News Summary · 3 minutes read
Stay ahead in your UPSC CSE preparation with our daily News Summary. Designed to save time, it highlights key national and international events from leading newspapers and government websites.
Arbitration Council of India (ACI)
- Justice B.N. Srikrishna committee (2017) recommended the establishment of the ACI.
- The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, was amended in 2019. It says that the ACI is:
- To be established as a premier regulatory body tasked with promoting, reforming, and advancing the practice of arbitration in India.
- To be headed by a chairperson appointed by the Union govt in consultation with the Chief Justice of India → chairperson could be a former judge of the Supreme Court, a former Chief Justice or judge of a High Court, or an eminent person with expertise in arbitration.
- To have ex-officio members from the executive.
- ACI has not been constituted till now.
Drawbacks of ACI’s proposed model
- Lack of institutional impartiality: most of its members are either nominated or appointed by the Union govt, which raises concerns because the govt is the single largest litigant.
- The 2019 amendments empower the ACI to accredit an unlimited number of arbitral institutions, which could:
- Dilute quality standards
- Place significant administrative demands on the Council
- Add to costs for the public exchequer.
- Exclusion of foreign legal professionals from the pool of qualified arbitrators could further undermine India’s attractiveness as a seat of arbitration for foreign parties.
In October 2024, the Union govt released the draft Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024, inviting public comments. The draft Bill seeks to give institutional arbitration a fresh impetus through a series of structural reforms.
Failure of PSLV-C61 and PSLV-C62
- Both the PSLV-C61 (18 May 2025) and PSLV-C62 (12 January 2026) missions of ISRO failed during the rocket’s third stage, called PS3.
- PSLV-C62 was carrying 16 satellites, including DRDO’s EOS-N1 and GISTDA’s (Thailand’s space agency) THEOS-2A.
- The PSLV has failed 4 times so far → failure of PSLV-C62 marks the first incident when a PSLV mission failed while carrying customer satellites.
Failure Analysis Committee (FAC)
- An ad-hoc body constituted by the ISRO chairman to identify the causes of failure of an ISRO mission and recommend corrective actions.
- Not a standing body within ISRO → includes experts from within ISRO as well as from outside.
- Submits final report to PMO.
Quick Picks for Pre and Mains (QPPM)
- India’s first overnight sleeper Vande Bharat train: recently launched by PM Modi → connects Howrah (West Bengal) and Kamakhya (Guwahati, Assam).
- The ISRO chairman is Secretary to the Department of Space, which functions directly under the PMO.
- Chief Economists Outlook: published quarterly by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- Project Suncatcher: a research initiative by Google to explore solar‑powered AI data centres in low Earth orbit → seeks to address AI’s rising energy demands by tapping uninterrupted solar power in space.
- Yoweri Museveni: became President of Uganda for the 7th time.