Legal Current Affairs for 16 December 2025

Established: under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 to provide speedy and cost-effective justice as an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism.
Objective: Reduce pendency (e.g. more than 4.7 crore pendency as per NJDG), promote consensual settlements, and strengthen access to justice.
Authority: Organised by the NALSA with the CJI as Patron-in-Chief.
Enforcement: Awards are final, binding, equivalent to a civil court decree, with no appeal provision.
Scope: Covers pre-litigation and pending cases, excluding non-compoundable offences and divorce matters.
Types of Lok Adalats
National Lok Adalat (NLA): Involve simultaneous, nationwide sittings on a single day at all levels of the judiciary, from the Supreme Court down to the Taluk Levels, aiming to clear a large volume of cases.
Permanent Lok Adalat (PLA): Organized for cases related to Public Utility Services (e.g., transport, postal, telegraph, electricity, water supply) up to ₹ 1 Crore.
E-Lok Adalats and Mobile Lok Adalats:
E-Lok Adalats allow for remote participation and bring justice through digital platforms.
Mobile Lok Adalats are organized to travel from one location to another to resolve disputes.

Platform: It is an advanced AI co-pilot system, in collaboration with Microsoft, utilizing Azure OpenAI Service.
Objective: To streamline the workflow by analyzing vast, unstructured and multilingual data (e.g., FIRs, bank statements) and reducing investigation turnaround time by up to 80%.
Function: It automates data extraction, guides investigators through protocols, and identifies complex crime linkages.

A meteor, commonly called a “shooting star”, is formed when a meteoroid enters Earth’s atmosphere and burns due to friction.
Meteoroids are space rocks that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids.
Most meteors burn up completely before reaching the ground.
If a meteor survives atmospheric entry and reaches the ground, it is called a meteorite.

About Ponduru Khadi
It is produced mainly from short staple hill variety pest resistant cotton.
Significance: It allows for chemical free farming.
About GI tag
A GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.
In India, it is given under the Geographical Indications (GI) of Goods Act, 1999.

It was coordinated by INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO), with the support of the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife and Forestry Crime (ICCWC).
It sought to intercept and seize illegally traded wildlife and forestry commodities across the global supply chain and identify, disrupt and dismantle criminal networks involved in these types of environmental crime.

About: Government-initiated project AIRAWAT provides a common compute platform for AI research and knowledge assimilation.
User Base: Used by Technology Innovation Hubs, research labs, scientific community, industry, start-ups, and institutions under NKN.
Technical Specifications: Proof of Concept developed with 200 petaflops mixed precision AI machine, scalable to peak compute of 790 AI petaflops.
Global Recognition: Secured 75th position in Top 500 Global Supercomputing List at International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2023), Germany, positioning India among top AI supercomputing nations worldwide.

The SC has held that forced narco tests are unconstitutional, reaffirming protections against self-incrimination and violations of personal liberty under Articles 20(3) and 21.
The ruling strengthens ethical standards, consent requirements, and limits the evidentiary value of such investigative techniques in India’s criminal justice system.

About: A reform initiative of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) to bring uniformity in port procedures across India.
Aim: To standardise documentation, approvals and workflows for all major and selected minor ports.
Features:
Supports ease of doing business by eliminating port-wise procedural variations.
Under ONOP, the government is upgrading the National Logistics Portal – Marine (NLP-Marine/“Sagar Setu”) for seamless electronic submission and processing of all ship-related information across all Indian ports.
It brings uniformity in processes across all major (and selected minor) ports, eliminating procedural inconsistencies that caused operational delays and increased logistics costs.
Significance: The initiative is expected to substantially improve cargo handling efficiency, reduce turnaround times, lower logistics costs, and strengthen India’s global trade competitiveness by streamlining port operations.
NLP-Marine / “Sagar Setu” (National Logistics Portal – Marine)
A centralised digital platform for electronic submission and processing of all ship-related and cargo-related information.
Integrates port stakeholders on a single window, replacing multiple manual forms and physical documents.
Being upgraded under ONOP to ensure paperless workflows, faster clearances and real-time data sharing.