1) Rajya Sabha passed Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2023: The bill seeks to make the act of ‘Tout’ punishable and repeal certain provisions of Legal Practitioners Act, 1879 which have become obsolete.
- Provisions
- Bill provides that every high court and district judge can frame and publish lists of touts.
- Such persons named in the list of touts will be excluded from entering the court premises.
- Tout refers to a person who either proposes to procure or procures the employment of a legal practitioner in return of any payment.
2) Cabinet Secretary (CS): Cabinet Secretary was granted extension for another year.
- About CS
- Appointed by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) on seniority-cum-merit basis;
- CS is responsible for administration of the GoI (Allocation of Business) Rules, 1961 and GoI (Transaction of Business) Rules, 1961;
- CS is also the head of Civil Services Board (CSB).
- Issues with the office of CS
- Short tenure.
- No authority over working departments, as CS is regarded as primus inter pares among secretaries of union government.
3) Morgan Stanley (Brokerage firm) Upgrades India’s Ratings: It has upgraded India’s markets to overweight from equal weight.
- An overweight rating means that the firm expects India’s economy to perform better in the future.
- It acknowledges reforms, macro stability, strong capex and added that India’s economy is on track to achieve the GDP forecast of 6.2%.
- Back in 2013, it identified India as one of the “Fragile Five” which termed India as risky for foreign investments.
4) Yellow-bellied Sea snake (Pelamis Platurus): Recently Yellow-bellied Sea snake, a highly venomous species of snake was seen on the coast of Bay of Bengal, which is usually found in Arabian Sea.
- Habitat distribution: tropical parts of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
- Features:
- It has a distinctive bicolor pattern with a yellow underbelly and brown back with a flattened yellow tail with large black spots
- It can swim by lateral undulation of the body, and can move both forwards and backwards.
