# Supreme court

• The Supreme court on friday prima facie found no harm in state legislative assemblies passing resolution against central laws like the controversial citizenship amendment act or new farm laws.

• The court was hearing a PIL filed by a Rajasthan based NGO, samta andolan samiti, arguing that state assemblies have no authority to pass resolution against central laws.

• Supreme court said that these resolutions are merely “opinions” of the majority members of a legislative assembly and do not have the force of law.

# Covid-19 surge

• India reported 39,726 new covid-19 cases on friday, the highest since november 29 last year.

• These states Maharashtra, Kerela and Punjab currently accounts for 76.48% of the total active cases.

# Tourism in Kashmir

• Tourist inflow in the union territory of J&K has risen from over 3700 persons in January 2020 to 19000 persons in January 2021.

• This boost in tourism is fuelled by the domestic/Indian tourists.

• Indian government has set a target to double the number of foreign tourists coming to India.

# Pew research centre

• India’s middle class may have shrunk by a third due to 2020s pandemic driven recession.

• The number of poor people earning less than 150/day may have doubled.

• This report has been published by Pew research centre on the basis of the world bank projections of economic growth.

# India-US relations

• US secretary of defence General (retd.) Llyod J. Austin met PM modi at the start of a three day visit to India.

• General Austin will meet defence minister Rajnath singh on saturday, and is expected to discuss Indo-US strategic cooperation, defence sales and technology transfer as well as Indo-pacific strategies as a part of the Quad.