User talk:Gaurav4291/JUL2015

FTII
The Geeta Krishnan Report (Expenditure Reforms Commission Report) had clearly recommended that both the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) and FTII be handed over to the film industry. The ministry, however, while not having implemented this recommendation. Once privatised, FTII will be out of the reach of students from average income families.

Geeta Krishnan ( Expenditure reforms commission)


 * To find a solution to the problem of high rate of growth of non-developmental expenditure by the Government and to begin the process of downsizing the Government in a systematic way
 * Covered a number of department and ministries and recommended abolition of some posts

Expenditure Management Commission (EMC)

 * Setup in 2014-15
 * Head - former RBI Governor - Bimal Jalan
 * To recommend expenditure reforms to reduce fiscal deficit
 * to recommend ways to reduce subsidies in Oil, fertiliser and food — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaurav4291 (talk • contribs) 07:08, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

APMC
National Agriculture Market (NAM) online trading portal - Currently, the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts in different states permit the first sale of crops — after harvesting by farmers — to take place only in regulated market yards or mandis.

APMC :

Principle:

1. To save farmers from exploitation: Ensures that traders, money lenders do not force farmers to sell their produce at farm gate at very low prices

2. To ensure that farmers sell their produce in authorized centres through an auction

Features:

A state is geographically divided and a number of mandis(APMCs) are setup, where farmers bring their produce and is kept for auction. Traders have to obtain a licence to participate in auction. Traders/retailers/ whole sellers cannot directly buy from farmers.

Issues:  Solution:
 * 1) Even after getting the fruits, produce traders withhold the payments on the pretext that payments have not been received so they are unable to pay. They do not give them slips to avoid taxation, farmers cannot show proof to the banks of his income for getting loans. During peak time traders buy goods at cheap prices which is not transferred to the consumers and during lean season when prices are higher benefit is not provided to the farmers. Middlemen takes commission from both sides.
 * 2) Traders has to obtain separate licences for different markets in the same state. The problems with licensing is that licenses are given to only those who own a shop in the mandi, which is limited in number.
 * 3) The licensed traders in the mandi\’s have made informal cartels, no auction takes place. And even if any auction takes place very low prices are bid by the traders.
 * 4) In every mandi, each transaction is charged with market tax and market cess…this cess is for mandi\’s infrastructure development. The infrastructure is very poor. Lack of proper storage facilities.
 * Bring consumer and farmers closer
 * De-listing of foods and vegetables which are to be sold only in APMC mechanism. This would reduce the demand-supply gaps thus will check inflation.
 * E-trading facility. NAM (National agricultural market ) e-portal to be established through which farmers can sell their products directly to any part of the country and traders do not have to be physically available to the local mandis thus enabling him to buy from any mandi in the country.
 * E-portal gives benefits to all the players. Karnataka govt successfully implemented e-trading.

Emergency
Part XVIII of the Constitution is titled “Emergency Provisions” 
 * 3 types of emergency –
 * 1) A352(National emergency- armed rebellion, external threat, war),
 * 2) A356(President\’s rule – on failure of states administrative machinery),
 * 3) A360(Financial Emergency)
 * 42nd amendment – allowed to extend emergency to only a part of the territory
 * 44th amendment – replaced the word internal disturbance with armed rebellion (Since Indira Gandhi used it in the emergency declaration of 1975
 * The 38th Amendment Act made the declaration of a National Emergency immune from the judicial review. But, this provision was subsequently deleted by the 44th Amendment Act of 1978. Now, proclamation of national emergency can be challenged in the court on the ground the proclamation was based on irrelevant facts.
 * The President, however, can proclaim a national emergency only after receiving a written recommendation from the cabinet. This means that the emergency can be declared only on the concurrence of the cabinet and not merely on the advice of the prime minister.
 * proclamation of emergency has to be passed by both the houses with special majority with 1 month - and can be extended each time by 6 months

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi on Saturday declared a state of emergency

Sinai
Operation Sinai : -Islamic State (IS) fighters killed more than 100 people in Egypt\’s Sinai Peninsula





07 July
Mother can be appointed as the sole legal guardian of her child without the consent of the father : Three BRICS nations figure in the top eight energy consuming countries globally and account for over 30% of total energy consumed
 * when the father has not exhibited any concern for his child, giving him legal recognition would be an exercise in futility
 * law on guardianship in countries like the UK, the USA, New Zealand, Philippines and South Africa, and noted that it is the unwed mother who possesses primary custodial and guardianship rights of her children there
 * China -20%, USA -19%, Russia-5.7%, India – 4.3%

FTII
The students are not seeking the right to decide who should head their institute. They are trying to impress upon the fact that the decision of appointing Chauhan as the head of the institution should have been taken by following proper procedure.” He said the ministry “hasn’t followed certain procedures that need to be followed before making the appointment”

Devaluation of Euro

 * Devaluation essentially means officially pegging the value of a currency lower that what is prevalent vis-à-vis a reference foreign currency.
 * India devalued its currency in 1966(Indira Gandhi) by almost 65% and then in 1991 (pv narshima rao) by 20%.( since there were no forex reserve for imports specially oil).
 * Lower rupee helps in exports.
 * Devaluation (lowering of currency by govt.) and depreciation ( market driven) are different

India-Israel
India-Israel
 * Indian abstended on a resolution condemning Israel (UNHRC)
 * Israeli knowhow and investment — in ports, desalination plants, agriculture, alternative energy, pharmaceutical and cyber firms. Israel’s prowess in agriculture and its expertise in water treatment are unparalleled.
 * enhanced collaboration on counterterrorism and homeland security, including land and maritime border surveillance.
 * procurement of the Barak-1 missile, followed by the decision to buy Spike ATGMs and launchers.
 * Israel is India’s 2nd largest defense supplier and India is Israel’s no. 1 customer.

Rome Statute
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (often referred to as the International Criminal Court Statute or the Rome Statute) is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Greece’s exit from euro

 * Bank have very less cash – no salaries, no pensions, healthcare, services, transport will fail
 * They will not have cash for imports
 * Indian perspective: -
 * India’s macroeconomic foundations (current account and fiscal deficits) look good, and the RBI’s forex reserves seem adequate, it needs to be prudent on foreign debt, particularly unhedged foreign borrowings.
 * opportunity for India: with Europe in turmoil, equity capital will start looking for safer havens and relatively higher returns soon.

India and it’s states

 * Three goals at the time of independence – Nation building, social justice and poverty reduction, of which only first has been achieved.
 * Social justice and poverty reduction require local execution, innovation, delivery, accountability and massive job creation.
 * Making India a fertile habitat for manufacturing job creation depends on many of the subjects in our Constitution’s concurrent list: education, skills, health, power, land, and labour, among others.
 * A254-1 and2.?? - Inconsistency between laws made by Parliament and laws made by the Legislatures of States
 * Labour markets are closely related to social justice and poverty reduction, and one of our failures in 68 years of Independence has been the lack of manufacturing employment.
 * India\’s manufacturing employment is only 11 per cent of the labour force.
 * Make in India is not about reviving industrial policy but making India a fertile habitat for job creation: smart cities, skilling India, digital India, road connectivity, GST going live, improving the ease of doing business, uninterrupted power, renaissance of the railways, and much else.
 * “our political democracy (one man one vote) will one day be complemented by social democracy (one man one value) and economic democracy (one man one opportunity)”.
 * But cooperative federalism built on strong cooperation between the Central and state governments, and fierce competition between state capitals, offers the best odds for creating an Indian state that will deliver a more prosperous, fair and equal India.

PL-480
PL-480 – a controversial US food assistance programme – to tackle the food crisis.

CIC - Central Information Commission

 * Central Information Commission, in its detailed order, had held that political parties were public authorities and hence should disclose the information under RTI Act.

CIC
 * It is setup under RTI act
 * It has duty to receive complaints when,
 * 1) a citizen is not able to file a request when a public information officer is not available,
 * 2) is not provided with any information,
 * 3) fees charged is not reasonable,
 * It act as a civil court
 * 1) can ask for attendance of persons
 * 2) can impose penalties

Coal Mines
The Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Bill, 2014 : Categories of mines: The Bill creates three categories of mines: (i) Schedule I, (ii) Schedule II, and (iii) Schedule III. Schedule I mines includes (i) all the 204 coal mines cancelled by the Supreme Court in August 2014, (ii) any land acquired by the prior allottee in or around the coal mines, and (iii) mine infrastructure. Schedule II includes 42 Schedule I mines that are currently under production or about to start production. Schedule III mines includes the 32 Schedule I mines that have been earmarked for a specified end-use.

CRZ - Coastal regulatory zones
The concept of classification of CRZ into four zones has continued in the 2011 notification with the following delineation:
 * coastal area above 500m from HTL (high tide line) on the landward side is divided into 4 zones — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaurav4291 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * CRZ I- ecologically sensitive areas such as mangroves, coral reefs, salt marshes, turtle nesting ground and the inter-tidal zone.
 * CRZ II- areas close to the shoreline, and which have been developed.
 * CRZ III- Coastal areas that are not substantially built up, including rural coastal areas.
 * CRZ IV- water area from LTL(low tide line) to the limit of territorial waters of India

BRICS
7th BRICS – Russia – New Development Bank
 * proposal to trade with each other in their local currencies.
 * to insulate themselves from over-dependence on Bretton Woods institutions and the hegemony of the US dollar.
 * The seventh summit in Ufa, Russia on July 8-9 is also slated to build on two of the major initiatives that was formalised at their last meeting in Fortaleza – the launch of the New Development Bank that is being packaged as an “alternative” to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and set the ball rolling on the $100 billion Contingency Reserve (china-41, Russia,india, brazil-18 and SA-5) Arrangement that each member can draw from in a financial crisis. On the anvil is also a proposal entailing special business visas for entrepreneurs from the five member states for easier travel among the countries of the grouping.
 * The theme of the Ufa summit is \’BRICS Partnership – A powerful factor for global development\’,
 * Unlike the Bretton Woods institutions, the NDB will have equal contributions from all five member states, representing a departure from the former one and a new model for equality between participating members, with each of the five BRICS nations slated to contribute $10 billion each to the bank as seed money to start and a target to reach $100 billion.
 * The first president of the New Development Bank, former ICICI chief K V Kamath, is at the summit and has started the formal work on the launch.
 * bank will provide money for infrastructure and development projects in BRICS countries
 * unlike the IMF or World Bank, each nation has equal say, regardless of GDP size
 * BRICS represents 42 percent of the world\’s population and roughly 20 percent of the world\’s economy based on GDP, and 30 percent of the world\’s GDP based on PPP, a more accurate reading of the real economy. Total trade between the countries is $6.14 trillion, or nearly 17 percent of the world\’s total.
 * This mechanism creates the foundation for an effective protection of our national economies from a crisis in financial markets.

Emergency
Emergency –
 * Constitution (39th Amendment) Act, 1975, inserting Article 329A by which a dispute about a PM\’s election was retrospectively taken out of the jurisdiction of the courts.
 * SC powers during Emergency???

Police Reforms
Police reforms – http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/police-reformer-of-india/99/\#sthash.X29cvhjC.dpuf
 * The petition for police reforms had been filed in 1996
 * Many committees and commissions recommended reforms but nothing was done
 * The case meandered for almost 10 years — until it was taken up by Justice Sabharwal.
 * The court\’s directions included setting up three institutions: state security commissions to insulate the state police from extraneous pressures; police establishment boards to give autonomy to the department in personnel matters; and police complaints authorities to ensure better accountability of the force

UNSC 1267
United Nations Security Council resolution 1267
 * 1267 committee officially takes decisions by consensus, the five permanent members can exercise their veto by placing a proposal on “technical hold” — it delays the case for three months before it can come back before the committee.

Defamation
IPC was framed in 1860
 * Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC, which prescribe defamation as a punishable offence with a maximum two-year jail term, can be read down to make them compliant with the right to free speech.

APMC
Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) 
 * the state government has taken a series of steps to end the oligarchy of the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and promote direct marketing by the farmers.
 * Direct marketing, private markets and farmers\’ consumer market are the major non-APMC licences which are issued by the office of the director (marketing).
 * These licences were meant to allow more than one platform for farmers to realise better prices for their produce.
 * Direct marketing licence allows retailers to directly purchase from farmers.
 * the entry of organised retail in the country has seen a large number of direct marketing licences being issued.

SECC
Socio Economic and Caste Census for 2011 (SECC).
 * nearly three-fourths are in rural areas.
 * only 30.1 per cent of rural households depend on cultivation as their \’main\’ source of income.
 * Majority rely on manual labour.
 * it helps dispel a common perception that agriculture \’supports\’ around two-thirds of India\’s population and contributes barely 15 per cent to its GDP. Not only is this assumption of Bharat being synonymous with Krishi misplaced, one would, in fact, argue in favour of rural becoming even less agricultural.

Political parties under RTI
Political parties under RTI: BT Cotton:  Judicial appointments by the National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) under the Right To Information (RTI) Act:
 * CIC in 2013 ruled that political parties fit the definition of public authorities under RTI Act. Thus, they should form Central public information officers and appellate authorities as mentioned in RTI act.
 * Political parties claim that they are not a public authority.
 * Parties claim that they are responsible under representation of peoples act(RPA) and submits details to election commission and income tax, thus are accountable and transparent.
 * Political parties have to submit details of donation only above 20000Rs. What about the accountability of donations below 20000Rs?
 * CIC pointed out that political parties avail govt. facilities in the form of office space, talktime on public broadcaster,etc
 * RTI act makes it clear that any organization getting substantial govt. support should be ready for public scrutiny
 * They are the prime movers in legislature and executive, they shape and influence the laws, thus they are responsible to public.
 * Having grown Bt hybrids incorporating Monsanto\’s proprietary Bollgard (BG-I/BG-II) technology for the last 13 years.
 * it may not be propitious to make public negative remarks made against the judges during deliberations by the NJAC.
 * Judge has to continue working after the rejection also..how would it be taken if these views about judges are in open.

Emergency
The Emergency was invoked under Article 352 of the Constitution, which says it needed to be ratified by Parliament within two months of its commencement or the proclamation would lapse. Immunity of Governor??

HSPD-6
Homeland Security Presidential Directive-6 (HSPD-6)
 * The programme would have enabled India to access “unclassified biographic information of known and suspected terrorists” maintained by the US on a reciprocal basis.

11 Jul
Establishment of a separate bench of the High Court in southern/western Haryana : PSLV-C28 — a PSLV-XL version - putting five British satellites
 * Article 229??
 * Much smaller states Meghalaya, Tripura, etc has separate High courts.

SCO (Shanghai cooperation organization)
SCO (Shanghai cooperation organization) http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/SCO-Map-New-Members.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaurav4291 (talk • contribs) 08:38, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * HQ – Beijing
 * Permanent members: China, Russia(Moscow), Kazakhstan(Astana), Uzbekistan(Tashkent), Tajikistan(Dushanbe), Kyrgyzstan(Bishkek). (CKTURK)
 * New permanent members form next year :India and Pakistan,
 * Observer members : Afghanistan(Kabul), Iran(tehran) and Mongolia(ulan bator) and new member Belarus (minsk)
 * focus is on connectivity, counter-terrorism cooperation, bolstering cooperation in energy sector, enhancing trade and dealing with drug trafficking.

Jyotiba phule
Jyotiba phule: Fadnavis asking for bharat ratna
 * satyashodhak samaj
 * His wife savitribai phule
 * The couple opened first girls school.
 * Worked for peasants, upliftment of women, against caste system, untouchability, gave the word dalit.

Recruitment of experts
Recruitment of experts in MEA:
 * The optimum size of our foreign service should not be determined by comparing it to China, Russia or the US. Indian diplomacy has never suffered because of a dearth of people. It will be uneconomical to match the numbers of richer countries.
 * India has been wary of expanding the foreign service beyond a point for quality and economy-related reasons.
 * Another argument for “opening the doors” is the alleged shortage of research in the MEA
 * Today\’s diplomats need to multitask as researchers, analysts, decision-makers and draftsmen.
 * reducing routine training programmes, officers could be deployed more rapidly with quicker promotions. Such a measure would also make the IFS more attractive to young people.
 * PROs of Lateral entry:
 * 1) Will bring new ideas, best practices from diverse fields
 * 2) Will increase competitiveness
 * CONs of lateral entry:
 * 1) Will demotivate the staff

Debate about our national anthem

 * questions have been raised about its having been written in praise of George V, the king of England.
 * In 1911, when George V visited India, the Congress wanted to thank him for retracting the British decision to partition Bengal. This was the first success of swadeshi movement, the first major step in the modern anti-colonial movement.
 * During the session of the Congress that commenced on December 26, 1911, two songs were sung on the same day — one written by Tagore, Jana Gana Mana, and the other that of one Ramanuj Choudhary,who had composed a song especially for George V.

India – Russia Relations
India – Russia Relations
 * Russia offered strategic partnership in uranium extraction, nuclear plant buildup and nuclear waste elimination in third countries.
 * Kundankulam reactor is a VVER or WWER (Water-water energetic reactor). First unit was commissioned in 2013, 2nd is going to be commissioned in 2015 and talks for 3rd and 4th are under progress. Other reactors in India are pressurized heavy water reactors
 * VVER – water is used as both a coolant and a moderator

Insurgency in NE – Tripura  Operation muskaan – to reunite missing children with their families
 * Tripura has shown improvement in controlling militancy activities in the state. Zero incidents of crime, kidnappings, attack on forces, zero rebels killed.
 * Dealing with insurgency requires multi-pronged approach which gives space to security forces to work alongside the pro-development machinery.

Kumbh – Nashik, Maharastra, 2015

World Bank\’s Doing Business report 2016 to be released soon 
 * In 2015, India was 126th in 189
 * Takes into consideration – no of documents required, time for exporting and importing goods and cost of importing and exporting
 * JLPT (Jawaharlal Nehru port trust) handles more than 50% of india\’s container trade
 * Lack of container buffer zone, single clearance window, e-delivery of orders, high parking charges

Trade with BRCS nations
 * With china india has huge trade deficit (importing more exporting less)
 * Only with Brazil india has a slight surplus

Food security:
 * Properly framed regulations for ready to eat items
 * Proper labeling of the contents
 * Rigorous imprisonment for the violators

Coffingate scam : related to coffins ordered from Israel.
 * Why scandals are called gates?? – since Watergate political scandal- in this US president Nixon was involved – Watergate is a place in Washington DC – where nixons party HQ was situated.

Odia folk song Rangabati

Bring back black money:
 * Growing efforts in curbing of black money : India signed an agreement with US under FATCA (foreign account tax complaint act) which makes it compulsory for financial institutions such as banks, MFs, Pension funds, to declare details of US citizens in india. Failing to comply will attract a 30% fine on institutions. Similarly, IRS (internal revenue service US) will declare and share details of Indian citizens holding assets in US.

Overburdened Doctors
Bad prognosis (overburdened doctors)
 * Doctors or more broadly medical practitioners are the most important cogs in a health care delivery system.
 * Resident doctors are overburdened with long 36-48 hrs shift. This fatigue could cause concentration lapse.
 * Scarcity defines healthcare in govt run hospitals – be it of medical or paramedical staff, equipment\’s, bed, surgical instruments, swabs,etc. Hospital has to ask the patients kin to get it arranged
 * According to national health profile 2013, India\’s doctor-population ratio is 1200 ..WHO standard is 1000
 * India\’s bed-population ratio is lower than that of Kenya and guinea
 * Often, it\’s not just the lack of funds but lack of administrative efficiency is the cause.

14 Jul
Operation Muskaan – Child Welfare commission (CWC) says most of the children brought by police are not missing children but are roadside vendors working in tea shops, barber shops, etc. Police has to bring missing children to the CWC shelter homes.

IPR
Wooing investers with better IP regime
 * DIPP (dept. of industrial policy and promotion)
 * E-fiiling of patents and trademarks can be done using sredit/debit cards.
 * E-processing of applications helps in automatic application number generation, firms can request for examination of application
 * Online applications are given 10% rebate.
 * MSMEs( micro small and medium enterprises) which accounts for 38% of GDP are given 50% which will promote innovation
 * Workforce has been increased
 * USTR(us Trade representatives ) have concerns regarding the section 3(d) of IPR act
 * Section3(d) – defines what cant be patented. Any modification of an already substance, machinery which doesn\’t improve its efficacy is not patentable. Ex Indian patents office rejected Swiss Pharma Giant Novaratis AG\’s application to patent a blood cancer saving drug Glivec on the basis that it is just a new form of imatinib.
 * IPR awareness programmes to sensitise stakeholders about the benfits of patenting and also about the perils of infringing it.
 * Awareness among school kinds through comics.

ILP
ILP in Manipur
 * Inner Line Permit (ILP) is an official travel document issued by the Government of India to allow inward travel of an Indian citizen into a protected area for a limited period. It is obligatory for Indian citizens from outside those states to obtain permit for entering into the protected state.
 * This will stunt the growth of economy and diversification of the state.
 * India\’s trade has been growing with south-east nations. Manipur can act as a gateway to South-east Asia for India. Manipur can benefit from this trade.

SECC
SECC data : disabled people http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/all-you-wanted-to-know-about/article7418733.ece
 * 3% seats are reserved for disabled in central govt. but only 1/10th (0.3% ) has been filled.
 * Community reservation: SC\’s and ST\’s have either matched or exceeded their quota. But OBC\’s occupies only 17.7% of the govt. workforce whereas 27% is reserved for them.
 * Possible Reason for less representation of OBC is that reservation is provided to them only in 1994 after mandal commissions report. Similarly reservations for disabled started in 2004.

15 July
NGT 
 * Variable office hours in govt. and pvt. Offices to reduce pollution in the peak hours

BBIN

 * Bangladesh Bhutan India Nepal
 * BBIN Motor vehicles act will allow seamless movement of passenger vehicles and goods across borders
 * cooperation in rail, road, port infrastructure - to improve connectivity across these nations — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaurav4291 (talk • contribs) 09:05, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Right to services bill
Right to services bill, Maharastra
 * Services to be delivered within time limit
 * Services like – birth, death, marriage certificates, construction licenses
 * Time limit and prices should be mentioned for these services
 * Online portal for most of the services

Sompura community 
 * From Gujarat
 * Worked in Somnath temple

Referrendum issue of Delhi
 * No mention in the constitution about referendum/plebiscite
 * Who will be the responsible authority?? --EC??
 * History – GOI refused plebiscite in J&K despite a UN resolution
 * Khalistan movement – Sikh demanded a separate state/country
 * NE states – militant groups will also ask for plebiscite

Khalistan Movement 
 * Demand of separate Sikh state
 * During 1970s and 1980s
 * Militant groups occupied golden temple – Operation blue star (army entered golden temple – akal takht was damaged which angered the Sikhs)
 * Indira Gandhi killed by her two Sikh guards on 31st Oct 1984 in retaliation to operation blue star.
 * Anti-Sikh riots of 1984
 * AIR India 182 flight blast – near coast of Ireland – by Sikh militant group

Black money
Black money
 * Black money has had a pernicious effect on India since independence from financing of elections to financing of terrorism against state.
 * A number of bilateral and multilateral initiatives have been taken…most recent with US ..FATCA
 * Many countries have tried to recover black money but the return is too miniscule as compared to the claimed amount. So its better to focus on curbing the creation and flow of black money than to be quixotic about its return
 * India passed undisclosed foreign income & assets Act –
 * 1) Voluntary disclosure will attract 30% tax and 30% fine
 * 2) Willful defaulters will attract 10 yrs. R.I. But for this law to encourage people to disclose foreign assets, people should come to believe that govt. will discover their foreign assets.
 * The best strategy to discover these accounts is to enter in exchange treaties with countries under OECD’s automatic exchange of financial information (AEFI) treaty.
 * But there are loopholes in this OECD AEFI treaty : First exchange will happen only after 2 yrs. OECD AEFI is voluntary. Tax heaven states may or may not join it. A bank is liable to share details of an account holder only when he has more than 25% of stake in the account. Thus, to avoid this tax avoiders can open small deposit accounts below this threshold limit.

New Horizons (nasa’s spacecraft) – Going past pluto. Charon is a moon of pluto.

Iran’s Nuclear Deal
Iran\’s Nuclear Deal 
 * Deal between Iran and P5+1 (UNSC nations and Germany) or also called E-3 +3 ( EU3 is troika (UK, France and Germany) and +3 includes (US, Russia and China)
 * India’s import from iran has almost halved between 2010 to 2015
 * India imports more than 80% of its oil requirement.
 * This deal will result in lower oil prices thus will have a positive impact on CAD accounts of India.
 * Farzad-B gas field – India in negotiations to develop this field
 * Chahabar port development

70th anniversary of Hiroshima & Nagasaki Bombing
 * The U.S. dropped the bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. The Second World War ended with Japan\’s surrender days later.

The country of First Boys “BOOK” by Amrtaya Sen

Operation Talaash – search for missing dornier coast guard aircraft

BASEL III

 * It is voluntary banking regulations to protect banking systems against financial crisis
 * Some national banks can become so big relative to the national economy that they become too big to fail - if in case they are failing - it becomes important to save them - just because their failure will ultimately damage the economy further
 * Four main elements:
 * 1) First, capital. Banks must hold core tier one capital – the highest-quality assets – equal to 6 percent of their assets after they’ve been adjusted for risk. The biggest institutions – the so-called systemically important financial banks – must carry an extra 1-2.5 percent in capital, giving them a total of up to 9.5 percent of risk-weighted assets. And also CET1 - Common equity tier 1 - 4.5%
 * 2) Second, Risk management
 * 3) Third, Leverage
 * 4) Fourth, Market Discipline - Needs to maintain liquidity - what will happen if all depositers come and ask for their money (hypothetical)

Editorials: The rise of a \’masculine\’ nuclear India Can India duck the global recession? Split wide open (Greece)

Skill India
Skill India
 * 1) Skilling India is a war against poverty. India can become human resource capital for the world as china has become a manufacturing hub.
 * 2) Have to map the requirements of the world and provide human resource to them.
 * 3) National mission for Skill development program aims to provide a constitutional framework to implement and skill up skill development programs in the country.
 * 4) Target is to train 40 crore workers by 2022.

Article 35A - Permanent resident law of J&K
Article 35A - Permanent resident law of J&K –
 * 1) It allows the J&K legislature to define permanent residents of state. It was added by a presidential order, 1954 under A370.
 * 2) 1954 order supersedes the previous presidential order 1950 which separates union and state powers in the state.
 * 3) J&K constitution was passed on 17th nov 1956, which defined permanent residents as the people  who were state subjects in May, 1956 or living in J&K for 10 yrs and has lawfully acquired land. The definition of PR can be altered by state legislature with two thirds majority.
 * 4) J&K study center claims Article 35A is unconstitutional since it was passed by a presidential order, parliament did not pass it .Also claimed that it is article 35A which restricts citizens from other states to settle in J&K not article 370.
 * 5) Altering demography and giving people right to vote and acquire land can be a solution of Kashmir.
 * 6) Challenge to 1954 order :
 * 7) Subsequently 41 presidential orders were passed every one of them being amendments of 1954 order.
 * 8) These presidential orders extended 94 of 97 subjects of union list to J&K legislature, gave power to replace sadr-a-riyasat (president of state) with a governor chosen by state, prime minister of state to cm of state, extended powers of SC and EC to state of J&K.
 * 9) If these orders are repealed, J&K can go back to pre-1954 constitutional setup, with centre having only defence, foreign affairs and communication subjects.

OROP
OROP – One rank one pension
 * 1) One rank one pension means every retired soldier in a particular rank gets the same pension irrespective of the date of retirement.
 * 2) Currently, a soldier retiring in the rank of colonel under 6th pay commission gets more pension than the soldier of the same rank who retired under 3rd pay commission.
 * 3) FOR:
 * 4) A nation needs young army. A jawan retires at the age of 35 yrs whereas a civilian can work till 60 yrs of age.
 * 5) A soldier after retiring early do not get jobs of same status and grade. Thus to compensate early retirement they are asking for same pay for same rank.
 * 6) They do not get much promotions and increments due to shorter working life. And also do not get benefits of recent pay commissions.
 * 7) Emotional argument : they sacrifice their best year for the nation and in the end they do not get even proper employment opportunities after retiring.
 * 8) AGAINST:
 * 9) Financial overburden
 * 10) Administrative nightmare
 * 11) Defense ministry said records going back further 25 yrs are not even available.
 * 12) Law ministry said, if today\’s emoluments and pensions are passed automatically to someone who retired 30yrs ago it will be a constitutional discrimination.
 * 13) People serving in the same rank for more years may get higher pension. For ex: a colonel working for 12yrs and one working for 4 yrs.
 * 14) Financial argument : defense ministry said it is liable to pay 8300 crores one time payout if OROP is passed and this amount will increase every time a pay commission is released.
 * 15) CAPF, state police will also demand
 * 16) Civilians who moved to a contributory pension scheme in 2004 will demand roll out to the old fixed pension scheme.

Bananas are grown in tropical coastal regions with annual avg. rainfall of 2000 mm or more. Places like Nicaragua. Guatemala, costa Rica, panama, equador.

NJAC –
 * 1) No representation of SC/ST and women in the commission

Gerbera flowers(African daisy) – needs less water – used as a replacement for sugarcane farming which need more water

E-commerce issue:
 * 1) What business model it is following??
 * 2) B2B model allows 100% FDI whereas B2C model doesn\’t allow any foreign investment.
 * 3) Multi-brand retail issue..

Skill India
Skill India 
 * 1) Every year 10 lakh young Indians are joining workforce
 * 2) UNSFPA report – india\’s population between 10-24 yrs of age is more than the entire population of USA
 * 3) A number of reports, surveys have claimed that india\’s young population coming out of schools and colleges is not adequately prepared
 * 4) With skills relevant to industries India could meet domestic and global workforce demand.
 * 5) National skill development mission will streamline all the nationwide skilling activities, there are 20 central ministries which are giving skill development programmes under 70 schemes
 * 6) Views of all the stakeholders should be taken employers, they should be included while deciding on the curricula for the training.
 * 7) There should be a proper system to track outcomes – wage levels, industry acceptance, etc.

Insurance amendment act 2015

2nd ARC & UGC notification
2nd ARC & UGC notification UGC notification:
 * 8th report is on combating terrorism and protecting by righteousness 
 * Multi-pronged action required from all organs of govt. and society
 * Proposal 1 : media is the source of all the information and communications to public, thus media policy should include self-restraint. Institutes of mass communication should sensitivise students in this aspect of handling information related to terrorism.
 * Proposal 2 : Use of handloom in ceremonial dresses. Like in convocation. Will generate income for handloom weavers.
 * Proposal 3 : Disarmament, weapons of mass destruction and peaceful use of chemistry should be included in curriculum.

The Swiss Challenge System
The Swiss Challenge System allows third parties to make better offers (challenges) for a project during a designated period to avoid exaggerated project development costs. The original proponent, however, is accorded the right of first refusal and the right to counter-match any superior offers given by the third party.

FII/FPI and FDI
FII/FPI and FDI FII or FPI – Investement of not more than 10%, otherwise it becomes FDI FDI is preferred becoz it is generally in the form of factories, plants, infrastructure,etc. Composite cap available to all sectors but two (Defense and Banking) Composite cap:
 * Defense – 49% ???
 * Right now; Separate cap for different types of foreign investment (FDI and FPI)
 * With separate cap there is lot of confusion, investors and investee has too keep checking as to it should not exceed the limit
 * FII is considered to be fickle which is not true
 * Will bring simplification of rules and transparency

Agrarian Distress
Agrarian Distress Reasons: Solution : 
 * Two reasons mainly : Monsoon and market. Monsoon – drought, untimely rains causing damage to crops. Market – lowering of global agri-prices, increased input costs, restrictive markets
 * Better irrigation: better irrigation is a way to make farming drought-proof. Water and electricity is heavily subsidized for farmers, thus farmers tends to focus on water-guzzler crops like rice and sugarcane. India is the world\’s largest exporter of rice, which means india is exporting already scarce water resource.
 * Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) to Rs 50,000 crore for the next five years.
 * Focus on more crop per drop, drip irrigation, new technologies
 * Crop insurance – can be a faster way to reduce farmers distress
 * Market reforms needed- changes in APMC regime, agricultural infra, 
 * E-market, (NAM)

Innovation – Technical institutes in India has hardly invented anything as compared to MIT

Land acquisition
Land acquisition
 * Land acquisition is in concurrent list
 * States to legislate their own land acquisition acts
 * Balance between industries demand and farmers demand is needed
 * Industrial land usage in India is not efficient, japan uses 10% of India\’s total non-agricultural land to produce 3-times more than India

Cryogenic engines

 * Liquid fuel(Hydrogen) and Liquid Oxidizer(oxygen) at very low temperature.

CPI and WPI
Inflation indicators: CPI and WPI
 * CPI base year : changed from 2010 to 2012
 * WPI base year : 2004-05
 * Baskets are different for both the indices. CPI gives more weightage to food and beverage whereas WPI gives more weightage to manufactured goods.
 * Cost of transportation and rent on housing is included in CPI not in WPI
 * WPI (Headline inflation) - http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/07/capture21.jpg
 * CPI (Retail inflation) - http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/07/shayak3214234.jpg
 * WPI has contracted more (gone in negative) as compared to CPI - since WPI is affected more by global prices — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gaurav4291 (talk • contribs) 07:41, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Swiss Challenge
Swiss challenge in Highways
 * Pvt. Players voluntarily comes up with projects and submits it to the govt. And if they do not agree to terms and conditions, govt. can ask other bidders to submit plans. The ideator is given the first right of refusal.
 * Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan have use this in their infra projects
 * Proposals have been asked from pvt players to develop railway stations.
 * Globally- South Africa, Chile, Indonesia, Taiwan have successfully used this format in some of the projects.
 * Advantages : Reduces red tape, Shortens timelines, promotes pvt players for their ideas
 * Pvt. Players brings innovation, technologies,
 * Demerits : Crony capitalism, PPP projects like..delhi airport line…Mumbai metro in troubles..

Farmer Suicides
Farmer suicide cases:
 * Debt is not the only cause poor health is also one of the major causes. In maharastra, Only 5% suicides are due to debts.
 * Even in country, suicides due to poor health is 7 times more than the suicides due to debt. Thus health reforms can be a better way to deal with farmers distress and suicide than forgiving institutional loans.
 * Suicide contagion : Media should be sensitive in reporting suicide cases. People tend to see suicide as a solution to their problems

Net Neutrality
NET neutrality case : OTT services will be charged separately

Innovation in technical institutes
Innovation in technical institutes:
 * GII (global innovation index) – a quantitative way to analyze a nations innovativeness. India ranked-76 in 2014 and 66 in 2013.
 * GII is broadly based on institutions-govt. support, Infrastructure, Market sophistication, output, human capital etc.
 * India has scored 0 out of 100 in school education which include reading, education in science, maths..whereas china scored 100/100
 * Three major stakeholders of innovation in a country are : Govt., Industry and universities

Whistleblower protection
Whistleblower protection:
 * Whistleblower protection act, 2014 – CVC has to take all complaints, protect the complainants and in case of false complaints there is imprisonment of 2yrs and 30000rs Fine in non-corporate cases.
 * In corporate, whistleblowers are protected by companies act and SEBI\’s whistleblower policy. Under this all directors and employees are covered. There should be a proper mechanism for complaints and complainants should be protected.
 * Cases like VYAPAM, prove it can be risky.

Section 3(d)
IPR - Section 3(d) discourages patents being granted for incremental innovations.

Curative petition
Curative petition:
 * Is filed after a review petition is declined on the final judgment of the SC.
 * To prevent gross miss-judgment
 * This evolved in the case of rupa hurra and ashok hurra
 * Petitioner has to establish the grounds that show that there have been violation of natural justice or fear of bias
 * Petition should be certified by a senior advocate
 * The petition is circulated to 3 senior most SC judges and also the judge who gave the judgment previously
 * If majority decides that the petition needs hearing than a hearing is scheduled by the same bench (as far as possible)
 * If the bench finds that the petition is without any merits than a fine is imposed.

Ayush
AYUSH
 * Integration with modern medicine.
 * Gives options to patients to chose between AYUSH and Allopathy
 * Barriers :Homeopathy and allopath\’s understanding of anatomy, physiology, treatments are different from each other
 * WAYS to integrate : Both sides have to understand merits and demerits of each

Profession Tax
Raising the revenue of N-E states 
 * By increasing the profession tax
 * A276(2) – constitution limits tax from earnings on profession, trades (currently 2500 rs..14th FC recommended 12000RS)
 * This tax is entirely assigned to states

SECC Data
SECC Data
 * 1) Collected by Ministry of rural development – prone to politics
 * 2) Census started in June 2011 and completed in 2013. Handheld computers used to collect data for faster processing of data.
 * 3) Why it is done by MRD ?? It should have been conducted by registrar general and census commissioner OR by national sample survey. Both organizations have surveying experience of 65 years.
 * 4) NSS also conducted a survey between July -2011 and June 2012.
 * 5) Let us compare the two surveys:
 * 6) SECC data is only for 299 districts out of a total of 640
 * 7) Only data on education of the two surveys are in some correlation.
 * 8) Data on incomes doesn\’t match
 * 9) Data on landless households shows a miss match.  SECC shows double of NSS
 * 10) Landless labourers -30% acc. To SECC and \~2% acc. To NSS

Labour Issues
Labour Issues
 * 1) MAXIMUM PROFIT : Industries want the ability to downsize workforce as per the market needs to be competitive. But this goes against the welfare of the labour community
 * 2) LABOUR PROTECTION : There should not be any compromise with the protection and welfare of labours.” Those who have less in life should get more in laws.”
 * 3) There should be a right balance b/w labour protection and investor confidence.
 * 4) HISTORY OF LABOUR LAWS :
 * 5) Industrial disputes act was passed in 1947 to secure industrial peace and harmony.
 * 6) Chapter VB was added in 1976 – which stated that a firm employing more than 300 workers should seek govt. permission before layoffs. This was amended in 1984 and the no. was reduced to 100.
 * 7) Labour laws comes in concurrent list, thus both states and centre can make labour laws.
 * 8) Rajasthan has already amended Chapter VB and restored the pre-1984 status.MP, Gujarat is following.
 * 9) Different states having different labour laws could lead to regional imbalances, thus centre should take pro-active action.

CPI and WPI
Central confusion (Inflation indices – WPI and CPI)
 * 1) Central banks autonomy is limited, RBI argues that their primary task is not to spur growth but to control rate of inflation.
 * 2) According to the monetary framework RBI has to keep the inflation rate below 6% by jan 2016 and for fin year 2016-17 and subsequent years the target is 4+_ 2%.
 * 3) How should be inflation measured – WPI or CPI??
 * 4) Contribution of service\’s sector in economy is more than 60% - which is not even represented in WPI and has small representation in CPI. School fees, insurance fees, health costs are not getting represented.

Land Acquisition
Land Acquisition:
 * Land acquisition 1894 – brought by British was used till 2013 and it is still being used in Pakistan
 * 1) Allows govt. agency to acquire land for public purpose from an individual by paying compensation.
 * 2) However over time, every state has passed its own legislation thus 1894 act is rarely used.
 * 3) In 2013, land acquisition act was passed which suspended all state acts.
 * 4) Section 107 of the 2013 law says that the states are free to enact their own legislation to enhance or add to the compensation package, as well as the rehabilitation and resettlement measures.
 * 5) Ordinarily state could pass their own laws if it is not in conflict with the Centre laws.

25 Jul
How Hindu is Nepal?
 * Nepal is a Hindu country…written in constitution.
 * Religion conversion is prohibited by law.
 * Efforts are made to declare it a secular republic.
 * To be truly secular – religion conversion should be allowed

Defence procurement policy
Break from bofors (Defense procurement)
 * Defence procurement policy (DPP) has been drafted in 1992, reviewed comprehensibly in 2002 and has been revised 6 times thereafter.
 * Govt.\’s stock response of allegations of corruption in defense procurements is blacklisting of the vendor.
 * The investigations take a lot of time due to lack of evidences, and the vendor remains blacklisted and the culprit out of reach.
 * Thus defense acquisitions get hampered or delayed.
 * An expert committee was setup to give recommendations on DPP.
 * 1) One recommendation is to do away with blacklisting of manufacturers. Negotiated resolution should be made with the manufacturers. In this investigating agencies can get into a resolution with the manufacturers by suspending the criminal prosecution by paying fines and penalties but accused individuals guilty of bribe will still be prosecuted.
 * 2) Negotiated resolution cannot be the complete replacement for blacklisting of the firms. It can be used as a last resort for repeated offence by manufacturers

Nellie Massacre
Nellie Massacre of 1983 – in Assam – muslims killed

Tulip revolution in Kyrgyzstan – to dethrone the president

SECC
SECC explained : Urban poor
 * SECC data shows that 35% of the urban population is under BPL. An analysis of data shows that 56% of households could be covered under a broader category of Urban Poor.
 * SECC data is collected on the basis of S R Hashim criteria\’s:
 * 1) First : Automatic Inclusion : households with no house, with no abled body members, beggars, rag pickers, etc. (27.65%)
 * 2) Second : Automatic Exclusion : Households with a pucca house having 4 or more rooms, Car, ac or PC with internet or any 3 among Washing machine, landline phone, two wheeler and fridge. (31.23%)
 * 3) Third : those households which could neither be automatically included or excluded are ranked from 0 to 12 . 0 being out of poverty list.
 * 4) To arrive at BPL panel added automatic included households (27.65%) and households in the range of 4 to 12 (7.31 %)
 * 5) Thus the total no. below BPL is 34.96%
 * 6) Govt. should enlarge the bracket, should include all the poor ( having one of the deprivations). The tally will go upto (27.65 + 28.43 ) = 56%.
 * 7) Govt. should target 56% households.
 * 8) NE states have the highest below poverty households. Bihar, Rajasthan, Odisha and Chhattisgarh are the other 4 in top 10. Arunachal Pradesh is at 13.

Use of IT
Bandwidth a great leveler - to show the importance of internet connectivity All these grids combinedly will make a societal grid which will help in promoting growth.
 * India is a vast country – 3.3 million sq. km of area, 7000 km of coastline, altitude from sea level to 8600 m, landscapes of hills, deserts, forests, coasts, etc. 70% live in 600,000 villages.
 * Agriculture accounts for 17%, Industry 30% and Services 53% in the GDP of India. Whereas agriculture employs 53% of the labour force (2010 data).
 * Labour force is moving towards industry and services sector and this will continue. So there is a need of imparting skills.
 * Problem : this labour force will move towards urban areas
 * Solution: Instead employment opportunities should be provided in rural areas. PURA (providing urban amenities in rural areas) scheme targets to provide employment opportunities in rural areas. PURA targets to achieve this by providing physical, electronic and knowledge connectivity to a cluster of villages which will lead to prosperity of the villages.
 * For prosperity of a billion people – need of collaborative work between all the govt. agencies which requires seam less knowledge and information transfer between all levels in all sectors of agriculture, industry and services.
 * The inter-connectivity between the 3 sectors of economy is brought about by 4 grids – the health grid, knowledge grid, rural grid and governance grid. Where each grid will be a system of multiple portals.
 * Knowledge grid
 * 1) Virtual universities – are economical way to provide education to everyone
 * 2) 3 phases of learning are lectures, library and laboratory. 
 * 3) It will require increasing of bandwidth for lectures from few KBs to MBs similarly for library portals.
 * 4) GBs of connectivity will be required for remote laboratories. Access to remotely located wind tunnels, nuclear labs, etc.
 * Health Grid
 * 1) Through INSAT network ISRO is connecting major hospitals of the nation, which will provide telemedicine to the remote locations.
 * 2) Medical research institutions, super-specialty hospitals, health care training center should be connected, this will be help in knowledge sharing of critical cases.
 * Governance grid 
 * 1) Many democracies have kept e-governance as the front policy. Citizens are treated as customers and clients.
 * 2) Services are to be provided anytime anywhere.
 * 3) Election processes can be stream lines. Voters can fill their online details. Electoral officer can verify all the details from the database of various agencies like education, legal records, credit records, etc. and the voter can vote from his home from a virtual polling station
 * Rural grid
 * 1) Rural knowledge center\’s should be established under PURA
 * 2) These center\’s should collect all data related to population, educational qualifications, employments, etc. and should be able to provide information to farmers and fisherman of local monsoon predictions.

Monetary Policy - FSLRC
Monetary Policy
 * 1) Till date, monetary policy has remained exclusive domain of RBI. Governor exercises exclusive and sole discretion in the monetary policy matters.
 * 2) TAC (Technical advisory committee) – A 7 member committee comprising of non-RBI experts which gives recommendations on monetary policy.
 * 3) RBI governor has the absolute and complete authority in monetary policy matters similar to Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Mexico) and New Zealand.
 * 4) In 2011, UPA govt. formed a financial sector legislative reforms commission (FSLRC) to give recommendations on Indian financial institutions including RBI under the chairmanship of Justice B.N Srikrishna.
 * 5)  FSLRC in 2013 gave recommendations: 
 * 6) Formation of MPC (monetary policy committee) that will recommend interest policy rate.
 * 7) Composition: Chairman(Governor) and 1 executive member(deputy governor for monetary policy)  and 5 members out of which 2 was to be nominated by govt. in discussion with governor and rest 3 was to be nominated solely by central govt.
 * 8) Recommended veto power for the governor.
 * 9) Urijit patel committee was formed to give recommendations on monetary policy reforms.
 * 10) Gave recommendations in jan 2014.
 * 11) Setup of MPC but composition is different.
 * 12) MPC – chairman (Governor), Deputy Chairman( Deputy governor for monetary policy), One member (executive director of monetary policy) and 2 external experts appointed by chairman and vice chairman.
 * 13) The MPC proposed by Urijit committee gave RBI more power.
 * 14) In 2015, FSLRC gave new recommendations
 * 15) MPC : 3 members from RBI (previously 2 ) and 4 members nominated by govt. and no veto power only casting vote to chairman(governor).
 * 16) This restricted control of central bank on monetary policy
 * 17) Other countries
 * 18) US : has a committee of 12 ( 7 are recommended by the president and ratified by senate and rest 5 are heads of major banks)
 * 19) FSLRC v2 is similar to Korea, Philippines, Norway
 * 20) Israel seems to have the best mix of all- committee of 6 - Chairman(governor), 3external members are nominated by govt. chairman has the deciding vote In case of a tie.

Cash Transfers –DBT
Cash Transfers –DBT Positives:
 * 1) Implementation of cash transfers will need
 * 2) One – identification of beneficiaries : based on pre-defined eligibility criteria.
 * 3) Two – estimation of monetary value of the service that is being subsidized.
 * 4) Problems of cash transfers :
 * 5) First – need of prior identification of beneficiaries. A fixed list of beneficiaries won’t serve the purpose. Becoz the no. of people that are in need of basic services such as subsidized food grains, health, education, etc. is not fixed. Poverty is a dynamic state.
 * 6) Second – deciding the amount of money to be transferred. Inflation factors to be included. Totally dependent on the mood of the govt.
 * 7) Third – transferring money is not the same as giving money in the hands of poor, as learnt in many pilot projects.
 * 8) Fourth – leakages and pilferages may well be the 2 main causes behind the failure of many welfare schemes – but there are many other reasons also – lack of financial investment, lack of physical infrastructure, lack of trained technical staff, etc. Ignoring these inadequacies through direct transfers will not help the cause.
 * 9) Merely giving money is not enough, if proper infrastructure is not there, where they will go to use that money.
 * 10) One of the intensions of moving to cash transfers is to shift dependence of people from public infrastructure to private.
 * 1) Checks leakages in the system. Govt. spends rs 3.65 to deliver a welfare subsidy of re1.
 * 2) DBT has been successful in the case of LPG subsidy. Govt. saved RS 12000 crores in one year.

FSLRC
A code too soon OLD IFC Provisions Present   	 Proposed	Functions RBI	RBI	Monetary policy; regulation and supervision of banks; regulation and supervision of payments system. ( BANKING AND PAYMENTs with RBI) SEBI FMC IRDA PFRDA	United financial agency (UFA)	Regulation and supervision of all non-bank and payments related markets. Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT)	FSAT (UNIFIED) Financial sector appellate 	Hear appeals against RBI, the UFA and FRA. Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC)	Resolution Corporation	Resolution work across the entire financial system. Financial Stability Development Council (FSDC)	FSDC	Statutory agency for systemic risk and development. New entities	Debt Management Agency	An independent debt management agency. Financial Redressal Agency (FRA)	Consumer complaints.
 * 1) Who should take the monetary decisions? Govt. or Central Bank.
 * 2) FSLRC recommended IFC.
 * 3) IFC draft provisions:
 * 4) MPC : Discussed above
 * 5) Banking regulation : Regulation and supervision of all banks is to be with RBI and all other non-banking financial institutions should be taken care by an independent financial agency. But this would lead to fragmentation of credit-related policies. Globally the basel approach is to keep all the banking group/undertakings under the central banks supervision. Entities like MFs, pension funds, insurance companies, all these should be taken care
 * 6) Systemic risk regulation: globally it\’s the central banks job to regulate systemic risks.
 * 7) Capital controls: Both govt. and central bank should be involved. This has helped us avert Asian crisis and the global crisis
 * 8) Public debt management: The draft IFC envisages a Public Debt Agency (PDA) in which there will be four executive members chosen by the selection committee for a period of five years, three members, one each, nominated by the government, the RBI and a state government (by turn)
 * 9) the regulation of money, forex and government securities markets, and related derivatives.
 * 10) Payments system
 * 1) Consumer protection: Unified financial redressal agency for grievances of consumers across sectors.
 * 2) Micro-prudential regulation : Regulation of financial firms ( regulation in entry, governance/management, risk taking, etc)
 * 3) Resolution : In case of failure of a financial firm, it should be swiftly wound up to protect consumers. Formation of a unified resolution corporation.
 * 4) Capital controls : Rules for inflow of capital to be formulated by Govt. and for outflow by RBI. While both inflow and outflow capital controls will be implemented by RBI.
 * 5) Systemic risk: Regulators should undertake interventions to reduce the systemic risk for the entire financial system. Formation of Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) as a statutory agency.
 * 6) Development and redistribution: Developing market infrastructure and process would be the responsibility of the regulator while redistribution policies would be under the purview of the Ministry of Finance.
 * 7) Monetary policy : Formation of MPC.
 * 8) Public debt management: The draft Code establishes a specialised framework for public debt management with a strategy for long run low-cost financing.  The FSLRC proposes a single agency to manage government debt.
 * 9) Contracts, trading and market abuse: The draft Code establishes the legal foundations for contracts, property and securities markets.
 * 10) Table 1: FSLRC\’s regulatory architecture (VERSION 1- 2013)

Bleeding Bihar (Devolution to Bihar). Parameters	13th F.C	14th F.C Population (1971) 	25 	17.5 Population (2011)	0	10 Fiscal capacity/Income distance	47.5	50 Area 	10	15 Forest Cover	0	7.5 Fiscal discipline	17.5	0
 * 1) size of the divisible pool of resources : 32% in FC13 and 42% in FC14
 * 2) Overall divisible pool has increased but other transfers such as grants in aid has reduced.
 * 3) Bihar\’s share in divisible pool has been reduced by more than 1%
 * 4) Horizontal devolution formula is based on different parameters and weightages assigned to them

NEW parameters in FC14th – Population(2011) and forest cover while fiscal discipline has been removed.

GCF

 * Green climate fund
 * Under UNFCCC
 * Is a mechanism to redistribute money from developed nations to developing nations to adapt and mitigate climate change
 * HQ – South Korea

Polar Bears

 * IUCN – Vulnerable
 * Habitat – Arctic circle

Kasturirangan report
Recommendation :
 * On western ghats
 * It has sought to balance development and environment protection
 * It was setup to study Gadgil panel report
 * Gadgil report recommended – that almost 3/4th of the hills (including cultivated land, plantation, large habitation) – be turned into restricted development land
 * Gadgil report – got opposition from state govt.s
 * Thus Kasturirangan committee formed – to re-analyse
 * Kasturirangan seeks to bring 37% of hill under ESA (ecologically sensitive area) zone – down from 64% as suggested by Gadgil
 * Recommended prohibition of developmental activities, thermal plants, polluting industries in the ESA
 * Villages falling under ESA – will be involved in decision making, all projects will have to take NOC from gram sabha.
 * Complete banning of mining within this zone and phasing out of already operational minings in 5 years
 * It has not recommended a ban of hydroelectric projects – but has recommended stricter clearance checks
 * Recommended new authority to region’s development and economic growth

Antarctica

 * India has 2 permanent stations – Maitri and Bharati.
 * Dakshin Gangotri was the first one. It is damaged and lost.

RCEP

 * Regional comprehensive economic partnership
 * 10 ASEAN nations and 6 others (India, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea)
 * Cooperation in trade in goods and services, IPR, technology, etc.

SCO

 * Shanghai cooperation organisation
 * Members – CK-TURK (China, Khazakstan, Tajikistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan)
 * New Members – India and Pakistan

BRICS

 * UFA, Russia
 * NDB – for financing infrastructure projects and sustainable projects in BRICS and other developing nations

Khanjar

 * Joint military exercise between India and Kyrgyzstan

New horizons

 * Spacecraft to study Pluto
 * Charon – moon of pluto

Kuiper belt

 * It is a belt of bodies in space in orbit larger than Neptune
 * Similar to asteroid belt – only larger in orbit

Minamata convention

 * On pollution from mercury

Kalpakkam FBR

 * Fast breeder reactor
 * Fuel – plutonium-uranium
 * Coolant – liquid sodium
 * A fast breeder reactor produces more fuel than it consumes

India’s nuclear programme

 * India’s 3 stage nuclear programme
 * Stage I – Pressurised heavy water reactor – Natural Uranium is used as fuel while generating Plutonium
 * Stage II – Fast breeder reactor – mixture of Uranium and Plutonium oxides are used as fuel that produces more plutonium
 * Stage III – Thorium based reactor – will use natural thorium

Barak 8

 * Surface to air missiles
 * Indo-Israel

Criminal Defamation

 * IPC 499 and 500

Earth quake warning

 * India installs its first earthquake warning systems at Uttarakhand
 * P waves travels faster than S waves

IPDS

 * Integrated power development scheme
 * Strengthening of transmission network, metering, customer care services

RSOC

 * Child stunting and underweight children reduced
 * Rural urban divide still persists in both child stunting and underweight