28th April 2021 | UPSC Current Affairs | The Hindu Simplified

Enforcing COVID-19 rules is State responsibility, says ECI pg.no.8

· The Election Commission of India said that the enforcement of COVID­19 protocols under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 was the responsibility of the State authorities.

· Madras High Court said the ECI was unable to ensure political parties followed the rules while campaigning for the Assembly election.

· “The enforcement under the 2005 Act has to be ensured by the SDMA [State Disaster Management Authority] concerned and notified authorities under the Act.

· The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), headed by the Prime Minister of India, is the apex body for Disaster Management in India.

___________

Iran, U.S. warships engage in a tense encounter pg.no.11

· American and Iranian warships had a tense encounter in the Gulf, amid wider turmoil in the region over Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal, the U.S. Navy.

· Footage released by the Navy showed a ship commanded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard cut in front of the USCGC Monomoy, causing the Coast Guard vessel to come to an abrupt stop with its engine smoking on April.

· The Guard also did the same with another Coast Guard vessel, the USCGC Wrangell, Commodore Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the Navy’s 5th Fleet. Such close passes risk the ships colliding at sea.

· The interaction marked the first “unsafe and unprofessional” incident involving the Iranians since April 15, 2020.

___________

SEBI tightens rules for provisional debt rating pg.no.12

· Market’s regulator SEBI came out with a new framework to strengthen policies on provisional rating by credit rating agencies (CRAs) for debt instruments.

· Under the framework, all provisional ratings for debt instruments need to be prefixed as ‘provisional’ before the rating symbol in all communications — rating letter, press release and rating rationale

· A credit rating agency (CRA, also called a ratings service) is a company that assigns credit ratings, which rate a debtor's ability to pay back debt by making timely principal and interest payments and the likelihood of default.

· An agency may rate the creditworthiness of issuers of debt obligations, of debt instruments, and in some cases, of the servicers of the underlying debt, but not of individual consumers.

___________