Union Ministry of Home Affairs notified the Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025, under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.

Key Highlights of the Order

• Exemption of Passport/Visa for: 
  • Indian armed forces on duty
  • Indian, Nepali, and Bhutanese citizens at specified borders; 
  • Tibetans with valid registration and special permits; 
  • Specific religious minorities (Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians) from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan who entered by December 31, 2024 (even with invalid documents), and 
  • Registered Sri Lankan Tamil nationals who took shelter by January 9, 2015.
• Visa exemption also applied to:
  • Foreigners holding diplomatic/official passports (where waived by agreement)
  • Those eligible for visa-on-arrival 
  • Certain foreign military personnel visiting on naval warship

Coconut Development Board Launches Revised Schemes. 

About Coconut Development Board

• Overview: It is a statutory body established under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
• Genesis: 1981
• Aim: Integrated development of coconut cultivation and industry with focus on productivity increase and product diversification.
• Offices: Headquarters at Kochi  and Regional Offices at Bangalore, Chennai, Guwahati and Patna.
• Functions: Adopting measures for the development of the coconut industry, imparting technical advice, providing financial assistance etc.

The 14th edition of Exercise MAITREE-XIV commenced at Meghalaya, India.

About Exercise Maitree

• Instituted in 2006,it  is one of the important joint training exercises between India and Thailand.
• The joint exercise will focus on company level counter-terrorist operations in semi-urban terrain under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter.

Russia and China signed legally binding deal to build Power of Siberia 2 (PoS 2) gas pipeline.

About PoS 2 Pipeline

• It will transit gas reserves in Russia’s West Siberia to northern China via eastern Mongolia.
• It aims to increase supplies via the existing Power of Siberia pipeline, which runs from Eastern Siberia to China.
• It was formerly known as the Altai pipeline.

• The Solow Paradox, coined by Nobel Laureate Robert Solow in 1987, describes the phenomenon where extensive use of advanced technology, such as computers, does not result in an expected increase in productivity. 
• Solow famously remarked, "You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics". 
• However, this original paradox was resolved in the 1990s, with industries like banking and retail showing productivity gains from information technology (IT) and process redesigns.
• Currently, artificial intelligence (AI) adoption faces its own version of this paradox, as many organizations are not seeing anticipated value gains

Supreme Court affirmed that individuals sentenced to life imprisonment retain the constitutional and statutory right to seek remission.

About Remission

• Definition: It means decreasing the period of the sentence without changing its character.
• Article 72: Indian constitution gives the President power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites, or remissions of punishment, & to suspend or commute sentences.
  • Article 161 provides similar powers to the Governor for any offence against any law to which the executive power of the State extends.
• Section 477 BNSS relates to the State Government's power to remit or commute sentences of persons convicted for the offences linked to the Central Government.

Trade policy uncertainty (World Policy Uncertainty Index ) is emerging as a major drag on the global economy as per UNCTAD global trade update.

Major findings of the update

• Trade policy uncertainty is unprecedented and more disruptive than tariffs.
• Uncertainty causes higher costs, slower growth, and financial instability.
• Small firms and LDCs are disproportionately vulnerable to policy uncertainty.
• Governments use policy uncertainty as a deliberate strategic tool for leverage.
• Diversifying markets and joining trade agreements build resilience against uncertainty.

India sought consultations with the US under the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) safeguard agreement over 50% tariffs imposed on certain copper products.

About WTO Committee on Safeguards

• The Committee on Safeguards provides WTO members the opportunity to discuss any matters relating to the operation of the Agreement on Safeguards.
  • The Agreement on Safeguards sets forth the rules for application of safeguard measures.
  • Safeguard measures are “emergency” actions with respect to increased imports of particular products, which potentially threaten to cause serious injury to the importing Member's domestic industry.
• Functions: Monitor/report Agreement implementation to the Council for Trade in Goods (CTG); Assess procedural compliance upon member request and report findings.