# National food security act

• The centre on Friday decided to supply free foodgrains – rice, wheat and coarse foodgrains – to over 81 crore poor under the national food security act during 2023.
• Currently under NFSA, every beneficiary is entitled to a monthly quota of 5 kg of grains through the public distribution system at highly subsidised rate – Rs 3 for every kg of rice, wheat at ₹2 per kg and coarse grain ₹1 per kg.
• In addition, since the outbreak of the covid, the centre has been providing additional 5kg to the beneficiaries free under the PM garib kalyaan anna yojana, which is due to end this month.
• NFSA was enacted in July 2013. Coverage is based on census 2011 population figures.

# Nasal vaccine

• India’s first intranasal covid vaccine iNCOVACC has been approved by the health ministry as a booster or precautionary dose for those aged 18 years and above.
• The vaccine will be added to the cowin app – a web platform for vaccination registration in the country soon.
• The vaccine was developed in collaboration with Washington University at St. Louis.
• This vaccine is a recombinant replication deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre fusion stabilised spike protein.

# China

• Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with covid-19 on a single day this week, according to estimates from the government’s top health authority.
• As many as 248 million people or nearly 18% of the population likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December.

# Forex reserve

• After rising for five consecutive weeks, India’s forex kitty dropped $571 million to $563.5 billion for the week ended December 16.
• In October 2021, the foreign exchange kitty had reached a high of $645 billion.