- Supreme Court ends immunity for legislators taking bribes
- The Supreme Court declared that parliamentary privilege or immunity will not protect legislators who take bribes to vote or speak in Parliament or legislative assemblies from criminal prosecution.
- The court observed that privileges and immunities are not gateways to claim exemptions from the general law of the land.
- This overruled a 25 year old majority view of the Supreme Court laid down in the JMM bribery case judgement of 1998 that lawmakers who took bribes were immune from prosecution for corruption if they go ahead and vote or speak in the house as agreed.
- The P V Narasimha Rao case refers to the 1993 Jharkhand Mukti Morcha(JMM) bribery case. In this case, Shibu Soren and some of his party MPs were accused of taking bribes to vote against a no-confidence motion against the then P V Narasimha Rao government.
2. World Trade organisation continues to struggle to foster free and fair trade
- The latest meeting of the World Trade Organization’s decision making body concluded with precious little progress on key issues that effect global trade.
- This was the 13th ministerial conference which was held in Abu Dhabi.
- Divergences between the WTO’s 164 member countries persisted on most issues carried forward from Geneva where the 12th meeting was held including areas of particular interest to India such as a permanent solution in agriculture for public stockholding to ensure domestic food security or subsidies to the fisheries sector.
- The exemption from customs duty for ecommerce that India had sought an end to will now carry on for at least two more years.
- The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years.
3. The status of India’s nuclear programme
- The prime minister witnessed the start of the process of core loading of indigenous prototype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) At Madras Atomic Power Station in Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu.
- PFBR is a machine that produces more nuclear fuel that it consumes.
- Its core loading event is being hailed as a milestone because operationalisation of it will mark the start of stage two of India’s three staged nuclear power programme.
- In the first India used pressurised heavy water reactors and natural uranium 238 which contains miniscule amounts of uranium 235 as the fissile material.
- In stage two India will use Pu-239 together with uranium 238 to produce energy.
- In stage three Pu- 239 will be combined with thorium 232 in reactors to produce energy.
- Homi J Baba designs the three stage programme because India hosts roughly ¼ of the world’s thorium.
- The 3 stages of 3 Stage Nuclear Program are: Natural uranium-fueled Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) using plutonium-based fuel, Advanced nuclear power systems using thorium.
4. SBI seeks time till June 30 to disclose details of poll bonds
- The State Bank of India moved the Supreme Court seeking time till June 30 to comply with directions from the Supreme Court to make public details of electoral bonds purchased since April 2019.
- A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had struck down the electoral bond scheme which provided blanket anonymity for financial contributions to political parties.
- The electoral bonds system was introduced in 2017 by way of a Finance bill and it was implemented in 2018. They serve as a means for individuals and entities to make donations to registered political parties while maintaining donor anonymity
5. RBI tasks NBBL to Ensure net banking is interoperable in 2024
- The Reserve Bank of India in a bid to speed up settlements of funds for merchants has tasked NPCI bharat Bilpay Ltd (NBBL) to implement an interoperable system for Internet banking and expects the system to be introduced in the current calendar year.
- The bank has envisaged an interoperable system since it is difficult for banks to integrate with multiple payment aggregators.
- Currently a bank is required to separately integrate with each payment aggregator of different online merchants.
- Internet banking is preferred for payments like income tax, insurance premium, mutual fund investments etc
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MARCH 3 – To celebrate the beautiful and varied forms of wild flora and fauna and to raise awareness on benefits of their conservation. It was observed since 2013 by United Nations General Assembly. Its theme is connecting people and planet, exploring digital innovation in conservation (2024).
