Mother Nature is a living being with legal entity: Madras HC

Parens Patriae jurisdiction

• Parens Patriae jurisdiction allows the government to act on behlaf of people who are unable to care for themselves.
• Invoking Parens Patriae jurisdiction the Madras HC declared Mother nature as a living being having the status of a legal entity.
• It has the status of a legal person with all corresponsing rights, duties and liabilities of a lviing person, in order to preserve and conserve it.
• The rights is accorded akin to the fundamental rights, legal rights, constitutional rights for its survival, safety, sustenance and resurgence in order to maintain its status and also to promote its health and well-being.
• The natural environment is part of basic human rights, of ‘right to life’ under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
• There is no such provision under Article 14 of the that entitles nature the constitutional right of equality.

Declaration for the Future of the Internet

• This Declaration represents a political commitment among Declaration partners to advance a positive vision for the Internet and digital technologies.
• It also reaffirms and recommits its partners to a single global Internet – one that is truly open and fosters competition, privacy, respect for human rights, and prevent digital authoritarianism.
• The global declaration also aims to keep the internet open, free, and neutral.
• Countries that have signed the declaration include the US, the European Union, the UK, Canada and France among others.
• Sixty plus countries have signed the declaration so far.
• India, China, Russia are among the large nations that are not part of this declaration.

Reciprocal cross-holdings regulation may limit banks’ investment in LIC IPO.

Cross-holdings of Capital and Reciprocal Cross-holdings of Capital

• Cross-holdings of Capital: Cross holding is a situation in which a publicly-traded corporation owns stock in another publicly-traded company, i.e. listed corporations own securities issued by other listed corporations.
• It can lead to double-counting, whereby the equity of each company is counted twice when determining value, which can result in estimating the wrong value of the two companies.
• Reciprocal Cross-holdings of Capital: It is the holding by an institution of the own funds instruments or other capital instruments issued by financial sector entities where those entities also hold own funds instruments issued by the institution.
• It results in artifically inflating the capital position of the banks.

G-33 Coalition

• It is also called ‘Friends of Special Products’ in agriculture.
• Coalition of developing countries is pressing for flexibility for developing countries to undertake limited market opening in agriculture.
• Dominated by India, the group has “defensive" concerns regarding agriculture in relation to World Trade Organization negotiations, and seeks to limit the degree of market opening required of developing countries.
• Developing countries aim to balance power through tariffs, in order to manage their own food security, stabilize the livelihoods of their farming populations, and to strengthen rural development.
• The group has advocated the creation of a "special products" exemption, which would allow developing countries to exempt certain products from tariff exemptions, and also a "special safeguard mechanism" which would permit tariff increases in response to import surges.
• India, China, Srilanka, and Pakistan are all part of the coalition.
• G-10: Coalition of countries lobbying for agriculture to be treated as diverse and special because of non-trade concerns.
• G-20: Coalition of developing countries pressing for ambitious reforms of agriculture in developed countries with some flexibility for developing countries.
• G-90: Coalition of the African Group + ACP + least-developed countries.

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN)    

• An Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) is a network built entirely on cloud native principles.
• It consists of an open, multi-vendor architecture for deploying mobile networks.
• It uses software in order to make the hardware manufactured by different companies work.
• It opens the protocols and interfaces between the various subcomponents such as radios, hardware and software in the RAN.
• RAN: It is part of a mobile telecommunication system.