Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan

• Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has launched the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan).
• It is a nation-wide Campaign for achieving universal accessibility for Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). 

It has the following three important components:

1. Built Environment Accessibility
2. Transportation System Accessibility
3. Information and Communication Eco-System Accessibility

• Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has recently commissioned a Monpa handmade paper making unit in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh.
• It not only aims at reviving the art but also engaging the local youths with this art professionally and earn.

Monpa Handmade Paper

• The art of making Monpa handmade paper originated over 1000 years ago.
• The art is an integral part of local custom and culture in Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
• The fine-textured handmade paper is also called as Mon Shugu in the local dialect.
• The paper has great historic and religious significance as it is the paper used for writing Buddhist scriptures and hymns in monasteries.
• The Monpa handmade paper, will be made from the bark of a local tree called Shugu Sheng, which has medicinal values too. Hence availability of raw material will not be a problem.
• Back then, such was the scale of production that Monpas used to sell these papers to countries like Tibet, Bhutan, Thailand and Japan as no paper making industry existed in these countries at that time.
• However, the handmade paper industry gradually began declining and the indigenous handmade paper was taken over by inferior Chinese paper.

Handmade Pottery and Handmade Furniture

• Apart from handmade paper, Tawang is known for two other local crafts – handmade pottery and handmade furniture – that are also getting extinct with passage of time.
• KVIC is also planning to revive these two local arts.

• Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will inaugurate the ‘New Bhaupur- New Khurja section’ of Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC).

Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC)

• The EDFC (1856 route km) starts from Sahnewal near Ludhiana (Punjab) and ends at Dankuni in West Bengal.
• It will pass through the states of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
• It is being constructed by Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), that has been set up as a special purpose vehicle to build and operate Dedicated Freight Corridors.

Western Dedicated Freight Corridor (WDFC)

• DFCCIL is also constructing the WDFC (1504 route km) that connects Dadri in Uttar Pradesh to Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai and will traverse through the states of UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. 

• Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs recently launched a new Web Portal and Mobile App, e-Sampada.

e-Sampada

• It is a significant step towards promotion of e-governance to boost transparency and accountability in providing various Estate Services like allotment, retention, regularisation, no dues certificate etc.
• It provides a single window for all these services including allotment for over one lakh government residential accommodations, office space allotment to government organisations in 28 cities and venues like 5, Ashoka Road for social functions.
• In its endeavour to provide ‘One Nation, One System’, the erstwhile four websites (gpra.nic.in, eawas.nic.in, estates.gov.in, holidayhomes.nic.in), and two Mobile Apps (m-Awas & m-Ashoka5) of the Directorate of Estates have been integrated into one, which paves the way for all services on the same platform throughout the country. 

• The Central Government has used financial innovation to recapitalise Punjab & Sind Bank by issuing the lender Rs 5,500-crore worth of non-interest bearing bonds valued at par.
• The funds raised through issuance of these instruments are being deployed to capitalise the state-run bank.
• These are a variation of the recapitalisation bonds issued earlier to public sector banks.
• These are special types of zero coupon bonds issued by the government after proper due diligence and these are issued at par.

Zero Coupon Bonds

• A zero-coupon bond is a debt security that does not pay interest but instead trades at a deep discount, rendering a profit at maturity, when the bond is redeemed for its full face value.

About the recent bond

• Unlike the previous tranches of recapitalisation bonds which carried interest and were sold to different banks, these bonds have a maturity of 10-15 years and issued specifically to a particular institution. (In this case, Punjab & Sind Bank).
• It is limited only for a specified period and only those banks, whosoever is specified, can invest in them, nobody else.
• It is not tradable and it is not transferable.
• Since these bonds are not tradable, the lender has kept them in the HTM bucket, not requiring it to book any mark-to-market gains or losses from these bonds.