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India has urged developed countries to urgently provide finance, technology and capacity-building resources to developing and poorer nations to help them achieve their biodiversity targets. Delivering India's national statement at the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia, Union Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh also announced that India will launch its updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) at the conference on Wednesday. He said the country adopted a comprehensive, whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to updating the NBSAP with goals aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). "It is necessary to provide means of implementation, including financial resources, for the implementation of the NBSAP. A lot of ground needs to be covered in providing easily accessible means of implementation i.e. financial resources, technology and capacity building needs with the requisite speed, scope and
Ahead of assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the government on Thursday approved issuance of 22nd tranche of electoral bonds that will open for sale on October 1. Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding. State Bank of India (SBI), in the 22nd phase of sale, has been authorised to issue and encash electoral bonds through its 29 authorised branches from October 1-10, the finance ministry said in a statement. The authorised SBI branches include those in Lucknow, Shimla, Dehradun, Kolkata, Guwahati, Chennai, Patna, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Gandhinagar, Bhopal, Raipur, and Mumbai. Assembly election dates for Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are likely to be announced in few weeks. The 21st tranche of bond sales took place from July 1-10, 2022. Sale of the first batch of electoral bonds happened from March 1-10, 2018. SBI is the only authorised bank