RESIDEX
- RESIDEX is India’s first official Housing Price Index (HPI) that captures the price changes of residential housing.
- It was launched by National Housing Bank in 2007 covering 26 cities.
- It helps buyers and sellers to check and compare prices before entering a transaction.
- They can also analyse the price trends across different cities both at composite level and product category level.
- Components of RESIDEX include HPI @ market price and HPI @ Assessment Prices.
- Recently, RESIDEX was revamped and the new RESIDEX has been expanded to 50 cities which includes smart cities and state capitals.
- Base year for the new RESIDEX has been moved from 2007 to 2012-13.
Aaykar Setu
- Central Board of Direct Taxes launched a new mobile app “Aaykar Setu”.
- It enables taxpayers to perform basic functions through their smart phone.
- Paying income tax, applying for PAN and seeking redressal of grievances have become easier through the use of this app.
- The mobile app will also help people link their Aadhaar with PAN card as well as track the TDS deduction details.
- It also facilitates direct communication between tax payers and officers and providing tax services.
Award for outstanding implementation of MGNREGA
- Recently, West Bengal was awarded with a gold memento for its outstanding performance in convergence and livelihood augmentation in the implementation of MGNREGA.
- In the district category, Nadia has received award for excellence in MGNREGA while Coochbehar district was awarded for its outstanding performance in implementation of Geo-MGNREGA.
UNESCO world heritage tag
- Recently, Okinoshima, a tiny landmass of in Japan has been declared as a UNESCO World heritage site.
- Women are banned here and the island is permanently manned by Shinto priests who pray to the island’s goddess as a part of their tradition.
- Along with this, UNESCO’s heritage committee had considered 33 sites for its world heritage tag at its annual gathering in Poland.
Akbarabadi Mosque
- Akbarabadi mosque was built by Aizaz-un-Nisa Begum in 1650 A.D.
- Aizaz-un-Nisa was the wife of Shah Jahan, a Mughal Ruler and she had been given the title of ‘Akbarabadi Mahal’ after the place of her birth.
- Shah Jahan built the Shalimar Garden in Delhi for Aizaz-un-Nisa.
- Fatehpuri Mahal Begum was also a legally married wife of the emperor, who built the famous Fatehpuri Masjid in Delhi and also a mosque outside the Taj complex.
Malabar Exercise
- It is a trilateral naval exercise among India, U.S and Japan.
- It began in 1992 as a bilateral naval exercise between U.S and India. In 2015, it was expanded in to a trilateral exercise.
- This year exercise is the 21st edition and currently under way in Chennai.
- Malabar 2017 is one of the largest joint exercises to be held in the region and thrust would be on aircraft carrier operations, air defence, anti-submarine warfare (ASW) etc.
- The Indian Navy will feature its aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, guided missile destroyer Ranvir and its stealth frigates including Sindhugosh class submarines.
P-notes
- Participatory notes (P-Notes) are offshore derivative instruments with Indian shares as underlying assets.
- They are issued outside India to make investments in Indian stock market.
- They are issued by brokers and FIIs registered with SEBI and any dividends or capital gains collected from the underlying securities go back to the investors.
- It allows foreign high net worth individuals, hedge funds and other investors to put money in Indian markets without being registered with SEBI, thus providing them anonymity and ease of trading.
- Indian regulators are against the participatory notes because lot of unaccounted money made its way to the country through the participatory note route.
