Essential Facts (Prelims): 24 November, 2018


Supreme Court

  • Appeals against death penalty can be dismissed by the Supreme Court in limine (at the very preliminary stage) only after assigning reasons for the decision, the apex court has held.
  • The court said it should provide the convict reasons for affirming his death sentence even if the apex court dismisses his appeal in limine.

Prompt Corrective Action

  • There are 11 state-run banks under the Reserve Bank’s prompt corrective action (PCA) framework.
  • The Reserve Bank began to place state-run banks under the PCA framework starting September 2016, when their NPAs soared beyond the regulatory tolerance levels.
  • The PCA framework puts restrictions on weaker banks on many aspects, including fresh lending and expansion and salary hikes.
  • These banks’ NPAs hover in high double-digits, with that of IDBI Bank being the highest at close to 33% in the September 2018 quarter.

Malaria

  • India, 15 African countries account for 80 per cent of world’s malaria cases.
  • Odisha’s sterling performance in cutting down the number of malaria cases reported in 2017 helped make India, the only country among the top five nations reporting the disease, to register a decline in cases.
  • Odisha is home to approximately 40 per cent of all malaria cases in the country.
  • India accounts for four per cent of the global burden of malaria morbidity and 52 per cent of deaths outside of the African Region.
  • Apart from India, 10 of these countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. Among these countries, only India reported progress in reducing its malaria cases in 2017 compared to 2016.

Lisowicia bojani

  • Scientists have discovered in Poland fossils of a four-legged beast called Lisowicia bojani.
  • It was an elephant-sized mammal like reptile that roamed Europe along with dinosaurs.
  • It was a herbivore.

MEIS

  • The government has allowed 5 per cent MEIS benefit on export of non-basmati rice during the next four months.
  • The Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) was started in 2015 under which exporters get 2-5 per cent (of FOB value) of their exports as duty credit scrip.

Bio-equivalence

  • Bio-equivalence of a drug means another drug similar in make-up and effect to the original drug.

 

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