Posted on August 15, 2025 · 3 minutes read
Stay updated with the latest current affairs crucial for UPSC CSE preparation. This post presents a concise news summary of 14 August 2025, covering key national and international developments.
📰 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 Pakistan and 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.
The seven sutras are as follows:
1. Trust is the Foundation
2. People First
3. Innovation over Restraint
4. Fairness and Equity
5. Accountability
6. Understandable by Design and Safety
7. 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).
✅ Also recommended the establishment of shared infrastructure by regulated entities (REs) to democratize access to data and compute, and for the creation of an Al Innovation Sandbox.
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