Delhi High Court has ruled that CBI is not fully exempted from Right to Information (RTI) act.
When a RTI activist sought information pertaining to corruption in several top offices from the CBI, it declined to share it.
The CBI has been denying information citing Section 24 of the RTI Act.
Section 24 of the act says that provisions of revealing information to the public will not apply to intelligence and security organisations, which include IB, RAW, NIA, CBI and the Enforcement Directorate.
However, the act clearly states that the information pertaining to the allegations of corruption and human rights violations will not fall under Section 24 of the RTI act.
The High court has ruled that the allegations of corruption do not attract blanket exemption given to the CBI under Section 24.
It can be denied only if they fell under Section 8(1) of the RTI Act which gives 10 grounds on which information can be denied.
GST Composition Scheme
The scheme has been designed to simplify and reduce the burden of compliance for smaller taxpayers.
It is covered under Section 10 of the Goods and Services Tax Act.
Under the Scheme, small taxpayers with a turnover of Rs.75 lakh can file quarterly returns instead of the normal monthly returns.
Impact of Tropical Cyclones in Pacific Region
Tropical Cyclones in the Western Pacific region appear to be the reason for the drying upon monsoon rain in August month across India.
During the monsoon months, cyclones in the Western Pacific move westwards towards India and aid rain-bearing systems over the sub-continent.
But during some years they ‘recurve’, or start to swing north-east, and do not give as much of a push to the rains as they do in the good monsoon years.
Alzheimer's disease
Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can accurately identify signs of Alzheimer’s disease almost 10 years before clinical symptoms appear.
They developed a machine-learning algorithm to distinguish structural changes in the brain caused by the disease.
The idea is to correctly classify and discriminate between diseased and healthy brains with more accuracy and identify changes almost a decade before clinical symptoms appear.
Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, a general term for memory loss.
It is a progressive disease, where dementia symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years.
Sardar Sarovar Dam
Sardar Sarovar Dam, India’s largest dam has been inaugurated.
It is a gravity dam on the Narmada River near Navagam, Gujarat.
It is the second-biggest concrete gravity dam in the world after the Grand Coulee Dam in the United States.
The project was conceptualised by Sardar Vallabhai patel in 1946 and Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation in 1961.
The World Bank was initially funding the project, but withdrew in 1994.
As per the arrangement, the power generated from the dam will be shared among Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.
Panel to resolve Kashmir issue
The All India Congress Committee’s (AICC’s) ‘Policy and Planning’ group was formed in the wake of widespread violence in the Jammu and Kashmir state.
The panel is headed by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The panel was formed to resolve the issues of J&K such as Article 370 and Article 35A.
Subsidiarity Principle
It is a principle in social thought which states that social problems need to be addressed by the smallest local institutions which can tackle the problems better than centralised political bodies.
This principle is viewed as an argument for limited government, emphasising the power of voluntary institutions to tackle many social problems.
