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April – 03
TNPSC BITS
❖ Greater Chennai Corporation has planned to construct air-conditioned rest areas
for gig workers who are involved in food and e commerce delivery on important
roads in the city, similar to that of Dubai.
❖ The Maharashtra government has formed a dedicated cell under the Additional
Secretary (Home) for dealing with mercy petitions filed by death row convicts.
❖ The Ministry of Defence has signed a contract with the various entities for the
procurement of the Nag Missile System (NAMIS) Tracked version of the anti-tank
weapon platform, and around 5,000 Light Vehicles for the armed forces, at a total
cost of around Rs 2,500 crore.
❖ World Piano Day is observed on the 28th (if it is a leap year) or 29th of March -
88th day of the year because of the number of keys on the instrument.
❖ The Indian Prime Minister Modi visits RSS Headquarters in Nagpur for the first
time since becoming PM.
o Atal Bihari Vajpayee had visited it in 2000 during his third term as PM.
TAMIL NADU NEWS
7 Town Panchayats upgradation
❖ Tamil Nadu government has upgraded seven town panchayats to municipalities.
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❖ The town panchayats of Polur, Chengam, Kanniyakumari, Sankagiri, Kothagiri,
Avinashi, and Perundurai have been officially designated as municipalities.
❖ The municipalities have been declared under provisions of the Tamil Nadu Urban
Local Bodies Act, 1998.
❖ The state government has created 10 new corporations and 31 municipalities in
the last four years.
❖ As many as 149 panchayats, 4 municipalities, and 5 town panchayats are in the
process of being merged with 16 corporations.
❖ Once the merging and upgrading process is completed, the state will totally have
25 of the municipal corporations including the Greater Chennai Corporation, 146
municipalities, and 491 town panchayats in the state.
Minimum standards for de-addiction centers
❖ The state government notified the Tamil Nadu State Mental Healthcare Minimum
Standards for De-addiction Centres Regulations 2025.
❖ The regulations are framed under the Mental Health Care Act, 2017.
❖ It has classified the centres into two categories based on the services they offered
o Comprehensive De-addiction Centres (CDC) and
o Rehabilitation Centres (RC) for persons with substance abuse disorders
(SUD).
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❖ CDCs can provide detoxification and rehabilitation care; the RCs will mainly offer
psychosocial intervention after detoxification.
❖ All centres should be registered with the State Mental Health Authority.
NATIONAL NEWS
Rules for Disclosure of Judges’ Assets
❖ Only 13 percent of High Court judges in India have declared their assets.
❖ As of March 2025, there are 34 judges in the Supreme Court, including the Chief
Justice, and about 1,100 judges in the High Courts.
❖ Out of these, only 98 judges have publicly disclosed their assets, primarily from
the Kerala, Punjab-Haryana, and Delhi High Courts.
❖ In 1997, the Supreme Court adopted norms requiring judges to declare all assets
before the Chief Justice, including immovable property and investments in their
names, their spouses’ names, or dependents’ names.
❖ This was not a call for public disclosure of the assets of judges — only a disclosure
to the Chief Justice.
❖ In 2009, the Supreme Court resolved to publish judges’ asset declarations on its
official website voluntarily.
❖ The Parliamentary Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, and Law and
Justice recommended legislation to mandate the declaration of judges’ assets.
Imran Pratapgadhi vs State of Gujarat
❖ The Supreme Court of India judgment quashing a Gujarat police case against
Congress Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) Imran Pratapgadhi.
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❖ The case, filed for posting an allegedly inflammatory poem on social media, is a
welcome intervention in favour of free speech.
❖ The verdict will have to serve as a guide to the police officers deciding to invoke
the Section 196 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (Section 153A of IPC).
❖ The section 196 deal the case about, promoting enmity between different groups
on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing the
acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.
Digital Crop Survey (DCS) System
❖ Digital Crop Survey (DCS) System has been established to collect the crop-sown
details via a mobile interface, ensuring data is captured directly from the field.
❖ This database provides very accurate, real-time crop area information for every
agricultural plot, which will help to arrive at accurate production estimation.
❖ 23 crore plots in 3 lakh villages of 435 districts in 14 states are already mapped.
❖ It has been found that there is 19 per cent jump in acreage data from the manual
estimate of the crop sown area.
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❖ Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Assam and
Rajasthan are the best performing states as each of these states have completed
over 90 per cent of their targeted plots in the Kharif season last year.
❖ Gujarat and Odisha had covered more than 50 per cent of their targeted plots.
Indian Ports Bill 2025
❖ The Lok Sabha passed the ‘Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill, 2024’.
❖ This bill seeks to modernise and update the legal framework and also Ease of
Doing Business in the country’s maritime sector.
❖ The Bill replaces the colonial-era legislation, the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act,
1925.
❖ Bill addresses critical aspects such as pollution control, disaster management,
emergency response, security, safety, navigation, and data management at ports.
❖ It also seeks to ensure India’s compliance with the international obligations and
the maritime conventions.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY NEWS
Nila satellite
❖ Small satellite manufacturing company HEX20 became the State’s first startup
to partnered with SpaceX for launching its maiden satellite ‘Nila’.
❖ The satellite, named after Kerala’s longest river, was launched by the SpaceX’s
Transporter 13 mission.
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❖ HEX20 builds payload agnostic satellite platforms and offers satellite mission as
a service and payload hosting capabilities for in-orbit demonstration to its very
customers.
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
Second National Gene Bank
❖ The central government has announced the establishment of the second National
Gene Bank (NGB) after 29 years to ensure the long-term food and nutritional
security.
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❖ The first National Gene Bank is located at the ICAR-National Bureau of Plant
Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in New Delhi.
❖ Currently it holds the distinction of being the second-largest gene bank in the
world, with 4,71,561 accessions from 2,157 species.
REPORTS AND INDICES
Levels and trends in child mortality 2024
❖ The United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME)
released a data of 2024.
❖ Between 2000 and 2023, India achieved a 70 per cent decline in the under-five
mortality rate and 61 per cent decline in the neonatal mortality rate.
❖ India is in seventh position among the top 10 countries in the highest reduction
of stillbirths in the range of 60-70 percent.
❖ India has registered a 60.4 per cent reduction between 2000-2023 in comparison
to a 37 per cent global reduction in stillbirth.
❖ Globally, the annual number of global under-five deaths in 2022 declined by more
than half from the 2000 estimate- from 9.9 million to 4.9 million.
❖ Between 2000 and 2022, the world lost 221 million children, adolescents, and
youth.
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❖ The trend of under-five deaths has increased in the neonatal period from 41% in
2000 to 47% in 2022.
STATES’ NEWS
Rajasthan Day 2025
❖ On March 30 of 1949 the four princely states - Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, and
Jaisalmer - joined hands to form Greater Rajasthan.
❖ This year, state govt has announced a calendar shift and Rajasthan Day will now
be celebrated annually on Chaitra Shukla Pratipada, the first day of the Hindu
calendar.
❖ In 2025, that falls on March 30 but in future years, the date will vary.
❖ In 2026, for example, Chaitra Pratipada will fall on March 19.
PERSONALITIES, AWARDS, AND EVENTS
2025 Windham Campbell Prize
❖ Yale University announced the eight recipients of the 2025 Windham-Campbell
Prizes.
❖ It is one of the world’s most significant international literary awards.
❖ Rana Dasgupta, a British author of Indian origin, has been awarded the Prize for
his nonfiction.
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❖ Dasgupta is also the author of the novels Tokyo Cancelled, and Solo.
❖ He was the founding director of the JCB Prize for Literature in India.
MISCELLANEOUS NEWS
Light Fishing on Indian Coast
❖ Light fishing method uses high-powered artificial lights to lure fish and squid to
the surface.
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❖ This technique leads to overfishing, often capturing juvenile fish and non-target
species.
❖ It has been banned in India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) since 2017.
❖ In states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, light fishing is not
totally banned in territorial waters and where rules do exist.
