Soren ‘untraced’ as ED team visits house over land fraud case

·         A team of Enfircemwnt Directorate ( ED ) official visited the Delhi residence  of Jharkhand Chief Minister on Monday for questioning him in connection with a land fraud scam .

·         ED camped at the houses for more than 12 hours , said the CM could not be located .Mr. Soren later sent a letter to ED saying it is “ motivated by political agenda “

Center pegs GDP growth at 7% in 2024- 25

·         Ahead of the interim budget on Monday , a finance ministry report on Monday pegged India’s real GDP growth closer to 7% in 2024- 25 , with “  considerable scope “ to outpace 7% by 2030 .

·         The report said that India’s economy will hit 5 trillion dollar in next three years .

·         Chief Economic Advisor , V. Ananntha Nageswaran stressed “ not all growth are equal “  and marginal utility of 7% growth when world is struggling to grow by 2% is “much higher “ than 8-9 % economic growth achieved with global economy rising at 4% .

INS Sumitra foils hijack attempt  on Iranian flagged vessel in Gulf of Aden

·         A swift response by an Indian Navy ship , INS Sumitra , deployed in Gulf of Aden ensured that a hijack situation was quickly resolved .

·         A Iranian flagged fishing vessel (FV) sent distress messages regarding hijancking of Iranian flagged fishing vessel .

·         The FV had been boarded by pirates and 17 crew members were taken as hostages .INS Sumitra intercepted the vessel and coerced the pirates to release all the hostages .

Setting sun evocative mood sets the mood

·         Republic day celebration ceremony ends with Beating retreat on January 29 , On Monday President , Vice President and PM all gathered for attendence of Beating retreat at Kartavya Path  , music bands of Army  , Navy and IAF played 35 foot tapping  Indian tunes . For the first time , the CRPF led a women band .

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Digi Yatra 

·         Ministry of Civil Aviation have recently launched Digi Yatra platform .

·         Digi Yatra uses Facial recognition to make Entry point and Security checks at airport digital . It avoids paper use and avoids identity checks at  multiple points .

Pros and Cons of Simultaneous election

The committee on Simultaneous elections headed by Former President Ram Nath Kovind had asked opinions of citizens and different stakeholders over this .

Pros :

●     Saving public money : Election Commission had to spend around ₹4000 crore for the last general elections. Apart from that Election commision has to spend on state elections . Lots of money is spent by different parties even during assembly elections .  Simultaneous  elections will reduce these expenditures .

Cons

●      Simultaneous polls may reduce the value of small parties , large parties will get relative  benefit . This is not good for democracy .

●     Different issues of National and states will be overshadowed by one other .

●     Simultaneous polls has several issues and compromises over the current system with which many not seem to be satisfied .

 Recommendation by Law Commision, 2018

●     Two elections in five years – The. elections to the Lok Sabha and nearly half of the state assemblies can be clubbed together in one cycle , while the rest of the assemblies can go for elections after two and half years. .

●     ‘ No confidence Motion’ should mandatorily accompany ‘ Confidence Motion’ ‘ – One of the major challenges with the simultaneous election system is what will happen if govt falls on No confidence Motion , . The commission has given a solution that  to bring ‘No confidence Motion ‘ opposition must have ‘ confidence Motion ‘ so that a government can be formed replacing the former .

●     Combined By election – By election caused because of death , resignation and disqualification of members can be clubbed together and conducted once in a year .

World

Maldives main Opposition party mulls impeachment against President Muizzu

·         The Maldivian main Opposition party Maldivian Democratic Party ( MDP ) , is preparing to submit an impeachment motion against President Muizzue .The Opposition politician pointed “ two primary reasons “ behind this .

●     “The President is putting Indian Ocean Region in danger with his policies .

●      And he  is not letting parliament function properly ,using money power and due to backing of military .

●      Maldives New President has recently given 14 March deadline to India to bring it’s security forces back from Maldives .