Assam Rifles
Category: Defence & Security
- Assam Rifles, deployed along the Myanmar border, has been empowered by the Centre to arrest anyone and search a place without warrant in the border districts of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram.
- Earlier, Assam Rifles was making arrests only in areas where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was in effect.
Forest Dwellers
Category: Social Sector
- A recent Supreme Court order may lead to the eviction of lakhs of persons belonging to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFDs) categories across 21 States — their claim as forest dwellers have been rejected under the Forest Rights Act of 2006.
- Section 6 of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006 shows a multi-layered and hierarchical procedure for recognition or rejection of forest-dweller claims starting at the gram sabha level with multiple appellate committees at the State level.
Interest Rates
Category: Economy
- Banks are set to reduce interest rates, particularly on retail loans like home and automobiles.
- Commercial banks have been reluctant to lower interest rates even after the central bank had reduced the key policy rate or the repo rate by 25 bps to 6.25% earlier this month.
- While banks have been reluctant to reduce the lending rate after RBI rate cut, during the rate hike cycle of 2018 — when the RBI had hiked interest rates by 50 bps — banks responded by increasing their benchmark lending rate by at least 60 bps.
- At the same time, the banks have expressed concern on the liquidity deficit in the system and said the lack of liquidity is not allowing them to reduce deposit rates.
- Deposit rates are an important component of the cost of funds of banks to which the benchmark rate is linked.
- Higher cash holding Banks have also highlighted increase in cash holding with the public, due to the general elections, which is also causing liquidity shortfall.
- With the government announcing capital infusion of ₹48,200 crore in public sector banks, the move would also help the lenders to reduce interest rates.
PSB Funding
Category: Economy
- The government’s decision to infuse ₹48,200 crore in public sector banks (PSBs) will improve the provision levels for non-performing assets and boost loan growth, but may not address the legacy loan problems.
- The capital infusions will help the PSBs meet regulatory capital requirements and improve provisioning coverage. However, many weaker banks will continue to find it difficult to generate sufficient capital internally to meet their capital needs.
Hippocamp
Category: Science & Technology
- Hippocamp is a moon of Neptune.
- Neptune’s tiny, mysterious moon may be a ‘chipped-off piece’ from a larger moon as a result of collision with a comet that took place billions of years ago.
- NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope had discovered Hippocamp in 2013.
