Current Affair 1:

About INTERPOL

 

It is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime control. Formed in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission, and started calling itself Interpol in 1956.

NTERPOL has 194 member countries, making us the world's largest police organization. They work together and with the General Secretariat to share data related to police investigations.

India joined the organisation in 1949, and is one of its oldest members.

Each country hosts an INTERPOL National Central Bureau (NCB), which links national police with our global network.

As part of their role in global investigations, NCBs work with:

• Law enforcement agencies in their own country
• Other NCBs and Sub-Bureaus around the world
• The General Secretariat’s offices worldwide

Just read once, what different colour means?

The General Assembly is INTERPOL’s supreme governing body, comprising representatives from each of our member countries.

What is Red Notice?

Criminals or suspects often flee a country to evade facing justice. A Red Corner Notice also called as Red Notice (RN) is a request to law enforcements worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest such fugitives. It alerts the police forces across the world about these fugitives who are wanted internationally.

A RN contains information that helps identify the wanted person including – name, date of birth, nationality, physical attributes like colour of hair, eyes, etc. along with pictures and biometric information. It also includes information of the crimes that they are wanted for.

Interpol issues a RN at the request of a member country. The country which issues the request need not be the home country of the fugitive. Interpol acts on the request of a country where the alleged crime is committed. A Red Notice request can also be raised by International Criminal courts and Tribunals.

It ought to be noted that Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant. It is a request to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender or similar legal action. Interpol cannot compel the law enforcements authorities in any of the countries to arrest someone who has a RN issued. Each member country determines on the legal value it gives to a Red Notice.

Not all requests for Red Notice are accepted by Interpol. Due diligence is done to ensure that the RN request is in compliance with Interpol’s rules & regulations.

Few of the reasons why RNs are found to be non-complaint include.

1. The requests are predominantly of political, military, religious or racial character.
2. The request is in contravention to Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
3. Not meeting the minimum penalty requirements
4. The offences in RN request are part of the excluded offences. 

 

Current Affair 2:

RBI launches अंतर्दृष्टि (ANTARDRISHTI)

 

News:

RBI launched a Financial Inclusion Dashboard, named, अंतर्दृष्टि (ANTARDRISHTI).

As the name suggests, the dashboard will provide the required insight to assess and monitor the progress of financial inclusion by capturing relevant parameters. This facility will also enable to gauge the extent of financial exclusion at granular levels across the country so that such areas can be addressed. The dashboard, presently intended for internal use in the RBI, will further facilitate greater financial inclusion through a multi-stakeholder approach.

The Reserve Bank has been promoting financial inclusion through various policy initiatives. To measure the extent of financial inclusion, RBI had constructed the Financial Inclusion (FI) Index in 2021, based on three dimensions of financial inclusion, viz., ‘Access’, ‘Usage’ and ‘Quality’.

The FI-Index comprises of three broad parameters (weights indicated in brackets) viz., Access (35%), Usage (45%), and Quality (20%) with each of these consisting of various dimensions, which are computed based on a number of indicators.

Current Affair 3:

Reserve Money

 

Components of Reserve Money

Reserve money (M0) = Currency in Circulation + Bankers’ Deposits with RBI + ‘Other’ Deposits with RBI.  Among the components of RM, currency in circulation (CiC) - the major constituent (share: 78.4 per cent).

Reserve money (RM) depicts the stock of monetary liabilities in the central bank’s balance sheet. As on March 24, 2023, RM constituted more than 68 per cent of the Reserve Bank’s balance sheet size.

In order to alleviate COVID-19 related stress in the financial markets and specific segments of the economy, the Reserve Bank measures led to stable expansion in its balance sheet size. As a per cent of GDP, the Reserve Bank’s balance sheet size expanded to 28.6 per cent in 2020-21 from 24.6 per cent in 2019-20, before moderating to 26.7 per cent in 2021-22 and further to 22.5 per cent in 2022- 23 (Chart II.4.2a). The expansion in the Reserve Bank’s balance sheet was, however, relatively subdued as compared with that in the US, the UK and the Euro Area.

Current Affair 4:

Oil Reserves in Salt Caverns

News:

Government-owned engineering consultancy firm Engineers India (EIL) is studying the prospects and feasibility of developing salt cavern-based strategic oil reserves in Rajasthan.

I have tried to connect points. Read the entire content

A Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is a stockpile/hoard of crude oil and petroleum products.  Diesel, petrol (gasoline), aviation turbine fuel (jet fuel), heavy fuel oil (HFO), kerosene, naphtha,6 heating oil, lubricants, liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and asphalt are some of the commodities that are derived from refining crude oil. These petroleum products are not only essential for the transportation sector but also for construction, manufacturing, defence, agriculture, and households. However, the relatively short shelf life of most petroleum products makes crude oil (with a shelf life of more than five years) the most suitable commodity for long-term SPR.

Conversely, liquefied natural gas (LNG) simply cannot be stored for an extended period.

Crude oil and petroleum products are stored in underground caverns (deep subterranean cavities), tanks and even oil tankers. Among these alternatives, caverns offer the most viable option for the long-term storage of crude oil. It entails the injection of free-flowing unrefined crude oil into deep cavities drilled into salt domes or rock. The oil can be maintained in a liquid state for years.

Why salt caverns are in news?

If you see data:

While the construction of storage capacity in rock caverns amounted to more than US$ 30 per barrel. At US$ 1.5 per barrel, storage in underground salt caverns is by far the cheapest storage option due to their capacity to store very large volumes of crude oil and their low-maintenance requirements.

Other advantages are:

1. Unlike rock caverns that require excavation, salt caverns are created through solution mining, a simpler, faster, and less cost-intensive process.
2. These facilities are naturally well-sealed, enabling rapid injection and extraction of oil.
3. The salt lining inside the caverns acts as an impermeable barrier against liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, making them ideal for storage.
4. Additionally, salt cavern-based storage can be predominantly operated from the surface, further streamlining operations.

Also read, how it is done:

You should know this:

Strategic Petroleum Reserves of India –At present, India’s SPR sites at Padur (Karnataka), Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Mangaluru (Karnataka), have a combined capacity of 39.14 million barrels (MMbbl).

 

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