News Summary: 14 August 2025

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 of 14 August 2025, from leading newspapers and government websites.

India tweaks Export Promotion Mission to mitigate the effects of US tariffs

• To make it more targeted towards the sectors that are most likely to be hit by the US tariffs ⇒ Such sectors include Apparel and textiles, shrimp exporters, organic chemicals, and machinery and mechanical appliances ( GTRI analysis).
• Approaches: Credit cost reduction, credit guarantees, expediting clearances, and export incentives, etc.
• Focus is on MSME exports ⇒ The Mutual Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs (MCGS- MSME), announced in January 2025 to cover loans up to ₹100 crore, is being revamped to focus on the export aspects of MSMEs.

💡Export Promotion Mission: Announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 with a ₹2,250 crore allocation for FY26 to facilitate easy access to export credit, cross-border factoring support, and support to MSMEs to tackle non-tariff measures in overseas markets.

Chhattisgarh cuts thousands of forest rights titles, reveals RTI

• Some experts have termed it as an “anomaly”, as there is no process under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, to withdraw titles which have been granted.
• The FRA, 2006, recognizes and safeguards the rights of forest-dwelling tribal communities and other traditional forest dwellers to the land and forest resources they have relied on for their livelihood, residence, and socio-cultural practices.

India’s first private constellation of earth observation (EO) satellites under PPP model to be set up

• The Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) has selected the PixxelSpace India-led consortium to design, build, and operate India’s first fully indigenous commercial EO satellite constellation ⇒ A constellation of 12 state-of-the-art EO satellites will be launched.
• Applications: Analysis Ready Data and Value-Added Services for climate change monitoring, disaster management, agriculture, marine surveillance, national security, urban planning, and geospatial intelligence ⇒ will reduce India’s reliance on foreign sources and ensure data sovereignty.

Bihar Special Intensive Revision (SIR)

• Bihar SIR is a drive by the Election Commission (EC) to update and verify the electoral rolls in Bihar.
• Became controversial due to the allegations that names of many eligible voters were removed from the electoral rolls.

💡Article 324 empowers the EC to control elections.

💡Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950 allows EC to conduct a special revision of electoral rolls in a manner it thinks fit.

💡Article 326 provides for adult suffrage.

Union Home Ministry approves the first-ever cadre review of Border Security Force (BSF)

• Approved for BSF Group B and C employees ⇒ In the absence of the review, many constables retired from service after just one or two promotions, against the projected five promotions.
• Expected to improve promotion avenues, enhancing overall morale and professional development of the force.

💡BSF was established in 1965. It is deployed along the India-Pakistan and India-Bangladesh borders.

RBI prescribes “Seven Sutras” for AI adoption in financial sector

• Recommended by a committee set up by RBI to develop a Framework for Responsible and Ethical Enablement of Artificial Intelligence (FREE-AI) in the financial sector.
• Seven Sutras:
  • Trust is the Foundation
  • People First
  • Innovation over Restraint
  • Fairness and Equity
  • Accountability
  • Understandable by Design and Safety
  • Resilience and Sustainability
• Using these sutras, seemingly competing objectives of fostering innovation and mitigating risks can be pursued together through 6 strategic pillars.
• 6 strategic pillars are spread across 2 dimensions, namely Innovation Enablement (3-pillars ⇒ Infrastructure, Policy and Capacity) and Risk Mitigation (3-pillars ⇒ Governance, Protection and Assurance).
• Recommended the establishment of shared infrastructure by regulated entities (REs) to democratize access to data and compute, and for the creation of an AI Innovation Sandbox.