Current Affairs for BANK, IBPS Exams - 20 March 2021

::NATIONAL::

Wondering if state legislatures had the right to express their opinion on central laws, the Supreme Court on Fhedule.riday asked an NGO—which raised the issue before it in a PIL—to do more research on the issue.
“We don’t want to create more problems than resolving the issue. We will see,” a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde told the petitioner’s counsel while deferring the hearing for four weeks.
Petitioner ‘SamataAndolanSamiti’ has challenged the legislative competence of different state assemblies in passing resolutions against central laws like Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the three farm laws, contending the subjects fell under the Union List of the Seventh schedule.

The bulbs will carry a warranty of three years and will be given to rural consumers against the submission of working incandescent bulbs.
Around 1.5 crore LED bulbs will be sold in rural areas at a price of ₹10 as part of the first phase of the Gram Ujalaprogramme launched on Friday by Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd.
Launched by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power and New & Renewable Energy RK Singh in his parliamentary constituency Arrah, Bihar, the Gram Ujalaprogramme will lead to national energy savings of 2.025 billion KWh per year and CO2 reductions of 1.65 million tonnes CO2 per year, CESL said in a statement.
The bulbs will carry a warranty of three years and will be given to rural consumers against the submission of working incandescent bulbs. Consumers can exchange a maximum of five bulbs. Participating rural households will also have metres installed in their houses to account for usage.
Further, carbon credit documentation will be sent to UN-accredited validators for inclusion into the Shine Program. Carbon credits will be prepared under the Shine Program with an option for verifying under the Voluntary Carbon Standard, depending on the needs of carbon credit buyers, the statement said.
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Twitter has announced it will establish a legal entity in Turkey in order to continue operating in the country, which passed a controversial social media law last year.
In a statement Friday, the social media company said it had reviewed the amended internet law and made the decision to comply with, it but promised to continue “defending open, public conversation and ensuring our service is available to people everywhere.”
Turkey slapped advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest in January. Those bans were the next step in a series of measures to force social media companies to maintain legal representatives in Turkey to manage content complaints.
Companies with more than 1 million users that refuse to designate an official representative are subjected to fines, followed by advertising bans. The next penalty would be bandwidth reductions that would make their platforms too slow to use.

LokSabha on Friday passed a bill to amend the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, with Union minister Pralhad Joshi saying the changes will help create employment opportunities and allow private sector with enhanced technology in mining activities. “The reform in the mining sector would generate 55 lakh direct and indirect employment. To enhance mining activity, we will allow private sector with enhanced technology in mineral exploration,” Joshi said.
The Lower House passed the Mines and Minerals Development (Amendment) Bill, 2021. According to the minister, India produces 95 minerals and has same potential like South Africa and Australia but still import minerals like gold and coal.
“The reform in the mining sector would generate 55 lakh direct and indirect employment. To enhance mining activity, we will allow private sector with enhanced technology in mineral exploration,” the minister said. According to the minister, the mining sector currently contributes 1.75 per cent to the country’s GDP and through the reforms proposed in the bill the contribution will rise to 2.5 per cent and strengthen the economy.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is likely to ease the valuation norm for perpetual bonds that was proposed by the regulator and was to come into effect from April 1.
The markets regulator is planning to allow mutual funds to adopt a new accounting method for valuing perpetual bonds or AT1 bonds in their exposure books under various schemes, according to two people directly familiar with Sebi’s plans.
Specifically, from April 1, Sebi may allow Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds to be valued as 10-year debt instruments. According to an earlier Sebi proposal, perpetual bonds were to be valued as 100-year debt papers from next month.
“It is felt that in the Indian market context at present, 100-year bond valuation method may cause to show too much risk on the books of accounts of mutual funds, which is not desirable. This may unnecessarily create a sudden redemption pressure for mutual funds since their books will get over-exposed to interest rate change risks. If the interest rates go up over such a long period of 100 years, the prices of the bonds will collapse, which will hurt the balance sheet of the bondholders.

In a big fillip to budding space entrepreneurs, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has inaugurated three technology incubation centres (S-TICs) at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) campuses in Nagpur, Bhopal and Rourkela.
The three new centres were inaugurated by ISRO's chairman Dr K Sivan through a virtual programme.
It should be noted that these three new technology incubation centres are in addition to the three such facilities already established by ISRO at NITs in Agartala, Jalandhar and Tiruchirappalli.
With the opening of the three new S-TICs, ISRO's goal to establish one such centre in each of the six regions of the country has been accomplished.
These centres have been established under the concept of instituting one major academic institute taking the lead role in a particular region and providing opportunities to final-year and post-graduate students and research scholars as "future budding entrepreneurs".
::Sports::

Divyansh Singh Panwar was fighting his own battle as the world grappled with the coronavirus-enforced lockdown.The Indian shooter "almost forgot" how to shoot, something that had earned him laurels, including an Olympic quota and medals of all colours across the world.
On Saturday however, the 18-year-old 10m air rifle specialist showed that he is getting back to his old self, with a bronze medal in the ISSF World Cup here.
The world number one had no qualms in admitting that the shutdown had affected him gravely.
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