Why in the news? 

• Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a US-brokered peace agreement on Friday during a meeting with US President Donald Trump that would boost bilateral economic ties after decades of conflict and move them toward a full normalization of their relations.

Key Takeaway: 

• The two countries in the South Caucasus signed agreements with each...

• As per the Act, parties have to give details, including names, addresses and details of office-bearers, during the registration and have to inform the Election Commission if there are changes in the details. The parties will also be delisted if they don’t contest any elections for six years.
• In an order...

• A cloudburst is a localised but intense rainfall activity. It is a short-term extreme precipitation that takes place over a small area; it is not, as is sometimes understood, the breaking open of a cloud resulting in the release of huge amounts of water.
• Cloudbursts have a very specific definition.The India...

Why in News?

Ministers and negotiators from around the world are currently meeting in Geneva for the second round of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) to discuss the terms of a Global Plastics Treaty — a legally binding international agreement...

- RBI released its Digital Payments Index (DPI) for March 2025, which stood at 493.22, up from 465.33 in Sept 2024 and 445.5 in March 2024.
- Growth driven by improvement in Payment Infrastructure (Supply-side) and Payment Performance.
- DPI launched in March 2018 to track digital payment adoption across...

Why in the news?

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted two consecutive successful tests of quasi-ballistic missile Pralay from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam island off the coast of Odisha on 28th and 29th July. Three Pune based facilities of the DRDO have played a key role in the development of the tactical weapons...

Why in the news?

• More than 295 million people across 53 countries and territories experienced acute levels of hunger in 2024, according to the Global Report on Food Crises 2025 published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Key Takeaways :

1. The production of the GRFC 2025 is coordinated by the Food...

• The nine-dash line demarcates China’s territorial claims in the sea on Chinese maps.
• It was initially the “eleven-dash line” but in 1953, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-led government removed “the portion encompassing the Gulf of Tonkin, simplifying the border to nine dashes,” Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) said.
• The line runs as...

Why in the news?

President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr of the Philippines is set to arrive in New Delhi on August 4 in his first trip to India since assuming office in 2022, even as the two countries have begun their first bilateral naval exercise in the South China Sea. In this context, let’s...

Why in the News? 

• Policymakers in New Delhi grapple with Trump’s statement announcing a 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods from August 1, alongside an additional but unspecified “penalty” for its defence and energy imports from Russia.
• On the face of it, India’s Commerce and Industry Ministry said the government had taken...