13th March

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

• 2013 Pope Francis succeeds Pope Benedict XVI
• 1943 German troops liquidate the Jewish ghetto in Kraków
• 1845 Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto is premiered

NATIONAL

• India's first Coronavirus death in Telangana. A 76-year-old man from Kalaburagi who recently returned from Dubai was down with fever and took treatment at a private hospital. State Health Minister B Sriramulu in a tweet said the necessary contact tracing, isolation and other measures as per protocol were being taken.
• Parliament Passes The Mineral Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The bill was passed for amendments in Mines & Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act 1957 and The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015. It will transform the mining sector in the country boosting coal production and reducing dependence on imports.
• Parliament passes amendments to Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Bill, 2020. The amendment was passed by voice vote in Rajya Sabha and approved by Lok Sabha on March 6. The bill seeks to remove bottlenecks and streamline the corporate insolvency resolution process. It aims to provide protection to new owners of a loan defaulter company against prosecution for misdeeds of previous owners.
• Forcible dispossession of a person’s private property a human right violation: Supreme Court. In a recent judgment by a Bench led by Justice S.K. Kaul, the court stressed, quoting from its judgments, that right to property is both a human right and a constitutional right- the latter under Article 300A of the Constitution.
• Delhi's IGI airport ranked world's best in over 40 MPPA category. The Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA),which is undergoing a major expansion, has emerged as the best airport in the over 40 million passengers per annum (MPPA) category in Asia-Pacific by the Airports Council International's Airport Service Quality Programme (ASQ) 2019 rankings.

INTERNATIONAL

• Indian-origin nonprofit organisation activates helpline for coronavirus response in US. Sewa International, an Indian-American nonprofit organization has activated a helpline in the US in response to the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed over 4,500 lives, including 37 in America. This is after the World Health Organization (WHO) characterized the COVID-19 outbreak as a "pandemic."

ECONOMY

• RBI opens six-month dollar sell-buy swap window to pump liquidity in the foreign exchange market. The central bank will conduct U.S. dollar-rupee sell-buy swaps worth $2 billion on March 16, to begin with, in its effort to fight market volatility.
• India’s current account deficit narrows sharply to USD 1.4 billion in Q3. The deficit had stood at 2.7 percent in the corresponding quarter a year ago and 0.9 percent in the previous quarter. The sharp contraction in the deficit was mainly due to a lower trade deficit of USD 34.6 billion, and a rise in net services receipts, the central bank said.
• BSNL, SBI partner to launch Bharat InstaPay - UPI-based payment platform. According to BSNL officials, the new payment facility developed by the company will enable its partners, especially prepaid sellers, to buy service immediately for sale. Bharat InstaPay will help its partners do digital transactions on a real-time basis.

---------------------------------------------------