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Daily Current Affairs: 2 & 3 March 2025

Current affairs of 2 & 3 March 2025: Oval Office Showdown: Trump, Zelensky and Europe’s Response; Blue Ghost Lunar Lander: Firefly Aerospace Moon Landing; UGC Draft Equity Regulations 2025: Caste Discrimination, and 13 more topics. Key facts for every exam, with a quiz.

Take the quiz (15 questions)March 2025

In this issue: 16 topics

National Affairs

UGC Draft Equity Regulations 2025: Caste Discrimination
Advocates (Amendment) Bill 2025: Withdrawn After Bar Protests
ERONET Platform and EPIC Duplication Issue Explained

Banking & Finance

SEBI Mutual Fund-Insurance Combo: Plan Stalls on Industry Doubts
SEBI to Challenge Mumbai Court Order on 1994 BSE Listing
RBI Under Sanjay Malhotra: Rate Cut and Liquidity Easing
IRDAI Allows Insurers to Hedge with Equity Derivatives
CASA Decline: Why Banks Regret Pushing Mutual Funds

Economy

EU-India FTA and the Shift Towards Bilateral Trade Deals

International Affairs

Oval Office Showdown: Trump, Zelensky and Europe’s Response

Science & Technology

Blue Ghost Lunar Lander: Firefly Aerospace Moon Landing
MSUD Gene Therapy Shows Promise in Animal Trials
Einstein Ring: Altieri’s Ring Found in Galaxy NGC 6505

Environment & Ecology

PM2.5 Pollution in North India: Sources and Health Risks
Kerala Offshore Mining Protest: Kollam Parappu Blocks
Cheetahs at Kuno: Prey Shortage and Leopard Competition

National Affairs

Polity & Governance

1. UGC Draft Equity Regulations 2025: Caste Discrimination

UGC's 2025 draft regulations explicitly cover caste-based discrimination against SC and ST members.
Protection extends to all stakeholders, not only students as in 2012.
Public comments on the draft were invited until 28 March 2025.
The draft does not address anti-reservation bias and leaves 'false complaint' undefined.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Polity & Governance

2. Advocates (Amendment) Bill 2025: Withdrawn After Bar Protests

The Centre withdrew the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2025 on 22 February, promising fresh consultation and a new draft.
Section 35A would have treated lawyers' strikes or court boycotts as misconduct.
Section 49B let the Centre give binding directions to the Bar Council of India (BCI).

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Polity & Governance

3. ERONET Platform and EPIC Duplication Issue Explained

ERONET is a web platform for election officials, working in 14 languages and 11 scripts.
The 10-digit EPIC number only identifies a voter; it cannot be used to vote outside one's constituency.
Duplicate EPIC numbers across States arose from older manual, decentralised systems.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Banking & Finance

4. SEBI Mutual Fund-Insurance Combo: Plan Stalls on Industry Doubts

Combo idea proposed by ex-SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch in January 2025.
Earlier combo products were banned by SEBI in June 2022.
Tuhin Kanta Pandey replaced Buch, leaving the plan's future unclear.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Polity & Governance

5. SEBI to Challenge Mumbai Court Order on 1994 BSE Listing

SEBI will challenge a Mumbai ACB court order tied to a 1994 BSE listing.
Named: ex-chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch, three whole-time members, two BSE officials.
SEBI says it had no notice or hearing.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

6. RBI Under Sanjay Malhotra: Rate Cut and Liquidity Easing

MPC cut the repo rate by 25 bps in February, the first cut in five years.
RBI lowered risk weights on loans to NBFCs and MFIs from 125% to 100%, releasing about ₹40,000 crore.
Liquidity deficit touched ₹3 trillion in January, the highest since April 2010.
LCR norms, the ECL framework and project finance rules were postponed to give banks relief.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

7. IRDAI Allows Insurers to Hedge with Equity Derivatives

IRDAI now lets insurers hedge equity exposure with derivatives, for risk management only.
Permitted: stock and index futures, and stock and index options.
Life insurers typically hold 30-35% of their portfolio in equities.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

8. CASA Decline: Why Banks Regret Pushing Mutual Funds

Banks sold mutual funds and insurance aggressively to earn fees, weakening low-cost deposit growth.
CASA ratios fell at most major banks, pushing them towards costlier certificates of deposit.
A healthy CASA base can support a net interest margin of around 4% without harming asset quality.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Economy

9. EU-India FTA and the Shift Towards Bilateral Trade Deals

Finance Minister Sitharaman said multilateralism is fading and India should favour bilateral trade, investment and strategic agreements.
Her remarks came during the European Commission President's India visit, which sped up the EU-India FTA talks.
The WTO appellate body was crippled after the US refused to appoint new members.
India is advised to use plurilateral routes such as the MPIA at the WTO.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

International Affairs

International Relations

10. Oval Office Showdown: Trump, Zelensky and Europe’s Response

Zelensky left the Oval Office early on 28 February 2025 without signing the minerals deal with the U.S.
Leaders of Germany, France, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands publicly backed Ukraine after the clash.
Zelensky became Ukraine's President in the 2019 election on an anti-corruption and peace platform.
The U.S. did not invite Ukraine or European states to its 18 February talks with Russia.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Science & Technology

Science & Technology

11. Blue Ghost Lunar Lander: Firefly Aerospace Moon Landing

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 landed upright on the Moon, the second private lander to succeed.
Landing site: Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium.
Blue Ghost carries 10 instruments, including a soil analyser and a GPS-like navigation test.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Science & Technology

12. MSUD Gene Therapy Shows Promise in Animal Trials

MSUD is a rare inherited disorder that blocks processing of certain amino acids, giving urine a maple-syrup smell.
An adeno-associated viral vector delivers working BCKDHA and BCKDHB genes.
A treated newborn calf grew normally for two years and could eat a high-protein diet.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Science & Technology

13. Einstein Ring: Altieri’s Ring Found in Galaxy NGC 6505

Euclid, an ESA mission, spotted an Einstein ring around galaxy NGC 6505 in September 2023.
NGC 6505 lies 590 million light years away; the lensed background galaxy is 4.5 billion light years distant.
The ring was named Altieri's Ring after astronomer Bruno Altieri, who first noticed it.
Keck Cosmic Web Imager data from March 2024 confirmed the lensing effect.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Environment & Ecology

Environment & Ecology

14. PM2.5 Pollution in North India: Sources and Health Risks

A Nature Communications study traced PM2.5 sources across northern India.
Organic aerosols from inefficient biomass and fossil fuel burning drive PM2.5 oxidative potential, a health-risk indicator.
PM2.5 toxicity in India was five times that in Chinese and European cities.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Polity & Governance

15. Kerala Offshore Mining Protest: Kollam Parappu Blocks

Kerala fishers oppose offshore mining opened to private firms by the 2023 change to the Offshore Areas Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 2002.
Tranche 1 auction: 13 blocks, namely 3 construction sand (Kerala), 3 lime mud (Gujarat) and 7 polymetallic nodule blocks (Great Nicobar).
Kerala's zone, Kollam Parappu (Quilon Bank), is a major fishing ground and biodiversity hotspot.
MP N.K. Premachandran demanded a Right to the Sea Act on the lines of the Right to Forest Act.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Environment & Ecology

16. Cheetahs at Kuno: Prey Shortage and Leopard Competition

Cheetahs, extinct in India since 1952, were reintroduced at Kuno National Park, Madhya Pradesh.
Eight came from Namibia (17 September 2022) and twelve from South Africa (18 February 2023).
Ten cheetahs have died; 26 are now at Kuno, say government sources.

Full notes and 3 MCQs ›

Test yourself

15 questions from the news of 2 & 3 March 2025, with answers and explanations.