National Current Affairs
- Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, asked why a colonial law used against Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak continued to survive in the law book 75 years after Independence.
- The CJI said the sedition law, or Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, was prone to misuse by the government. “The use of sedition is like giving a saw to the carpenter to cut a piece of wood and he uses it to cut the entire forest itself.”
- The CJI’s remarks have also opened the floor for debate and introspection on the court’s own verdict in 1962, in the Kedar Nath case, which upheld Section 124A.
- The petition was filed by a retired Major-General.
- The Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of the National Ayush Mission as a ‘Centrally-sponsored scheme’ for another five years till 2026.
- A release noted that the scheme would continue from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2026, with a financial implication of Rs. 4,607.30 crore to be spent during the period.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on July 16, 2021, virtually inaugurate a revamped Vadnagar railway station where he used to sell tea during his childhood.
- A tri-nation table top anti-narcotics and maritime search and rescue exercise, ‘Exercise Shield’, was held between Indian and Sri Lankan Navies and Maldives National Defence Force to share best practices and fine-tune procedures amid growing instances of narcotics smuggling in the region.
- The Union Cabinet has approved the effective increase of dearness allowance (DA) to the Central government employees and dearness relief to pensioners from 17% of basic pay/pension to 28% with effect from July 1.
- The Supreme Court has struck down provisions, introduced in the Finance Act of 2017 through an Ordinance, which affected the tenure and service conditions of Chairpersons and Members of Tribunals. The Tribunal Reforms (Rationalisation and Conditions of Service) Ordinance of 2021 had amended Section 184 of the Finance Act of 2017 to fix their tenures at four years. A three-judge Bench reversed the law and confirmed that Tribunal Chairpersons and Members would have a full five-year tenure.
- Google Cloud announced expanding its footprint in India with its second ‘Cloud Region’ in the country. It is located in Delhi-NCR.
- With this new region, Google Cloud customers operating in India will benefit from low latency and high performance of their cloud-based workloads and data.
- Google’s first cloud region in India, which comprises three “availability zones”, went live in Mumbai in 2017.
State Current Affairs
- Assam’s Cachar district wins SKOCH Award for nutri-garden project at village.
- Instituted in 2003, SKOCH Award salutes people, projects and institutions that go the extra mile to make India a better nation.
Business Current Affairs
- The Finance Ministry has released Rs. 75,000 crore of GST compensation dues to States and Union Territories and said this would help them plan their public expenditure for improving health infrastructure and other capital spending projects.
- Wholesale price inflation stayed high in June as costlier fuels and manufactured products pegged the provisional headline number at 12.07%, following May’s record 12.94%.
- The Office of Economic Adviser in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade attributed the ‘high’ inflation to a low base effect combined with the rise in prices of petrol, diesel, naphtha and ATF, as well as those of basic metals and food products.
- Exports from India were estimated at $49.85 billion in June, up nearly 32% from a year ago and 17.17% higher than the pre-COVID levels of June 2019.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday imposed restrictions on Mastercard Asia / Pacific Pte. Ltd. from on-boarding new domestic customers (debit, credit or prepaid) onto its card network from July 22 for non-compliance with the regulator’s directions.
- An RBI circular on Storage of Payment System Data dated April 6, 2018, directed all system providers to ensure, within six months, the entire data relating to payment systems operated by them was stored only in India.
- They were to report compliance and also submit an audit report.
- In April, RBI had barred American Express and Diners Club from on-boarding new users on similar grounds.
- Mahindra Electric Mobility Ltd. has announced the exit of MD & CEO Mahesh Babu and the appointment of Suman Mishra as the new CEO.
- Tata Motors unveiled ‘XPRES,’ an exclusive brand for the fleet segment. The first vehicle to be introduced as part of the brand will be an electric sedan, called the ‘XPRES-T’ EV (T for Tata Tigor).
International Current Affairs
- In a virtual address at a ministerial meeting of the NAM, Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan described terrorism as the “most flagrant threat” to principles of the grouping.
- NAM is a grouping of 120 developing countries.
- The U.S. Senate passed legislation that would ban products imported from China’s Xinjiang region, the latest move to pressure Beijing over what Washington says are major human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur community.
- Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri stepped down July 15, saying he was unable to form a government, nine months after accepting the challenge and as the country sinks deeper into crisis.
- According to Russian envoy Nikolay Kudashev, India and Russia will hold the first 2+2 ministerial meeting later this year before a summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- The Union Cabinet has approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the ministries of health of India and the Kingdom of Denmark for cooperation in the field of health and medicine.
Environment Current Affairs
- Union Minister R.K. Singh has said that India will exceed its target of reducing carbon emission set for 2030 under the Paris agreement. He said that as per its commitment made in Paris, India has to reduce its carbon intensity to 33% by 2030.
- As per the Paris agreement, India has to produce 40% electricity of its total capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030.
Current Affairs of Person In News
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 15 paid homage to Congress stalwart K. Kamaraj on his birth anniversary, saying he dedicated his life to national development and social empowerment.A former Chief Minister of erstwhile Madras State, now Tamil Nadu, Kamaraj was a key organisational leader of the Congress and played a crucial role in the elevation of first Lal Bahadur Shastri and then Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister.
- Differences between the old guards led by him and Gandhi later led to a split in the party.
- Born in 1903, Kamaraj died in 1975.
- Former president of Pakistan Mamnoon Hussain passed away on July 14, 2021, after a prolonged illness, according to his family and party leaders. He was 80.
- Hussain, who was born in Agra in 1940 and migrated with his parents to Pakistan in 1947, served as the 12th President of Pakistan between September 2013 and September 2018.
- Sudhanshu Vats, former MD & CEO, EPL Ltd., will join Pidilite Industries Ltd. as deputy MD from September 1.
- Gira Sarabhai, co-founder of the renowned National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad and a pioneer of design education in India, passed away in Ahmedabad .
Also refer:
- Download the pdf of top 50 Science Questions From Previous Year UPSC Prelims
- Free General Studies Notes
