In a latest development, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being responsible for ‘war crimes’ committed in Ukraine.

What are war crimes?

• War crimes are crimes that come under the collective name of 'core international crimes'.
• As per the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, when it comes to war crimes, the court has jurisdiction when the crime is committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes. 
• For the purpose of this statute, 'war crimes' means grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.
• Violation as per the above statute includes:
  • wilful killing
  • torture or inhuman treatment (including biological experiments)
  • wilfully causing great suffering (or serious injury to body or health)
  • extensive destruction and appropriation of property
  • compelling a prisoner of war or other protected person to serve in the forces
  • wilfully depriving a prisoner of war or other protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial
  • unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement, taking of hostages

Rajasthan CM announced the formation of 19 new districts and 3 new divisions in the state. The state now has a total of 50 districts

What is the Procedure to form a new District?

• The power to create new districts or alter or abolish existing districts rests with the State governments.
• This can either be done through an executive order or by passing a law in the State Assembly.
• The Centre has no role to play in the alteration of districts or the creation of new ones. States are free to decide on this matter.
• Name change: If the state government wants to change the name of a district or a railway station, then the Home Ministry comes into the picture.
• The State government will propose a new name to a district and forward the proposal to the Home ministry. The Home Ministry will forward the proposal to other departments.
• After that, the departments such as the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Intelligence Bureau, Department of Posts, Geographical Survey of India Sciences, and the Railway Ministry, provide their clearance to the proposal of the state government.
• After examination of their replies, the state government receives a no-objection certificate. Then the name of the district stand changed.

The Centre has selected sites in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to set up new textile parks under the PM MITRA scheme.

Key-highlights of the development

• Each park will come up in at least 1,000 acre land with ready nearby availability of raw material, fully-equipped infrastructure including port, road and rail connectivity, water and power availability etc.
• Objective: The mega textile parks are expected to emerge as manufacturing hubs, create employment, create global champions and enable access to state of the art textile technology.
• Centre’s assistance: The Centre’s assistance for these parks, categorised into Greenfield and Brownfield, would be 51 per cent and the balance would have to be borne by the respective State governments.
• Cost: The Rs 4,445-crore centrally sponsored scheme will be in operation till 2027 under the Ministry of Textiles.
• Implementation: A special purpose vehicle (SPV) owned by the Centre and state governments will be set up for each park, which will oversee the implementation of the project.

• PM MITRA parks is envisaged to help India in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 9 — ‘Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation’.
• The scheme aims to realise the vision of building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat and to position India strongly on the global textiles map.
• ‘5F’ Formula: PM MITRA is inspired by the 5F Formula-
  • Farm to fibre
  • fibre to factory
  • factory to fashion
  • fashion to foreign
• The scheme will develop integrated large scale and modern industrial infrastructure facility for total value-chain of the textile industry for example, spinning, weaving, processing, garmenting, textile manufacturing, processing & printing machinery industry.

Significance

• Reduced Logistics Cost: It will reduce logistics cost and strengthen the value chain of the textile sector to make it globally competitive.
• Employment Generation: Each park is expected to directly generate 1 lakh jobs and indirectly generate a further 2 lakh jobs.
• Advancement in infrastructure and investment: Parks would provide state-of-the-art infrastructure for the textiles sector, attract investment of crores.

The Supreme Court directed the Environment Ministry to file its counter-affidavit to a petition filed by a minor, seeking judicial intervention to protect the Western Ghats from destruction.

• The Western Ghats, also known as the Sahyadri mountain range, is a mountain range that covers an area of 160,000 km²
  • The entire range of hills from Tapi to Kanyakumari is known as the Western Ghats. 
• It is parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, traversing the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• The three main rivers of South India viz. Krishna, Godavari and Kaveri originate from the Western Ghats. 
• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the 36 biodiversity hotspots in the world.
• It is sometimes called the Great Escarpment of India.
• According to UNESCO, the Western Ghats are older than the Himalayas.
• Significance of Western Ghats:
  • Diversity of ecosystem:The Western Ghats include a diversity of ecosystems ranging from tropical wet evergreen forests to montane grasslands containing numerous medicinal plants and important genetic resources such as the wild relatives of grains, fruit and spices. They also include the unique shola ecosystem which consists of montane grasslands interspersed with evergreen forest patches.
  • A significant water source: Approximately 245 million people live in the peninsular Indian states that receive most of their water supply from rivers originating in the Western Ghats.
  • Sustaining the livelihood:The soil and water of this region sustain the livelihoods of millions of people.
  • Influencer of weather pattern:They influence the Indian monsoon weather patterns that mediate the warm tropical climate of the region, presenting one of the best examples of the tropical monsoon system on the planet.
  • Natural barrier:They act as a key barrier, intercepting the rain-laden monsoon winds that sweep in from the south-west during late summer.
• On the eastern side also there is another region called the Eastern Ghats. 

Threats

The natural ecosystems of this mountain range are subject to a number of threats:

• Exploitative livestock grazing
• Illegal hunting
• Human-wildlife Conflict
• Extraction of fuelwood, fodder and other forest products
• Plantations of cash crops (destroying the natural forests)

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said that developments in the U.S. banking sector highlight the importance of ensuring prudent ‘asset liability management’.

• The recent developments in the United States’ banking system have brought to the fore the criticality of banking sector regulation and supervision. 
• The ripple effects of the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th largest bank in the US, may be seen globally.
• SVB collapsed because of poor financial management.

What is Asset Liability Management?

• ALM in banking means managing the cash flows of assets and liabilities to increase profitability, manage risk, and maintain safety and soundness. 
• Simply put, it is the process whereby a bank’s total assets and liabilities are controlled and managed simultaneously in an integrated fashion. 
• ALM is all about managing three central risks:
  • Interest Rate Risk
  • Liquidity Risk
  • Foreign currency risk
• For banks with forex operations, it also includes managing
  • Currency risk

Issues with Banking sector in India

• NPAs of public sector banks: Parliamentary committee noted that the problem of high loan write-offs and NPAs, combined with low asset growth, is more severe for public sector banks (PSBs) than private banks.
• Lowering of Capital to Risk-weighted Assets Ratio (CRAR) requirement: The RBI’s requirement of a minimum CRAR of 9%, to prevent banks from becoming highly leveraged, is 1% higher than the Basel III norms for internationally active banks.
• Performance of the National Company Law Tribunals (NCLT): Larger NPAs under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) have been taking much longer than the stipulated time period of 270 days.
• Powers of the RBI in case of PSBs: RBI had stated that some powers available to the RBI under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 are not available in the case of PSBs.  These include: (i) removing and appointing Chairman and Managing Directors of banks, (ii) superseding the Board of Directors etc.

Way forward

• Reducing CRAR: high CRAR requirement is impractical for these banks, and a relaxation would release capital and increase credit in the market.
• Strengthening NCLT: NCLTs’ resources be increased to enable them to dispose of such cases swiftly.
• Strengthening RBI: Government should constitute a high powered committee to evaluate the powers of the RBI with respect to PSBs as provided under various statutes.