1) The President of India has promulgated ordinance for constitution of commercial courts.
Commercial Courts Bill, 2015
- The Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Bill, 2015 was introduced in Rajya Sabha on April 29, 2015 by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Arun Jaitley.
- The Bill enables the creation of commercial divisions in high courts, and commercial courts at the district level.
- Commercial dispute: A commercial dispute is defined to include any dispute related to transactions between merchants, bankers, financiers, traders, etc. Such transactions deal with mercantile documents, partnership agreements, intellectual property rights, insurance, etc.
- Commercial courts: Commercial courts, equivalent to district courts, may be set up in all states and union territories, by the state governments after consulting with their respective high courts
- Valuation of dispute: Such commercial divisions in high courts and commercial courts will deal with all matters relating to commercial disputes involving an amount of Rs one crore or more.
- Commercial appellate divisions: Commercial appellate divisions may be set up in all high courts to hear appeals against: (i) orders of commercial divisions of high courts; (ii) orders of commercial courts; and (iii) appeals arising from arbitration matters that are filed before the high courts.
- Any appeal filed in a high court against the orders of certain tribunals like: (i) Competition Appellate Tribunal; (ii) Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal; (iii) Intellectual Property Appellate Board; (iv) Company Law Board or the National Company Law Tribunal; (v) Securities Appellate Tribunal; and (vi) Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate tribunal may be heard by the commercial appellate division of the high court if it relates to a commercial dispute.
- Transfer of pending suits: All suits, that are yet to reach judgement, of a value of Rs one crore or more that are pending in the high court or district court shall be transferred to the commercial division, after it is constituted.
2) Third Indo-African Summit to be held in New Delhi.
Indo-African Summit
- The India–Africa Forum Summit is the official platform for the Inida-Africa relations. It was first held New Delhi, India. It was the first such meeting between the heads of state and government of India and 14 countries of Africa chosen by the African Union.
- Topics
agricultural sector
trade
industry and investment
peace and security
promotion of good governance and civil society
information and communication technology
3) Unakoti – Rock Cut Carving , Tales of a lost Civilization
- Unakoti , situated in North Tripura , hosts finest of rock-cut architecture and stone- images.
- Unakoti pantheons are of two types namely rock-carved and stone images. Central to these rock cut carvings are the Shiva and Ganesha. The colossal image of Shiva head, of 30 ft height, carved in a vertical rock is known as ‘Unakotiswara Kal Bhairava’
- Near by, there is a rock cut image of goddess Durga standing on a lion, while on the other there is an image of goddess Ganga sitting on a Capricorn. There are also images of Nandi Bull lying half buried in the ground
- At the bottom of Unakoti, a beautiful spring descending the hill terraces fills up a cavern, called “Sita Kunda”, having a dip into which is regarded as sacred.
- Unakoti is believed to have had the influence of the Shiva cult originating from the Pala-era of the mediaeval period of Indian history. At the same time, the influences of several other cults like Tantric, Shakti, and Hatha yogis are also found to be present around this archaeological wonder. According to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI),Unakoti dates back to the 8th or 9th century AD. Yet, many others differ with the opinion, conceding that it dates back longer further holding that those images were carved out in different spell of time.
4) Deprtment of Atomic Energy, Mandates and Achievements
- Mandate:-
- Research Innovation Education
- National Security
- Advanced technology and water resources
- Food, Agriculture and Industrial Applications
- Healthcare
- Nuclear Power and Fuel Cycle
- Highlights:-
- Tummalapalle (A.P) uranium mine: Processing plant to be commissioned in 2015-16.
- India will host the International Thorium Energy Conference (ThEC) in Mumbai in October 2015
- DAE Units supply over 23,000 consignments of radiopharmaceuticals to over 150 nuclear medicine centres and hospitals all over India.
- Vitrified Cesium-137 pencil, First-of-a-kind in the world, developed by BARC by recovery from High Level Waste. First set of 10 pencils delivered for use in Blood Irradiator units produced by BRIT-DAE.
- High yielding pigeon-pea variety Trombay Akola Red Arhar released for commercial cultivation
- Radiation processing plants set up with DAE technology at Unnao, Lucknow and Bavla, Ahmedabad
- Low-cost wound dressing (BaNOcol) developed at BARC – very effective against a broad spectrum of infection-causing microbes
- Strengthened collaborative involvement with LHC- CERN; process to become an Associate Member of CERN initiated.
5) Mission IndraDhanush :-
- The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India has launched Mission Indradhanush on 25 December, 2014 as a special nationwide initiative to vaccinate all unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children under the Universal Immunization Programme and sustain it by health system strengthening by 2020
- The Mission focuses on interventions to expand full immunization coverage in India from 65% in 2014 to at least 90% children in the next five years
- The programme provides immunization against seven life-threatening diseases (diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B) in the entire country. In addition, vaccination against Heamophilus influenza type B and Japanese Encephalitis is provided in select districts/states.
6) International Tourism Mart:-
- The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India, in association with the North Eastern States and West Bengal has been successfully organising the International Tourism Mart over the last three years in various North Eastern States with the objective of highlighting the tourism potential of the region in the domestic and international markets. This Mart also brings together the tourism business fraternity and entrepreneurs from the eight North Eastern States and West Bengal.
Sorces- PIB and Various relevant newspapers
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.