Ending the Executive’s exclusive control over the appointment of the Chief election commissioner and election commissioners, the Supreme Court in a landmark decision on Thursday, ruled that their selection be done by a three member committee.
The committee would be comprising the Prime minister, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha and and the Chief Justice of India.
It thus nullified, the practice that has been in Vogue since independence.
A five judge Constitution bench, in a unanimous verdict, disapproved of the present system of the centre appointing members of the poll watchdog.
# G20
The G20 foreign ministers meeting ended with a chair summary and outcome document and not a joint communique due to extremely polarized view on the Ukraine issue.
The outcome was the same as what happened at the finance minister’s meetings last week in Bengaluru where Russia and China blocked efforts to arrive at a consensus.
Jaishankar listed a number of areas where consensus was achieved like the need to strengthen multilateralism, food and energy security and terrorism.
# Pakistan
Pakistan said on Thursday it would strike a staff level agreement with the IMF next week as the negotiations with the global lenders about the release of $1.2 billion tranche were about to conclude.
The statement issued by finance minister Ishaq dar, came after the value of the local currency dropped to an all time low of ₹285 against a dollar, tumbling by ₹19.
Pakistan has been negotiating with the IMF and is hoping to sign the staff level agreement for more loans from other lenders.
# Adani
The Adani family on Thursday sold shares worth ₹15446 crore in four group companies to US based boutique firm GQG partners founded by Indian born Rajiv jain.
The stocks were sold at a substantial discount to their closing prices.