Election Commission seeks limits on cash donations to political parties

• In a letter to Law Minister Kiren Rijiju, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has suggested some amendments in the Representation of the People Act to increase transparency and accountability.
• The poll body has proposed to decrease the limit of anonymous political donations from 20 thousand rupees to two thousand rupees and sought to restrict cash donations at 20 percent or at maximum of 20 crore rupees out of the total funds received by a party.
• The Commission has also suggested that every candidate should open a separate bank account for election purposes, route all expenses and receipts through this account and furnish these details in their account of election expenditure.
• Currently, maintaining a separate bank account for poll expenditure is part of instructions, but the poll panel wants it to become part of Conduct of Election Rules.
• The proposals are aimed at bringing reforms and transparency in donations received by political parties and also the expenditure incurred by candidates.

AIBD Unanimously Extends India's Presidency For One More Year

• This was unanimously decided by the AIBD member countries at the two-day General Conference held in New Delhi. Currently, Chief Executive Officer of Prasar Bharati and Director General of Doordarshan Mayank Kumar Agrawal is the President of AIBD.
• The Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) was established in 1977.
• It is a unique regional inter-governmental organisation of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) in the field of electronic media development. AIBD currently has 26 countries as full members represented by 43 organizations and 52 affiliate members.

India and Egypt agree to identify expanding cooperation between their defence industries

• Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held bilateral talks with his Egyptian counterpart General Mohamed Zaki in Cairo.
• Both sides discussed steps to strengthen defence ties and reached a consensus to enhance conduct of joint exercises and exchange of personnel for training especially in the field of counter-insurgency.
• They also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of defence to pave the way for enhancing defence cooperation across all sectors of mutual interest.
• Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also invited his Egyptian counterpart to the India-Africa Defence Dialogue and IOR Defence Ministers’ Conclave scheduled to be held as part of 12th Defence Expo in Gandhinagar next month.

RBI removes Central Bank of India from Prompt Corrective Action framework

• The Prompt Corrective Action norm is a supervisory tool and is imposed when a bank breaches certain regulatory thresholds on capital to risk weighted assets ratio (CRAR), net NPAs, and return on assets (RoA).
• The RBI imposed PCA norms on the bank in June 2017 due to its high net NPA and negative return of assets (RoA). After reviewing the performance of the Central Bank of India, RBI decided to remove the restrictions on the bank.
• The bank has provided a written commitment that it would comply with the norms of minimum regulatory capital, net NPA, and leverage ratio on an ongoing basis.

Congress mentions Indian Express investigation, hits out at Govt over ED ‘misuse’

• The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is a law enforcement agency and economic intelligence agency responsible for enforcing economic laws and fighting economic crime in India. It is part of the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance.
• The ED’s aggression has been largely on account of its current Director Sanjay Kumar Mishra (since 2018) and his predecessor Karnal Singh (2015-18) leveraging the massive powers bestowed on the agency by the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
• Unlike laws governing other agencies, particularly the CBI, the PMLA allows the ED to take cognizance of any offence under its wide-ranging schedule across the country, with or without the consent of state governments.
• While the National Investigation Agency (NIA) too has powers to take suo motu cognizance of offences across the country, the schedule of the NIA Act — that is, the types of offences that it can investigate — is limited to about a dozen offences.
• The schedule of the PMLA on the other hand, has increased from just six offences in 2002 — when the law was enacted — to 30 groups of offences encompassing over 147 provisions now.
• The ED’s sweeping ambit extends from serious crimes such as terrorism to the hunting of wild animals, and from the infringement of copyright to false trademarks.

SECI celebrates 11th Foundation Day

• Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd. (SECI) is a company of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India, established to facilitate the implementation of the National Solar Mission (NSM).
• It is the only Central Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) dedicated to the solar energy sector.
• The company's mandate has been broadened to cover the entire renewable energy domain and the company will be renamed to Renewable Energy Corporation of India (RECI).
• The SECI was registered as Section 25 under the Companies Act, 1956 (now Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013) in 2011.

RBI flags concerns over digital lending apps

• This included a spate of complaints regarding usurious interest rates, unethical recovery practices and data privacy issues and emphasised the need for the fintech industry to focus on governance, business conduct, regulatory compliance and risk mitigation to ensure that customers were protected even as their needs were served.
• He said robust internal product and service assurance frameworks, together with fair and transparent governance, would go a long way to safeguard the interests of customers and ensure long-term sustainability of the fintech entities themselves.
• India's digital lending market has grown quickly and facilitated $2.2 billion in digital loans in 2021-22, with startups attracting foreign backers and giving traditional banks a run for their money in the credit business.

Monsoon begins withdrawal from Rajasthan

• The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the system had begun retreating from parts of southwest Rajasthan and Kutch.
• The “normal” or average date of withdrawal from southwest Rajasthan was September 17.
• The withdrawal of the monsoon was based on meteorological conditions such as an anti-cyclonic circulation (dry air that is the opposite of a cyclone), the absence of rain in the past five days and the water vapour imagery indicating dry weather conditions over the region.
• The monsoon withdrawal is a long-drawn process and extends into mid-October, though the IMD considers September 30 to be the final day of the season over India. The rain after that is categorised as “post-monsoon” rainfall.
• The September rainfall so far has been 11% more than usual, following a trend in recent years that is seeing excess rainfall in a month that marks the waning of the monsoon. Most of the rain, however, has been in the southern peninsula and central India, which have seen 29% and 33% more rain than what is usual for these regions in September.