Current Affair 1:

Women Representation on Benches

 

Appointment of Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts is made under Articles 124, 217 and 224 of the Constitution of India, which do not provide reservation for any caste or class of persons. In the present system of appointment of Judges to the constitutional courts through the Collegium system, the onus to provide social diversity and representation to all sections of the society including SC/ST/OBC/Women/Minorities primarily falls on the Judiciary.

Government cannot appoint any person as a High Court Judge who is not recommended by the High Court Collegium/Supreme Court Collegium.

However, the Government remains committed to social diversity in the appointment of Judges in the Higher Judiciary and has been requesting the Chief Justices of High Courts that while sending proposals for appointment of Judges, due consideration be given to suitable candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Minorities and Women to ensure social diversity in appointment of Judges in High Courts.

From 01.01.2021 to 30.03.2022, Supreme Court Collegium has recommended 39 women for appointment as High Court Judges, out of which 27 women were appointed and remaining 12 cases are under various stages of processing.

Current Affair 2:

Impact of Russia-Ukraine Conflict on Shipping Sector

 

Due to conflict between Russia and Ukraine the Shipping companies are facing the following issues:-

1. Shipping activities in northern black sea is closed
2. Insurance cover has been withdrawn by the P&I.
3. Containers bound for Ukraine and Russia are lying at different transhipment ports.
4. Payment affected due to blockage of SWIFT in Russia.
5. Congestion at neighbouring ports and transhipment ports.
6. Trade to Russia and CIS countries have been affected and Shipping lines are not accepting goods for Russian ports.           

The following steps have been taken to protect the Indian shipping companies from the adverse impact of this crisis:-

1. Meetings are taken at regular intervals with all stakeholders to review the situation.
2. Shipping lines have been requested to explore alternative routes for Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) / Russian cargo.
3. EXIM Traders were informed that M/s ONE Shipping is carrying containers to Vladivostok.

This information was given by the Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Current Affair 3:

Monetary Base/Reserve Money

 

Monetary Base = Currency with the Public + Currency with the Banks + Deposits of Banks with RBI + [Deposits from other Central Banks/Institutions which can be ignored at your level to keep things simple]

This is also equal to 'liability of RBI' but not 'total liability of RBI' which may include some other complex components and no need to go into that at your level.

If Govt. deposits money with RBI, then it’s a liability for RBI but it’s almost negligible and actually RBI has given money to Govt.  (Rather than govt. depositing money with RBI) as RBI is holding huge amount of Govt. bonds .

If Govt. has some deposits with RBI (even if negligible amount) then as per RBI's definition of Monetary Base, "Govt. deposits are not part of Monetary Base". The components of monetary base (slightly) differ as per different country's central banks definition of monetary base.  Even our NCERT says that, Govt. deposits with RBI are part of Monetary Base, but RBI says otherwise. And I think we should follow what RBI says.

So, you can consider monetary base definition as:

Monetary Base = Currency with the Public + Currency with the Banks + Deposits of Banks with RBI

Current Affair 4:

Petrol/Diesel Prices

 

Government has officially deregulated the petroleum products market and the price of petrol/diesel is decided/changed by the market forces on a daily basis based on an average of the previous 15 days' global prices of the crude basket.

Central Govt. imposes Customs Duty on import of crude and Excise Duty on processing of crude and States impose VAT on sales of petrol/diesel. And these fuels are sold by Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) like IOCL, BPCL, HPCL which are government controlled and few private players also like Reliance/Adani.

 

Although on paper/officially the prices of petrol/diesel are decontrolled but generally when the crude oil prices go too down then Government increases the Excise/VAT tax (during Covid, crude fell to around $20 per barrel but retail priced did not come down much) and when the crude price goes up then it decreases the tax. So, generally you will not see the impact of crude price change reflecting in retail petrol/diesel prices.

But if Govt. is changing the tax rate, to smoothen the prices then you cannot say that Govt. is controlling the prices, as Govt. has full freedom/right to change the tax. BUT sometimes, when crude prices increase steeply and Govt. is not willing to reduce taxes and it also does not want retail prices to go up (because of elections as as was the case in the last one month) then it indirectly/unofficially forces OMCs like IOCL/BPCL/HPCL (which are controlled by Govt.) to not increase the prices which leads to loss of profit and pricing freedom to the OMCs. And this loss of profit or just loss is called "under recovery" of OMCs. When OMCs do not increase prices then private retailers can also not increase the fuel prices because of competition.

 

 

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