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.
