NATIONAL

NHA has revised Health Benefit Package of PM-JAY

• The National Health Authority (NHA), the apex body for implementing Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) has revised the Health Benefit Package (HBP) Master under the scheme.
• In the revised version of Health Benefit Package (HBP 2.2), rates of some health packages have been increased by 20% to 400% under PM-JAY, and palnned to be rolled out from Nov 2021.
• One new additional medical management package related to black fungus has also been added and 400 procedure rates have been revised.
• State Health Agencies (SHAs) currently implementing any of the previous versions of HBP can now accept and implement the latest version of HBP 2.2.
• NHA has revisoned rate in radiation oncology procedures, Medical management procedures, Surgical package treatment for black fungus, Other procedures like Right/left heart catheterization, PDA closure, Arthrodesis, Cholecystectomy, appendicectomy etc.
• Currently, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY has 1669 treatment procedures out of which 1080 are surgical, 588 medical and one unspecified package. Under the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY aims to achieve the target of Universal Health Coverage and provide access to free and affordable healthcare services to the citizens residing in the remotest of the areas.

About PM-JAY: Under this scheme it offers a sum insured of Rs.5 lakh per family for secondary care (which doesn’t involve a super specialist) as well as tertiary care (which involves a super specialist), and beneficiaries are identified by latest Socio economic caste census,

Funding of this scheme is shared 60:40 for all states and UT’s and 90:10 to north eastern states, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand and Jammu and Kashmir.

COVID orphans to get PM-CARES aid

• A total of 845 COVID-19 orphans have been identified and approved for recieveingf PM-CARES Fund.
• A total of 3,915 applications have been submitted on the portal in the past four months.
• District Magistrates have approved 845 applicants have been approved.

About PM-CARES Fund: The centre has set up the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM-CARES Fund) to deal with any kind of emergency or distress situation like posed by the COVID-19.

It is Public charitable trust, chared by prime minister along with defence minister, finanace minister and home minister.

This enables micro donations for reciveing funds with smallest denominations to strengthen disaster management capacities.

Under the Companies Act, 2013, companies with a minimum net worth of Rs 500 crore or turnover of Rs 1,000 crore, or net profit of Rs 5 crore are required to spend at least 2% of their average profit for the previous three years on CSR activities every year.

Centre permits captive mines to sell their coal

• Coal mines which produces coal solely for their own use (captive mines) will now be allowed to sell 50% of their annual output in the open market.
• Coal ministry said that this will ease pressure on power plants and will also aid in import substitutions of coal.
• This move was done because of the coal supply crisis, where central electricity authority which monitors coal stocks for 135 power plants.
• The daily coal requirement of these plants were 18,24,100 tonnes of coal to generate 165 GW of power
• Among the 135 plants, None of the plants had 8 days of coal stock.

‘JIMEX’ 5 th edition conducted

• India-Japan maritime bilateral exercise(JIMEX) was held in Arabian sea from Oct 06-Oct 08, this is currently the fifth edition of maritime exercise held.
• Indigenously built Guided Missile Stealth Destroyer Kochi and Guided Missile Frigate Teg, under the command of Rear Admiral Ajay Kochhar, Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet, will represent the Indian Navy.
• The Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force will be represented by JMSDF ships Kaga, an Izumo Class Helicopter Carrier and Murasame, a Guided Missile Destroyer, led by Rear Admiral IkeuchiIzuru, Commander Escort Flotila - 3  (CCF-3).
• P8I Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft, Dornier Maritime Patrol Aircraft, integral helicopters and MiG 29K fighter aircraft will also participate in the exercise.
• It aims to develop common understanding of operational procedures and enhance inter-operability through conduct of a multitude of advanced exercises, across the entire spectrum of maritime operations. Multi-faceted tactical exercises involving weapon firings, cross-deck helicopter operations and complex surface, anti-submarine and air warfare drills will consolidate coordination developed by the two navies.

Cost of Borrowing for states jumps 6 basis points

• Just ahead of the 4^th Monetary policy review, RBI may begin to normalise the easy money policy by sucking out liquidity from the system, the cost of borrowing for the states jumped by 6 basis points (bps) to a two-month high of 6.91 per cent.
• As many as 17 states raised Rs 22,809 crore at the weekly auctions held on Tuesday, the first auction of the second half of the borrowing season.
• This was Rs 55 crore over the notified amount as Gujarat accepted an additional Rs 500 crore, while Punjab accepted only Rs 55 crore of the notified Rs 500 crore.
• The weighted average cost for borrowing across the states and maturities has risen to a two-month high of 6.91 per cent, up 6 basis points (bps) over the past week
• The borrowing by most states so far is 12 per cent lower than the comparable period last fiscal, as 27 states and two UTs have so far raised Rs 3.32 lakh crore as against Rs 3.76 lakh crore in the corresponding period of FY21 by 28 states and two UTs.

INTERNATIONAL

Three scientists won Nobel Physics Prize

• U.S. Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, German Scientist Klaus Hassel, Italian scientist Giorgio Parisi won Noble Physics Prize for their work on climate models and understanding of physical systems.
• Dr. Giorgio Parisi was rewarded for his works on interplay of disorder and fluctuations which contributes to theory of disordered materials and random processes.
• Dr, Syukuro Manabe and Dr. Klaus Hassel were rewarded for their research on climate models.

WTO raises goods trade outlook

• The World Trade Organisation informed that global merchandise trade volume will grow by 10.8% by 2021.
• This is higher than the estimated 8% in march.
• India’s merchandise exports during the first half of this fiscal year jumped 56.92% to a record $197 billion. The country has set a target of $400 billion for merchandise exports for FY22.

First Movie in space to be filmed

• A Russian crew has docked with ISS to film scenes for the movie ‘The Challenge’ in space.
• This will be the first movie to be filmed in space.
• The crew consisting of Actor Yulia Pereslid, Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and  Director Klim Shipenko travelled in a Soyuz MS-19 space ship.