Current Affairs for UPSC Exams | 19 July 2019

EC issues notices to parties over national party status : (National)

Election Commission has issued a show-cause notice to the Nationalist Congress Party, Trinamool Congress and Communist Party of India regarding the withdrawal of National Party status after the dismal performance in Lok Sabha elections.
Sources said, the Commission has asked them to explain why their national party status should not be revoked. They have been asked to respond to the notice issued yesterday by 5th of next month.
Similar notices were earlier issued to the parties after their dismal performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as well.
According to the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, a political party can be recognized as a national party if its candidates secure at least six per cent of votes polled in four or more states in Lok Sabha or assembly elections and, in addition, has at least four members in the Lok Sabha.
However, these parties got a reprieve when the EC amended its rules in 2016, where national and state party status of political parties are to be reviewed every 10 years instead of five.
As of now, TMC, BJP, BSP, CPI, CPI(M), Congress, NCP and National People's Party of Meghalaya have national party status.

SEBI opposes centre’s move to transfer surplus to consolidated fund : (Economy)

The government’s proposal to transfer surplus money with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI) has met with a strong opposition from the regulatory body.
The capital markets regulator feels that the proposal would result in compromising its “autonomy and its ability to function effectively” towards the progress and development of the Indian securities market.
The government has proposed an amendment to the SEBI Act, which states that the SEBI would constitute a reserve fund and 25% of the annual surplus of the general fund would be put in the reserve fund. Further, the size of such reserve fund cannot exceed the total of annual expenditure of the preceding two financial years.
More importantly, the surplus of the general fund, after factoring in all the SEBI expenses and the transfer to the reserve fund, needs to be transferred to the CFI as per amendments proposed in the Finance Bill, 2019.
The general fund of the SEBI, which currently has a balance of over Rs. 3,000 crore, is used to meet the expenses of the regulatory body, including salaries and allowances. The fund gets money via charges that the SEBI levies on market participants in the form of registration or processing fees.

More than 7000 species added to IUCN red list : (Science and technology)

Mankind’s destruction of nature is driving species to the brink of extinction at an “unprecedented” rate, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned on Thursday, as it added more than 7,000 animals, fish and plants to its endangered “Red List”.
The group has now assessed more than 1,05,000 species worldwide, around 28,000 of which risk extinction.
While each group of organisms face specific threats, human behaviour, including overfishing and deforestation, was the biggest driver of plummeting populations.
“Nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history,” said IUCN acting director general Grethel Aguilar. “We must wake up to the fact that conserving nature’s diversity is in our interest.”
Wedgefishes and giant guitarfishes, known collectively as Rhino Rays due to their elongated snouts, are now the most imperilled marine families on Earth.
The False Shark Ray is on the brink of extinction after overfishing in the waters off of Mauritania saw its population collapse by 80% in the last 45 years. Seven species of primate are closer to extinction on the new list, including the Roloway Monkey of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, with fewer than 2,000 individuals left in the wild.
More than 500 deep-sea bony fish and molluscs have been added to the list for the first time posing something of a conservation conundrum as the space they inhabit — 1,000 metres beneath the surface — is often beyond national boundaries.

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