NATIONAL
- BPCL has opened Electric Vehicle charging stations on Chennai-Madurai highway. Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) has set up what it calls ‘India’s first EV fast charging corridor’ under which it has set up charging stations every 100 km inside its large formal fuel outlets along the highway.
- The Supreme Court has set aside a Punjab and Haryana High Court order staying a Haryana law that mandates 75 per cent reservation for local youth in private sector jobs paying up to Rs 30,000 a month. Industry bodies said the law “affects the idea of India as one economic unit”. The High Court had not given sufficient reasons for stopping the law.
INTERNATIONAL
- France on February 17 announced that it would withdraw its troops from Mali over a breakdown in relations with the country’s ruling junta, after nearly 10 years of fighting a jihadist insurgency. The decision applies to both the 2,400 French troops in Mali, where France first deployed in 2013, and a smaller European force of several hundred soldiers, called Takuba, that was created in 2020.
ECONOMY
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 17 addressed the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors’ meeting this year.
- Investigators examining the email exchanges between Chitra Ramkrishna, controversial former MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), and an unidentified ‘yogi’.
- JPMorgan is the first Wall Street bank to launch a presence in the metaverse, joining a diverse group of brands to do so including Samsung and the Barbados embassy. JP Morgan has launched virtual lounge in Decentraland.
- Reliance Industries Limited has announced the listing of its foreign currency bonds aggregating over $7 billion on India INX. This is the largest such listing by a private entity in India INX and GIFT IFSC.
STATES
- Malayalam Actor K.R. Pradeep, also known as Kottayam Pradeep, died following a heart attack on February 17. He was 61.
- Kerala has sought a “comprehensive review” of the May 2014 judgment of the Supreme Court allowing Tamil Nadu to raise the water level in the Mullaperiyar dam from 136 to 142 feet.
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