) has named 21 uninhabited islands in the union territory (UT) of
Andaman & Nicobar (A&N) after recipients of Param Vir Chakra, India’s highest wartime gallantry
award with the support of Andaman administration and the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
• Out of the 21 islands, 16 are located in North and Middle Andaman district, while the
remaining 5 islands are in South Andaman.
• The first uninhabited island numbered ‘INAN370’ in North and Middle Andaman was named
after Param Vir Chakra, Major Somnath Sharma (1947 -Battle of Badgam) and henceforth it
will be known as ‘Somnath Dweep’.
• Another uninhabited island numbered ‘INAN308’ has been named after Subedar and Honorary
Captain Karam Singh (1947-Indo-Pakistani War) as ‘Karam Singh Dweep’

Idol Wing CID of the Tamil Nadu Police has initiated a new drive to mint Soulbound Tokens, a nontransferable form of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), as “digital medals” to motivate officers in the wing.
i. Idol Wing Becomes the first police unit in the world to mint SBTs and the Tamil Nadu Police
becomes the 2nd police force in the world, after Dubai, to mint its own NFTs to award them as
rewards.
ii. The first 5 digital assets were presented to the team headed by Deputy Superintendents of Police U.
Muthuraja and R. Mohan, who seized 15 idols from the residence of an art collector inThiruvanmiyur,
Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

The United Nations (UN)’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) or International Day
of Disabled Persons 2022 was observed across the globe on 3rd December 2022 with the theme of
‘Transformative solutions for inclusive development: the role of innovation in fueling an accessible
and equitable world’.
i. The National Awards for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, 2021 & 2022 was conferred on
3rd December 2022, which was organized by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with
Disabilities (Divyangjan), Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
• The President of India, Droupadi Murmu attended as the Chief Guest.
ii. In 2022, the National Awards were presented to 29 Individuals out of 1,210 applications,
Institutions and Organisations for their outstanding achievements and work towards empowering
Persons with Disabilities.

As chief minister Yogi Adityanath, along with a delegation, is set to travel to Davos, Switzerland, to
attend the World Economic Forum-2023 meeting, the state government proposes to put up a pavilion
there to showcase Uttar Pradesh as “the best investment destination”.
i. The endeavor is aimed at achieving the objective of making the state a trillion-dollar economy in the
next five years. The WEF-2023 meeting is proposed at Davos from January 16 to 20.
ii. The Uttar Pradesh government proposes to hold the GIS-2023 from February 10-12.

Shriram Transport Finance Company (STFC), which changed its name to Shriram Finance, saw a toplevel rejig after the restructuring of the group, with former Odisha cadre civil service officer Jugal
Kishore Mohapatra being elected as its new chairman of Shriram Transport Finance Company
(STFC).
i. Mohapatra replaced S Lakshmninarayanan, who served as the Chairman of STFC for nearly nine
years, and earlier as an independent director for four years.

Administrator – Achim Steiner
Headquarters – New York City, USA
Establishment – 1965

Capital- Manama
Currency- Bahraini Dinar
i. Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrived in Bahrain, the first visit by an Israeli head of state to the
small Gulf kingdom since the two countries normalized relations in 2020.

Baguette-the staple French bread was inscribed into UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage
(ICH) on November 30.
i. The baguette is a long and thin loaf made of flour, water, salt and yeast, and is consumed as a staple
in France. Some believe that it was invented by August Zang, a baker and an entrepreneur from
Vienna in 1839, who introduced the world to the taste of crusty bread with softer insides, using a
steam oven. It gained its official name in 1920.
ii. In March 2021, France nominated the baguette as its candidate for consideration within the
UNESCO ICH list.

Imtaiyazur Rahman is the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of UTI Asset Management Co.
Ltd.
i. After spending over three decades in the Indian mutual fund industry – all of which were with a
single fund house – Swati Kulkarni, the former Executive Vice President and Fund Manager – Equity at
UTI AMC, retired in November, 2022.
ii. She joined UTI AMC in 1992 and has been a Fund Manager since 2004

Google has launched a new app called Reading Mode to support individuals with visual imparities
and dyslexia to read long-form content on screen.
i. According to reports, the app works on devices running Android 9.0 or above. Google already
provides a range of accessibility tools, such as a screen reader with TalkBack and a built-in Braille
keyboard.

Indonesia’s highest volcano, Mount Semeru, has erupted, releasing searing gas clouds and rivers of
lava and prompting authorities to raise their volcano alert to its highest level.
i. Nearly 2,000 people in the densely populated island of Java have been evacuated from villages close
to the peak.

President – Masatsugu Asakawa
Establishment – 1966
Headquarters – Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Members – 68 members (49 from Asian and the Pacific and 19 outside)

To mark the 51st anniversary of India’s victory in the Longewala battle during the 1971 war,
Parakram Diwas will be celebrated at Jaisalmer Military Station and Longewala War Memorial in
Rajasthan on 5th December 2022.
i. The Longewala battle between India and Pakistan in 1971 was one of the biggest and most decisive
battles, which is registered in the Golden words in History