1) National Party (ECI Criteria): At present, there are eight national political parties in India. They are;
- Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Indian National Congress, Nationalist Congress Party, National People’s Party, All India Trinamool Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party
- It is ‘recognised’ in at least four states; OR
- if its candidates polled at least 6% of valid votes in any four or more states in the last Lok Sabha or Assembly elections and have at least four MPs in the last LS polls; OR
- if it has won at least 2% of the total seats in LS from not less than three states.
2) EAGLE ACT: in USA, currently there is a cap of per-country limit of 7% from a single country for green cards.
- The act will eliminate a per-country cap on employment-based green cards — a policy that disproportionately affects Indian immigrants. If passed, this legislation would phase out the per-country caps over the course of nine years
- A Green Card, known officially as a Permanent Resident Card, is a document issued to immigrants to the US as evidence that the bearer has been granted the privilege of residing permanently.
3) Kilonova: Kilonova explosions take place during the merger of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole releasing Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB)
- Stellar black holes are made when the centre of a very big star falls in upon itself or collapses. When this happens, it causes a supernova — an exploding star that blasts part of the star into space.
- Both kilonova and supernova produce GRBs ( Kilonova – short duration, and Supernova- long duration). However, a new event (from a Kilonova), generated a GRB that lasted roughly 50 seconds (long-duration), puzzling scientists.
4) Krishi Udan Scheme 2.0: launched in 2021, the main objective of the Krishi Udan Scheme 2.0 is to increase share of air carriage in the modal mix for transportation of Agri-produce, which includes horticulture, fishery, livestock and processed products.
- The scheme assists farmers in transporting agriculture products so that it improves their value realisation.
- There is no specific budget allocation under Krishi Udan Scheme. It is a convergence scheme where eight Ministries/Departments
- The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) is also developing an online platform named E-Kushal (Krishi Udaan for Sustainable Holistic Agri-Logistics). It will facilitate information dissemination to all stakeholders regarding the transportation of agricultural produce.
5) Share Buyback: When a listed company buys its own shares from the existing shareholders, it’s known as a share buyback, which is also called a share repurchase. The process reduces the number of outstanding shares in the open market over a period of time.
The maximum limit of any buy-back is 25 per cent or less of the aggregate of paid-up capital and free reserves of a company. To be eligible to participate in the share repurchase process, a shareholder needs to hold the shares of the company, which has announced the buyback, before the record date declared in the announcement, in demat form.
