1) Parliament Passes Right Of Children To Free And Compulsory Education (Amendment) Bill, 2018
•The Bill seeks to amend the Right to Education (RTE) Act to abolish the “no-detention” policy in schools. Under the current provisions of the Act, no student can be detained up to class VIII. As per the amendment, it would be left to the states to decide whether to continue the no-detention policy.
2) Parliament Passes National Council For Teacher Education (Amendment) Bill, 2018
•The Bill was introduced by the Union Minister of Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar in Lok Sabha in December 2017. The bill aims to grant retrospective recognition to Central and State institutions which had conducted teacher education courses without approval by the Council. This will ensure that the future of about 17 thousand students having degrees from such institutions is secured.
3) Trump Signs Asia Reassurance Initiative Act Into Law
•Specifically, the ARIA will authorize $1.5 billion in spending for a range of U.S. programs in East and Southeast Asia and develop a long-term strategic vision and a comprehensive, multifaceted, and principled United States policy for the Indo-Pacific region, and for other purposes.
4) Arunima Sinha Becomes World’s 1st Female Amputee To Scale Antarctica’s Highest Peak
•Apart from Mount Everest, the 30-year-old has climbed the highest peaks of fivecontinents and plans to do so in all seven.
5) SEBI Allows Custodial Services In Commodity Market
•Under the new framework, existing custodians will be permitted to add commodities as an asset class and provide physical delivery of both the securities and commodities. Currently, the regulation on the custodian of securities provides safekeeping of securities, gold or gold related instruments, title deeds of real estate and incidental services.
6) Syndicate Bank And SBI Life Insurance Signed Bancassurance Pact
•Through the pact, Syndicate Bank will provide penetration in the market with its 3,000branches and SBI Life’s diverse range of protection, wealth creation and savings insurance products will be brought to the table to the customers.