Notes:
Volume-IV of selected speeches of President Ram Nath Kovind named ‘Loktantra Ke Swar’ and ‘Republican Ethics’ was released by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Singh Thakur.
The books have been published by the Publications Division under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet approved signing of MoU among the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and International AIDS Vaccine Initiative IAVI, USA.
The MoU aims to contribute towards the development of improved biomedical tools and technologies to prevent and treat HIV, TB, COVID-19 and other infectious and neglected diseases.

 

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India doubled the limit on housing loans from cooperative banks from Rs. 30 to Rs. 60 lakh for Tier I cities and from Rs. 70 lakh to Rs. 1.40 crore in case of Tier II cities.
RBI also permitted Rural Cooperative Banks (RCB) to finance residential real estate projects to support affordable housing and inclusive growth. Urban cooperative banks (UCBs) were allowed to provide doorstep banking services to meet the needs of customers, especially senior citizens and differently-abled persons.

Notes:
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the enhancement of funding under Technology Development Fund (TDF) scheme to 50 crore rupees per project from 10 crore rupees.
In Union Budget 2022-23, 25 per cent of defence R&D budget was earmarked for private industry, start-ups and academia. The TDF scheme supports indigenous development of products and technologies by MSMEs and start-ups.

Notes:
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sharply cut the growth for India to 6.9% growth in FY23 from 8.1% estimated earlier.
The GDP growth was forecast to be 6.2 percent in 2023. This is below the Reserve Bank of India’s estimate of a 7.2% growth. The World Bank also sharply slashed India’s FY23 forecast to 7.5% from 8.5% in the April review.