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Citing improved security in the Northeast, Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said that the Centre has decided to further reduce the jurisdiction of ‘disturbed areas’ under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur.
With the consistent efforts of the Central government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there has been an unprecedented improvement in the security situation in Northeast India, and, in a historic move, after decades, the Centre from April, 2022, had reduced disturbed areas under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Nagaland, Assam and Manipur.
Taking another important decision today, again from April 1, 2023, disturbed areas under AFSPA in these three states are being further reduced.
Last year, the Centre removed AFSPA from several districts across Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. While the notification was removed from the entire state of Assam, except nine districts and one sub-division of another district; in Manipur, 15 police station areas of six districts were taken out of the disturbed area notification; and in Nagaland, it was withdrawn from 15 police stations of seven districts.
With the latest decision, starting April 1, the Disturbed Areas notification will be lifted from one more district in Assam, four more police stations in Manipur and three more police stations in Nagaland.
This means that AFSPA will now be restricted to only eight districts of Assam. In Manipur, after last year’s announcement and the latest one, the statement said, AFSPA has been removed from a total of “19 police stations in seven districts of Manipur”; and in Nagaland, a total of “19 police stations in seven districts of Manipur have been removed from the disturbed area notification under AFSPA”.
Express Network
CJI: Need equal chances for women in law (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Calling to ensure equal opportunities for women and marginalised communities in the legal profession, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud backed Tamil Nadu’s proposals for regional benches, Tamil as an official High Court language, and inclusive appointment of judges.
The CJI said the SC has been making all possible efforts to make court proceedings accessible for all lawyers outside Delhi through a hybrid system that lets lawyers appear from anywhere.
He said the hybrid system has been a success in ensuring access of case proceedings for lawyers from even smaller towns.
The SC of India is not SC of Talk Marg but the SC of all of India,” he said. “Lawyers can now appear virtually from anywhere — from Melur or Virudhunagar.
We have also started live-streaming of all constituent bench cases for Law students sitting far away. Many Law students of Tamil Nadu may be unable to pursue internships in Delhi due to many reasons, including economic capacity. Access to court proceedings will substantially bridge the opportunity, barriers.
Citing the “abysmal” women-to-men ratio in the legal profession, CJI Chandrachud said, “Statistics inform us that for 50,000 male enrolments in Tamil Nadu, there are only 5,000 female enrolments.
The legal profession is not an equal-opportunity provider for women, and the statistics are the same all over the country.
NREGS wage rates hiked in 2-10% range (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Centre has notified new wage rates for unskilled manual workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, for financial year 2023-24, with Rajasthan seeing maximum hike of 10.39 per cent over the current wage rate, and Goa recording the lowest — 2.2 per cent.
A notification to this effect has been issued by the Ministry of Rural Development. The wage rates, notified by the Ministry of Rural Development under sub-section (1) of Section 6 of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, will become effective from April 1.
As per the notification, the highest rate of NREGS wage — Rs 357 per day — has been fixed for Haryana, while the lowest — Rs 221 per day — has been fixed for Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
However, the highest increase has been recorded by Rajasthan, where NREGS wage rate has increased by 10.39 per cent to Rs 255 per day for 2023-24 — up from Rs 231 in 2022-23. The state is followed by Bihar and Jharkhand, which have registered an increase of 8.57 per cent.
The lowest hike in NREGS wages has been recorded by Goa, where the rate has increased by 2.22 per cent — from Rs 315 in 2022-23 to Rs 322 per day for 2023-24.
The state is followed by Karnataka, where the NREGS wage rate has registered a hike of 2.27 per cent — from Rs 309 in 2022-23 to Rs 316 for 2023-24.
Seven other states have recorded less than 5 per cent hike in wage rates for 2023-24 over the current (2022-23) rates: Meghalaya (3.4 per cent), Manipur (3.59 per cent), Arunachal Pradesh (3.7 per cent), Nagaland (3.7 per cent), Assam (3.93 per cent), Tamil Nadu (4.63 per cent), and Puducherry (4.63 per cent.
Economy
Take measures to protect from Financial shocks: FM to PSBs (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Amidst the collapse of mid-sized banks in the US and Europe, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked public sector banks (PSBs) in the country to remain watchful of the global developments and take measures to protect themselves against any financial shocks.
In a meeting with PSB chiefs in Delhi, she also asked them to work out strategies to attract more deposits, as the government has eliminated the ‘tax arbitrage’ that some debt instruments have enjoyed.
Her comments come following the amendments to the Finance Bill, 2023, under which debt mutual funds, which invest up to 35% of their proceeds in equity shares of domestic firms, will no longer have the benefit of long-term capital gains. The move is expected to make bank deposits more attractive as both these instruments will now have the same tax treatment on maturity. Further, bank deposits would also have the additional advantage of fixed returns.
Bank credit has remained robust despite the rise in interest rates and grew by 15.7% year-on-year to Rs 18.36 trillion as on March 10 this year.
Deposit growth has, however, lagged and risen by 10.3% to Rs 16.8 trillion in the period. Following the series of interest rate hikes by the RBI, deposit rates have risen as banks are becoming increasingly competitive among themselves to attract deposits in order to bridge the widening gap between credit and deposit growth and lower liquidity in the market.
As liquidity tightens, RBI infuses 7.89 lakh crore between March 15-23 (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
As liquidity in the banking system slipped into deficit, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) infused Rs 7.89 lakh crore of funds during March 15-23, to meet higher capital requirements of banks.
The tightness in liquidity condition was mainly due to the outflows related to payment of advance tax, the last date for which was March 15.
The payment of goods and services tax (GST) before March 20 also weighed on the liquidity situation of banks.
According to the RBI data, liquidity infusion by the central bank between March 15 and March 23 stood at Rs 7.89 lakh crore.
On March 15, the central bank infused Rs 49,796 crore of liquidity into the banking system – the first such injection since February 27, 2023, when it had infused Rs 27,668.47 crore.
On March 17, the net liquidity infusion was Rs 1.24 lakh crore, the highest daily infusion by the central bank in almost three-years.
The tightness in liquidity is due to a combination of factors. One of the reasons is GST outflows. If you look at the credit and deposit growth scenario, though deposits growth has started picking up, it is still lagging behind advances growth, which is leading to tightening in liquidity.
The latest RBI data showed that the bank deposits grew by 10.3 per cent and credit increased by 15.7 per cent in the fortnight ended March 10, 2023.
The growth in deposits has increased from around 8-9 per cent seen a few months back. At a time when bank deposits have been growing at a slower pace than credit, the year-end demand for funds will also put pressure on liquidity conditions.