UPSC Present Affairs Pointers brings you important present affairs of the previous week, each Monday, to support you in your Prelims and Mains preparation for UPSC, State PCS, and different aggressive examinations.
Occasions
— The eighth Indian Ocean Convention was organised by India Basis in affiliation with the Ministry of International Affairs of Oman on February 16-17, 2025 in Muscat, Oman.
— It was began by the India Basis in 2016 in Singapore, with participation from 30 international locations. The theme for this yr of the Convention is Voyages to New Horizons of Maritime Partnership.
— The target of the convention is to convey crucial states and principal maritime companions of the area collectively on a typical platform to deliberate upon the prospects of regional cooperation for Safety and Progress for All within the Area (SAGAR).
— Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Faculty of Final Management (SOUL) conclave 2025 at Bharat Mandapam within the presence of Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.
— The SOUL is a privately funded management establishment, situated on the periphery of GIFT Metropolis in Gandhinagar, geared toward enabling leaders to turn into a constructive pressure for societal profit by adopting a brand new paradigm of management.
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— It goals to convey collectively leaders from throughout varied fields to share their life experiences, successes and failures with the youth to foster younger management for a vibrant public life in numerous fields.
Polity
— Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar was elevated to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on seventeenth February 2025. Kumar was appointed to the EC on March 14, 2024, lower than two months after he retired from the IAS.His tenure as CEC will final until January 26, 2029.
— Vivek Joshi, a 1989-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, was appointed Election Commissioner (EC). Now, the three-member Election Fee includes Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Prakash, EC Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, and EC Vivek Joshi.
— The brand new CEC is being appointed below a brand new legislation — Chief Election Commissioner And Different Election Commissioners (Appointment, Situations of Service And Time period of Workplace) Act, 2023. This legislation lays down procedures for the appointment of each CECs and ECs.
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— Underneath the Act, a search committee headed by the Legislation Minister (at the moment Arjun Ram Meghwal) and comprising two senior bureaucrats serving as secretaries to the Authorities of India should first draw up a shortlist of 5 candidates.
— This shortlist is then despatched to a Choice Committee made up of the Prime Minister, the Chief of the Opposition, and a Cupboard Minister nominated by the PM.
— The Supreme Courtroom has stayed the Lokpal’s January 27 order which held it had the facility to look into complaints in opposition to sitting judges of Excessive Courts.
— The concept of a Lokpal — the central anti-corruption ombudsman — first got here up in 1963 throughout a dialogue on Finances allocation of the Union Legislation Ministry.
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— The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, subsequently got here into pressure on January 16, 2014. The Act gives for establishing a Lokpal headed by a Chairperson, who’s or has been a Chief Justice of India, or is or has been a choose of the Supreme Courtroom, or an eminent one that fulfills eligibility standards as specified. Of its different members, not exceeding eight, 50% are to be judicial members, supplied that not lower than 50% of the members belong to the Scheduled Castess, Scheduled Tribes, OBCs, minorities, and girls.
— The Lokpal Act covers a big selection of public servants — from the Prime Minister, ministers, and MP, to teams A, B, C, and D officers of the central authorities. “Lokpal shall inquire or trigger an inquiry to be carried out into any matter concerned in, or arising from, or related with, any allegation of corruption made in a criticism” in respect of the Prime Minister, the Act says.
— The Lokpal chairperson and the members are appointed for a time period of 5 years or serve until they’re 70 years previous, whichever is earlier. The primary Lokpal chairperson was former Supreme Courtroom Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, who had assumed workplace in March 2019. Final yr, Former Supreme Courtroom Justice AM Khanwilkar was appointed because the ‘Lokpal of India’.
— Lately, the Ladies and Youngster Improvement Minister Annpurna Devi has knowledgeable that the federal government has written to states inviting proposals to ascertain ‘Nari Adalats’.
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— The Nari Adalat scheme below the WCD Ministry entails teams of girls on the gram panchayat degree resolving grievances of girls who’ve been denied their rights. The members of the Nari Adalat – round seven to 11 members referred to as ‘nyaya sakhis’ – are nominated by the gram panchayat.
— The Scheme is working in 50 gram panchayats every in J&Ok and Assam, the place it started on a pilot foundation in 2023. In 2023-24, the WCD Ministry launched a bit over `20 lakh every to the 2 states to implement the scheme.
— Nari Adalat is the part of the Mission Shakti. Mission Shakti was formulated by the WCD ministry as an umbrella scheme for the protection, safety, and empowerment throughout the fifteenth Finance Fee interval from 2021-22 to 2025-26. It has two major verticals: Sambal (for security and safety) and Samarthya (for empowerment).
— Mission Shakti, as talked about on the ministry’s web site, goals to offer all girls and ladies, together with those that are differently-abled, socially and economically marginalized, and from weak teams in want of care and safety, with short-term and long-term providers and data for his or her holistic improvement and empowerment.
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Worldwide Cooperation
— The Amir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani paid a State Go to to India on 17-18 February 2025.
—They determined to raise their ties to a “strategic partnership”, double the goal of bilateral commerce to USD 28 billion within the subsequent 5 years, and convey Qatari funding of USD 10 billion to India.
— Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has $1.5 billion FDI in India, and the joint assertion stated that the Qatar aspect introduced a dedication to speculate USD 10 billion in India.
— With this, India has signed strategic partnerships with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
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India’s Collaboration with Gulf Nations
— Traditionally, the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) international locations—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE)—and Iran and Iraq have been the first oil and fuel suppliers to India contributing practically 55-60 per cent of complete oil and fuel imports.
— The Gulf international locations have been amongst India’s prime petroleum suppliers because the Eighties and have remained essentially the most reliable suppliers regardless of the fluctuations within the worldwide oil and fuel market and provide chains.
— In 2023-24, of the full US$1.11 trillion international commerce, US$208.48 billion got here from the Gulf and West Asia area, comprising 18.17 % of India’s international commerce. Notably, 14.28 % of this got here from the six GCC international locations.
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— India is Qatar’s second-largest buying and selling accomplice, with bilateral commerce of about $14 billion in 2024.
Financial system
— The federal government is contemplating rising the insurance coverage cowl for financial institution deposits from the present restrict of Rs 5 lakh. The deposit insurance coverage cowl is obtainable by the Deposit Insurance coverage and Credit score Assure Company (DICGC), a specialised division of the Reserve Financial institution of India (RBI).
— The target of the DICGC is to guard “small depositors” from the chance of shedding their financial savings in case of a financial institution failure. The insurance coverage cowl of Rs 5 lakh per depositor is for all accounts held by the depositor in all branches of the insured financial institution.
— DICGC insures all industrial banks, together with branches of international banks functioning in India, native space banks, regional rural banks, and cooperative banks. Nevertheless, major co-operative societies are not insured by the DICGC.
— The DICGC doesn’t present insurance coverage for deposits by international, central, and state governments, and for inter-bank deposits.
— The premium for deposit insurance coverage is borne by the insured financial institution. DICGC collects premiums from member monetary establishments at a flat or differentiated charge primarily based on the financial institution’s threat profile.
— Deposit insurance coverage was launched in India in 1962, and protection has to this point been enhanced six occasions — from Rs 1,500 per depositor held in the identical proper and identical capability in any respect the branches of the insured financial institution to Rs 5 lakh now.
— The Ministry of Highway Transport and Highways (MoRTH) knowledgeable that no additional initiatives are being taken up below Bharatmala Pariyojana as a result of delays and price overruns.
— The Undertaking, Bharatmala Pariyojana Part-1, which acquired Cupboard approval in October 2017, entails a complete size of 34,800 km in 31 States and Union Territories, and covers over 550 districts.
— It regarded to enhance connectivity, significantly on financial corridors, border areas and much flung areas with an purpose of faster motion of cargo and boosting exports.
Atmosphere
— On Monday, Delhi witnessed the strongest earthquake of magnitude 4 in no less than 5 years, information from the Nationwide Centre of Seismology confirmed.
— Delhi lies in what is called the Aravalli-Delhi Fold Belt, a seismically-active geological belt extending from southern and jap Rajasthan to Haryana and Delhi.
— India’s official earthquake hazard map places Delhi in Zone 4, the second highest classification of areas primarily based on their susceptibility to shaking skilled throughout an earthquake.
— Zone 4 in India consists of areas which are anticipated to expertise MSK-8-level depth throughout an earthquake. The MSK, or Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik scale is a measure of depth, slightly than energy, or vitality launched, which is described by magnitude.
— MSK-8 means the realm is weak to main harm being triggered to buildings and different infrastructure. Zone 5, essentially the most weak areas in India, correspond to MSK-9 ranges of depth or larger. Learn extra.
— The nation’s first ‘bio financial institution’ in a zoo is about up at Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, higher often known as Darjeeling Zoo.
— In collaboration with the Centre for Mobile and Molecular Biology (CCMB), below the Ministry of Science and Expertise, the ability collects and preserves cell and tissue samples from endangered animals, in addition to reproductive cells from deceased animals.
— These can be utilized for future analysis and doubtlessly even convey again critically endangered species which have gone extinct or are on the verge of extinction.
— A 23-year-old Venezuelan kayaker, Adrián Simancas, was briefly swallowed by a humpback whale. The video of the incident exhibits the whale surfacing, engulfing Simancas and his yellow kayak for just a few seconds earlier than letting him go.
— There are primarily two households of whales: baleen whales and toothed whales.
— There are 14 species of baleen whales together with blue whales, humpback whales, and gray whales. As a substitute of getting tooth, these whales have baleen, which is basically a filter-feeding system inside their mouth.
— Baleen is fabricated from keratin — the identical protein that makes up human hair and fingernails. Baleen whales use this technique to filter small prey comparable to krill, plankton, and small fish from the water.
— Toothed whales have tooth. There are greater than 70 species of those whales together with sperm whales, beaked whales, killer whales, and dolphins.
— Each baleen whales and toothed whales can’t swallow people. Sperm whales are an exception to this. They’re the one whales on the earth which have massive sufficient throats to swallow a human.
— In line with BBC evaluation of knowledge from the US Nationwide Snow and Ice Knowledge Heart (NSIDC), the mixed extent of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice dropped to fifteen.76 million sq km, down from the earlier five-day document low.
— Sea ice refers back to the free-floating ice within the polar areas. Whereas it typically expands throughout the winter and melts within the summers, some sea ice stays year-round. Be aware that that is totally different from icebergs, glaciers, ice sheets, and ice cabinets, which kind on land.
— Sea ice performs a vital position in cooling the planet by trapping present warmth within the ocean, and thus precluding it from warming the air above. Due to this fact, a discount in sea ice cowl can have disastrous penalties for Earth.
— A CAG report on the functioning of the CAMPA in Uttarakhand within the 2019-2022 interval confirmed that Rs 13.86 crore was diverted for varied actions apart from compensatory afforestation.
— Compensatory Afforestation seeks to make sure that forest lands getting ‘diverted’ for non-forest functions, like industrial or infrastructure improvement, is mandatorily accompanied by afforestation effort on no less than an equal space of land.
— Whereas the plantation train on new lands can’t be in contrast with the totally grown forests getting diverted, compensatory afforestation — made a authorized requirement by way of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act of 2016.
— The legislation acknowledges the truth that newly afforested land can’t be anticipated to instantly begin delivering the vary of products and providers that the diverted forests have been offering. Consequently, challenge builders are additionally requested to pay for the Web Current Worth (NPV) of the forests being cleared, primarily based on a calculation determined by an skilled committee.
— All this cash is supposed to be spent solely on rising, or bettering the standard of, forest cowl within the nation, or on works that assist this goal. The cash is parked in particular funds created for this objective on the Central and state ranges. CAMPA is constituted to handle this cash, and to make use of it for the designated functions.
Science and Expertise
— Microsoft has introduced the arrival of Majorana 1, a brand new quantum chip that produces extra dependable and scalable qubits than its predecessors. Qubits are the constructing blocks of quantum computer systems.
— Microsoft’s purported breakthrough revolves round engineering a new kind of particle often known as Majorana. These Majorana particles have been fabricated utilizing topological conductors and so they exist in a topological state, which differs from conventional states of matter comparable to stable, liquid, and fuel.
— Topoconductors are made by combining indium arsenide (a semiconductor) and aluminium (a superconductor). When cooled to close absolute zero and tuned with magnetic fields, the semiconductor is married with superconductivity.
Individuals in Information
(Simply FYI: Noting historic personalities’ anniversaries aids UPSC prep. UPSC typically consists of such personalities in questions, so revisiting their lives refreshes your static syllabus.)
— Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti is marked on February 19, the start anniversary of Shivaji. He was born on February 19, 1630.
— The celebration of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti started in 1870 after discovering his tomb at Raigad Fort. It was additional elaborated by freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak, to convey Shivaji Maharaj’s contributions to public consciousness throughout India’s battle for independence.
— The US Senate has confirmed Kash Patel as the brand new director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
— Kashyap Pramod Patel or Kash Patel was born to Gujarati-Indian mother and father in New York’s Lengthy Island. He was raised a Hindu and has described a “very deep connection” with India.
Sports activities
(Simply FYI: With the unpredictability of the UPSC examinations and questions just like the ICC World Take a look at Championship query 2021, you possibly can’t ensure of something. It’s sensible to know what it’s and never go into an excessive amount of element.)
- BBC Indian Sportswoman of the Yr
— Olympian Manu Bhaker has been introduced because the winner of the BBC Indian Sportswoman Of The Yr (ISWOTY) Award.
— Avani Lekhara gained the BBC Para-Sportswoman of the Yr for her historic achievements in para-shooting.
Phrases making buzz
— Bourbon: The Indian authorities has notified a big tariff reduce on bourbon, a barrel-aged American whiskey made primarily from corn. In line with US legislation, for a whiskey to be labelled bourbon, it have to be made within the US; have a “mashbill” — the mix of grains used — comprising no less than 51% corn; be aged for no less than 2 years in model new barrels fabricated from white oak, and charred on the within; be bottled at 80 to 125 proof (40% to 62.5% alcohol by quantity); and include no further color or flavouring.
Take a look at Your Data
(Be aware: The easiest way to recollect details for UPSC and different aggressive exams is to recall them by way of MCQs. Attempt to resolve the next questions by yourself.)
(A) Think about the next statements:
1. The Election Fee of India is a five-member physique.
2. Union Ministry of Dwelling Affairs decides the election schedule for the conduct of each basic elections and bye-elections.
3. The Election Commissioner is appointed by a Choice Committee made up of the Prime Minister, the Chief of the Opposition, and a Cupboard Minister nominated by the PM.
Which of the statements given above is/are appropriate?
(a) 1 and a couple of solely
(b) 2 solely
(c) 2 and three solely
(d) 3 solely
(B) Majorana 1, a brand new quantum chip, is developed by which of the next?
(a) OpenAI
(b) Meta
(c) Microsoft
(d) NVIDIA
(C) Think about the next statements:
1. As per a latest modification to the Indian Forest Act, 1927, forest dwellers have the correct to fell the bamboo grown on forest areas.
2. As per the Scheduled Tribes and Different Conventional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, bamboo is a minor forest produce.
3. The Scheduled Tribes and Different Conventional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forests Rights) Act, 2006 permits possession of minor forest produce to forest dwellers.
Which of the statements given above is/are appropriate?
(a) 1 and a couple of solely
(b) 2 and three solely
(c) 3 solely
(d) 1, 2 and three
Earlier Articles
UPSC Present Affairs Pointers of the previous week | February 10 to February 16, 2025
UPSC Present Affairs Pointers of the previous week | February 3 to February 9, 2025
UPSC Present Affairs Pointers of the previous week | January 27 to February 2, 2025
UPSC Present Affairs Pointers of the previous week | January 20 to January 26, 2025
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