1) Urban Infrastructure Development Fund (UIDF): Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs will disburse first tranche of loans to fund ongoing projects under UIDF.
- Union Budget 2023-24 has announced the setting up of UIDF through priority sector lending shortfall.
- It will be managed by the National Housing Bank. It has been operationalised with an initial corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore.
- It is used by public agencies to create urban infrastructure in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
- It is operationalized along the lines of the existing Rural Infrastructure Development Fund
2) Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess (AIDC): AIDC was proposed in union budget 2021-22 to raise funds to finance spending on developing agriculture infrastructure
- It was proposed to be levied on several products including gold, silver, imported apple, imported alcohol, etc
- Cess is a kind of special-purpose tax that is levied over and above basic tax rates.
- Articles 270 and 271 of the Constitution empowers the Centre to collect cess and deposit it in Consolidated Fund of India.
- Money is then supposed to be transferred to a segregated fund to be used for specific purpose.
3) Impossible Trinity or Trilemma: It refers to the idea that an economy cannot pursue independent monetary policy, maintain a fixed exchange rate, and allow the free flow of capital across its borders at the same time.
- Idea was proposed independently by Canadian economist Robert Mundell and British economist Marcus Fleming in the early 1960s.
- According to economists, any economy can choose to pursue only two out of the three policy options simultaneously in the long-run.
- For ex: If the exchange rate is fixed but the country is open to cross-border capital flows, it cannot have an independent monetary policy
4) Aarogya Maitri Cube under Project BHISHM: India has built the world’s first disaster hospital, called Aarogya Maitri Cube which can be airlifted and assembled in 72 cubes.
- These cubes contain medical equipment and supplies to support 200 survivors for 48 hours.
- These medical cubes have been indigenously developed under Project BHISHM (Bharat Health Initiative for Sahyog Hita and Maitri).
- India has already donated two Aarogya Maitri Cubes to Myanmar as a goodwill gesture and one is being readied for donation to Sri Lanka
Places in News:
1) Eritrea (Capital: Asmara)
- Political boundaries
- Location: East African country located on Horn of Africa on the Red sea.
- Bordered by: Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti.
- Maritime border: Saudi Arabia and Yemen
- Geographic features
- Major Rivers: Gash, Tekezē (Satit), Baraka, and Anseba.
- Highest point: Mount Soira.
