• The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has recently approved the continuation of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary for further five years from 01.04.2021 to 31.03.2026 at a total cost of Rs.9000 crore.
• The Cabinet also approved the decision to support the Gram Nyayalayas by proving recurring and non-recurring grants for a period of 5 years with a total outlay of Rs 50 crores.

Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary

• Though the primary responsibility of infrastructure development for the subordinate judiciary rests with the State Governments, the Central Government through this CSS takes part in the activity.
• It aims at improving the physical infrastructure of the Subordinate Courts as also the housing needs for judicial officers of District and Subordinate Courts in the country with a view to facilitate better justice delivery.
• The Scheme covers all States & Union Territories (UTs)
• The fund sharing pattern between the Union & States will be in the ratio of 60:40 except Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where the ratio would be 90:10.
• The Scheme has been in operation since 1993-94. 

• RBI has recently announced the ‘RBI Retail Direct Scheme’.

RBI Retail Direct Scheme

• It is a one-stop solution to facilitate investment in Government Securities (G-secs) by retail investors (individuals).
• Under the scheme, the investors will have the facility to open and maintain the ‘Retail Direct Gilt Account’ (RDG Account) with the RBI.
• A "Gilt Account" means an account opened and maintained for holding Government securities. Instead of money, the account is debited or credited with treasury bills or government securities.
• RDG account can be opened through an online portal provided for the purpose of the scheme.
• The online portal will give registered users access to primary issuance of G-secs and access to Negotiated Dealing System-Order Matching system (NDS-OM).
• NDS-OM is an electronic, screen-based, anonymous, order-driven trading system for dealing in government securities. It was introduced by the RBI in 2005.

Retail Investor

• They are non-professional investors who buy and sell securities or funds that contain a basket of securities such as mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs).
• They execute their trades through traditional or online brokerage firms.
• They purchase securities for their own personal accounts and often trade in dramatically smaller amounts as compared to institutional investors.

Institutional Investor

• It is an umbrella term for larger-scale investments by professional portfolio and fund managers.
• They are the big players in the market who move big money.
• Examples - Pension funds, Mutual funds, Money managers, Insurance companies, Investment banks, Commercial trusts, Endowment funds for a university or college, Hedge funds, Private equity firms or investors, etc

• The Cabinet has recently approved the decision to support the Gram Nyayalayas by proving recurring and non-recurring grants for a period of 5 years with a total outlay of Rs 50 crores.
• However, funds will be released to the states only after the notified Gram Nyayalayas are operationalised and Nyayadhikaris have been appointed and reported on the Gram Nyayalaya portal of Department of Justice.
• A review will be undertaken after one year to assess whether Gram Nyayalaya Scheme has successfully achieved its objective of providing speedy and affordable justice to the rural marginalized.

Gram Nyayalayas

• The Law Commission of India, in its 114th Report, had suggested establishment of Gram Nyayalayas for providing affordable and quick access to justice to the citizens at their doorsteps.
• The Gram Nyayalayas Act came into force with effect from 2009.
• They are aimed at providing inexpensive justice to people in rural areas at their doorsteps.
• They are to be established for every Panchayat at intermediate level or a group of contiguous Panchayats at intermediate level or for a group of contiguous Gram Panchayats.
• The Nyayadhikari shall periodically visit villages and may hear the parties and dispose of the cases at the place other than its headquarters.
• The Gram Nyayalayas will try criminal cases, civil suits, claims or disputes which are specified in the First Schedule and the Second Schedule to the Act.
• They are to follow summary procedure in criminal trial.
• Disputes are to be settled as far as possible by bringing about conciliation between the parties and for this purpose, the Gram Nyayalayas will make use of the conciliators to be appointed for this purpose
• The Gram Nyayalaya shall not be bound by the rules of evidence provided in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 but shall be guided by the principles of natural justice subject to any rule made by the High Court.

• In the mid-2030s, many coastal cities in the United States and across the world will experience an increase in high-tide floods, notes a new study by NASA researchers.
• The study noted that the alignment of rising sea levels with the lunar cycle will cause a dramatic increase in coastal flooding.
• The combinations of the Moon’s gravitational pull, rising sea levels, and climate change will continue to exacerbate coastal flooding in the United States and across the world.

Moon Wobble

• The moon’s wobble is not a new or dangerous thing and was first reported in 1728.
• According to the NASA’s website, when the Moon makes its elliptical orbit, its velocity varies and alters causing our perspective of the light side to appear at slightly different angles.

• This is what it calls the Moon’s wobble or that is how it appears to our eyes.
• In other words, when the moon orbits the Earth its angle relative to the equator changes over time. This is called the Moon Wobble.
• The wobble in the moon’s orbit takes about 18.6 years to complete.
• During half of the Moon’s orbit of 18.6 years, the Earth's regular tides are suppressed, (i.e) high tides are lower than normal and low tides higher than normal.
• In the other half, the effect is reversed, which is called the tide-amplifying phase of the Moon.

• A British entrepreneur Richard Branson hurtled into space aboard his own winged rocket ship recently, beating out fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos.
• The nearly 71-year-old Branson and five crewmates from his Virgin Galactic space-tourism company reached an altitude of about 53 miles (88 kilometers) over the New Mexico desert enough to experience three to four minutes of weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth and then safely glided to a runway landing.
• But experts and space enthusiasts are in doubt whether the height to which he travelled can be termed ‘space’.

Karman Line

• It is an attempt to define a boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space.
• The most widely accepted boundary of space is known as the Karman line, 100km above mean sea level.
• But the United States uses 80km as the cutoff point.
• The Karman line has been compared to international waters, as there are no national boundaries and human laws in force beyond the line.
• It was named after aerospace pioneer Theodore von Karman.
• But, various countries and entities define space boundary differently for various purposes.
• International law does not define the edge of space, or the limit of national airspace.
• Defining a legal boundary of what and where space is can help avoid disputes and keep track of space activities and human space travel.
• Some countries, including the United States, believe that defining or delimiting outer space is not necessary. 

Net Stable Funds Rate (NSFR)

• Basel-III created two liquidity ratios namely Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) and Net Stable Funds Rate (NSFR).
• The liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) will require banks to hold a buffer of high-quality liquid assets sufficient to deal with the cash outflows encountered in an acute short term stress scenario as specified by supervisors.
• This is to prevent situations like “Bank Run”, the goal is to ensure that banks have enough liquidity for a 30-days stress scenario if it were to happen.
• The Net Stable Funds Rate (NSFR) requires banks to maintain a stable funding profile in relation to their off-balance-sheet assets and activities.
• NSFR requires banks to fund their activities with stable sources of finance (reliable over the one-year horizon).
• The minimum NSFR requirement is 100%. Therefore, LCR measures short-term (30 days) resilience, and NSFR measures medium-term (1 year) resilience.

Electron Bubbles

• An electron injected into a superfluid form of helium creates a Single Electron Bubble (SEB), a cavity that is free of helium atoms and contains only the electron.
• The shape of the bubble depends on the energy state of the electron.
• Super fluidity is the frictionless flow and other exotic behaviour observed in liquid helium at temperatures near absolute zero (−273.15 °C), and similar frictionless behaviour of electrons in a superconducting solid.

Cryptogams

• Plant kingdom can be divided into two sub-kingdoms viz. Cryptogams and phanerogams.
• Cryptogams consist of seedless plants and plant-like organisms whereas phanerogams consist of seed-bearing plants.
• A cryptogam is a plant that reproduces with the help of spores, they do not produce any reproductive structure, seed, or flower.
• They need a moist environment to survive and these are also present in aquatic and terrestrial places.
• Algae, bryophytes, lichens, ferns and fungi are the best-known groups of cryptogams.
• Recently, India’s first cryptogrammic garden was inaugurated in the Chakrata town of Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Gravelyia Boro

• It was found in the Jharbari range of western Assam’s Chirang Reserve Forest.
• Its name has been derived from the bodo community one of the largest ethno-linguistic group in Assam.

State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021

• It has quoted a study done in 63 low- and middle-income countries covering a population of 3.5 billion on changes in the income of people.
• It has extrapolated its impact on choice of diets, few report findings are as follows

1. Undernourishment due to the pandemic has impacted children the most, also a global goal to fix by 2030.
2. Nearly 12% of the global population faced severe levels of food insecurity or they ran out of food and in worst situations, must have a day without food.
3. In 2020, some 2.37 billion people couldn’t access adequate food, an increase of 320 million people in comparison to the 2019 figure.