# Supreme Court

• The supreme Court on July 26 orally asked the centre to find out from the finance commission if there is a way to curb political parties from promising and distributing “irrational freebies” during election campaigns.
• The hearing came on a writ petition filed by BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini kumar Upadhyay, who had argued that the offer and distribution of “irrational freebies” amounted to bribery and unduly influencing voters.
• In its affidavit, Election Commission of India had however disagreed with Mr. Upadhyay’s plea to seize the election symbols of parties that promise gifts.

# 5G spectrum

• The government on Tuesday received record bids worth ₹1.45 lakh crore on the first day of the largest ever auction for telecom airwaves surpassing the expectations of the bids worth ₹80000 crore to ₹90000 crore from the entire auction.
• In the auction, a total of 72 Ghz of spectrum worth about ₹4.3 lakh crore has been put on sale.
• All the four private players – Reliance jio, Bharti airtel, Vodafone idea and Adani data network have participated in the auction.
• The previous record was ₹1.09 lakh crore in 2015 auctions.

# Ramsar sites

• India has added five more Ramsar sites or wetlands of international importance, bringing the number of such sites in the country to 54.
• The Ramsar sites which are added are the Karikili bird sanctuary, Pallikaranai Marsh reserve forest and Picharavam mangrove in Tamil Nadu, The Sakhya sagar in Madhya Pradesh and the Pala wetlands in Mizoram.
• India’s Ramsar wetlands are spread over 11000 sq km – around 10% of the total wetland area in the country.
• The UK has 175 and Mexico has 142 Ramsar sites, although they are smaller countries.

# International space Station

• Russia will pull out of the international space Station after 2024 and focus on its own space station.
• NASA and other international partners hope to keep the international space Station floating until 2030.