13 August 2014

Steps to Reform Foodgrains Management


The Government has taken a number of steps to reform food management and control inflation in the country. FCI is upgrading its godowns to ensure safe storage of foodgrains. The older stocks have been issued and liquidated on priority and at present the stocks available with FCI are of last two crop years only. Laboratory and training structure is continuously upgraded to strengthen the quality control mechanism and to monitor the quality of foodgrains at the time of procurement, storage and distribution so as to avoid damage to foodgrains. States are encouraged to adopt Decentralised Procurement (DCP) system to maximize procurement and to ensure better reach of MSP to farmers. Select godowns have been identified for mechanization of handling operations. Under Private entrepreneur Guarantee Scheme (PEG) Government has created a storage capacity of 120.30 lakh tonnes upto 30.06.2014 in various locations in 19 states for proper storage of foodgrains procured for central pool. For storage modernization, the Government has also approved construction of 20 lakh tonnes of storage capacity in silos. End to end computerization of the Targeted Public Distribution is being undertaken as one of the reforms stipulated under the National Food Security Act 2013. This information was given by the Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Shri Raosaheb Patil Danve in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

He said that The Government has taken a number of steps to check prices of rice and wheat which include:

Reduced import duties to zero – for wheat.

• Imposed stock limits in respect of paddy and rice up to 30.11.2014.

• Maintained the Central Issue Price (CIP) for rice (at Rs 5.65 per kg for Below Poverty Line (BPL) and Rs 3 per kg for Antyodaya Anna Yojna (AAY) and wheat (at Rs 4.15 per kg for BPL and Rs 2 per kg for AAY) since 2002.

• Suspended Futures trading in rice.

• During 2014-15 Government has allocated 100 lakh tonnes of wheat for sale under Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS) .

• Released additional five million tonnes of Rice to BPL & APL families in states pending implementation of National Food Security Act (NFSA) between July 2014 & March 2015.

• The Government is also implementing “The Essential Commodities Act 1955” and “The Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supplies of Essential Commodities Act,1980” with the objective of preventing hoarding and black marketing of essential commodities.

• Issued advisory to State Govts. to take concerted action against hoarding & black marketing Act 1955 & The Prevention of Black Marketing and Maintenance of Supply of Essential Commodities Act (PBMMSEC Act) 1980 effectively.

12 August 2014

For the unbanked

Financial inclusion is a process of ensuring the availability of financial services to all sections of society, at an affordable cost. A key objective of financial inclusion is to help the unbanked population with institutional finance, to enable them to become self-employed and ensure a stable income.
The government has made a concerted effort to extend financial inclusion by nationalising banks and establishing a network of rural cooperatives and regional rural banks. The RBI too has initiatives like priority sector lending since the early 1970s, opening of no-frills accounts, establishing business correspondents (BCs) and easing of know-your-customer (KYC) norms. Its latest efforts include the preparation of guidelines for licensing payments of banks and small banks. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has also supported the cause, adopting measures for cooperative banks and regional rural banks, enabling kisan credit cards and spreading financial literacy. In addition, a number of private sector institutions have also been operating in the area. Despite all this, nearly half the population/ households do not even have a bank account.
It is in this context that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his maiden budget speech, mentioned the Financial Inclusion Mission (FIM) to provide banking services to all households in India. The FIM, focused on empowering the weaker sections of society, is likely to be launched on August 15, with two bank accounts eligible for credit per family. The scheme reportedly conceives six pillars to achieve comprehensive or sampoorn financial inclusion. These are — universal access to banking facilities, financial literacy, basic bank accounts and availability of micro credit, micro insuranc, and pension scheme. The vision is to have a banking account for each family and beneficiary by March 2016. To encourage people to start using banking facilities, the government is considering providing an overdraft of Rs 5,000 through a debit card to every basic banking account holder. The strategy is to strengthen the existing business correspondent model (BCM) to make it operationally flexible and viable with the expansion of banking services.
There are numerous challenges to successfully implementing the above proposals. In the absence of Aadhaar, the implementation of some components of the FIM would have to be phased over a few years, requiring sustained monitoring and supervision by the finance ministry.
There is also the need for a bottom-up approach for the FIM to be successful. This implies the active participation of state governments as well as local governments and panchayati raj institutions (PRI). The panchayats could provide office space on their premises or at common service centres, as well as play an important role in resolving the issue of KYC norms. The retention of staff by BCs is another challenge, as the attrition rate is high becauseof low remuneration to the agent. Stationary BCs at gram panchayats are a viable option, provided they are also integrated with the common service centre and all payments of government schemes — both state and Central — to rural people are routed through bank accounts and a reasonable commission is fixed for their services.
The role of financial literacy, of both potential customers as well as financial service providers, also needs to be emphasised. This implies distribution of literature in the local and simple language, designing flexibility in instruments and offering tenors that are attractive to the local population and training banking officials to be consumer-friendly. In the field survey undertaken by us in Gubbi, Tumkur, it emerged that financial literacy also needs to be imparted to bank officials. The financial requirements of farmers are different from those of artisans in the same rural area. In general, unbanked people prefer ease in banking transactions, the opportunity to make tiny deposits regularly, small loans and an assured channel for remittances. Other findings from the survey revealed that difficult documentation, high transaction costs and time taken to grant loans were the major reasons for the reluctance to borrow from institutional sources and for preferring, instead, informal sources.
The most important factor for success would be changing the mindset of financial institutions. The need is to convince such institutions, especially commercial banks, that financial inclusion is a viable business proposal. To illustrate, the number of postal accounts (savings, recurring and time), at more than 21 crore, amounts to an outstanding balance of Rs 1,20,000 crore. Similarly, the number of bank accounts at non-metropolitan branches, at 70 crore, records an outstanding deposit of Rs 26,88,322 crore.
These are the figures when only half the population has any type of bank account. Another indicator of untapped resources is the large amount committed to numerous chit funds operating in India and the potential business in remittances from cities to rural areas. According to the latest economic census, of the 58.5 million establishments in 2014, 59.9 per cent were in rural areas. Thus, there is scope for substantial business opportunities in tapping and providing appropriate instruments to unbanked households, especially in rural areas. This would make efforts by commercial banks profitable and commercially viable

The fifth Metro letter from Bangalore: Science of giving

A development some months ago electrified the science community in India. It was reported that billionaire Infosys co-founder and executive vice chairman Senapathy Gopalakrishnan, better known as Kris Gopalakrishnan, was giving a sum of Rs 225 crore to fund brain research at the Indian Institute of Science. Around the same time came unrelated reports that thousands of Indian researchers in over 100 top institutions, including the IISc, were agitating for better and timely stipends. Providing further context, last week, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani stated in Parliament that India invests 0.81 per cent of GDP in research and development compared to China’s 1.84 per cent (2011 data). These disparate incidents capture the extremities of science and technology research in India.
At one end is Gopalakrishnan’s giving, which is remarkable for several reasons. It is the biggest individual philanthropic donation towards pure sciences in the history of India. It is also the biggest funding received from an individual by the century-old IISc, the country’s paramount research institution, since it was founded with the active support of Jamsetji Tata in 1899. Scientists dare speculate that this could spark off a trend of private funding for scientific research in a country where government resources are meagre, even nonexistent.
The money will go towards establishing a Centre for Brain Research at the IISc. The centre will be an independent entity within the institute, with an international advisory board consisting of neurobiologist and Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel and several other eminent scientists from the United States and Europe. The centre will work to understand the functioning of the human brain, an area where little serious research is taking place in India, as well as focus on Indian genetic and environmental linkages in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Gopalakrishnan has since committed a further $1.8 million to Carnegie Mellon University to add a collaborative element to the research but has said little about his philanthropic act. “I want the centre to start before I talk about this,” he said in an email.
The technology tycoon has pledged funds for a decade of research activity and to bring in distinguished specialists who work in the field of brain-computer interfaces. The money could help Indian expertise in the highly specialised neuroscience niche grow, and seed future research. The timing is fitting. With increasing life spans in India, neurodegenerative diseases are expected to be widely prevalent and become a huge drain on national healthcare resources.
“Kris Gopalakrishnan’s funding has seeded a unique idea and we neuroscientists are thrilled,” said Vijayalakshmi Ravindranath, chairperson of the Centre for Neuroscience at the IISc. In the West, private endowments and individual generosity have fuelled research. But, in India, that has simplynot happened so far. “Here, we are entirely dependent on public funding,” she said.
According to a recent report, India is home to close to 15,000 dollar multi-millionaires, individuals with net assets of at least Rs 61 crore. The country has the eighth-largest group of super-rich in the world. Yet, individual philanthropy has begun to gain currency only in the last few years, and much of this individual giving is going into the cause of education. Funding for medical research is insignificant, even nonexistent. In the West, in contrast, large projects like the human genome sequencing project were aided by private philanthropy.
“The human genome sequencing project is a brilliant example of how it can be done,” said R.A. Mashelkar, the former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research who has helped shape post-liberalisation India’s science and technology policy. “To optimise the search for truth, we need a galaxy of private funders,” he said. Private giving towards science can only be a leap of faith. “We may have mandated a 2 per cent company spend on corporate social responsibility, but we cannot legislate individual compassion,” Mashelkar said in a phone conversation from Pune.
Gopalakrishnan’s philanthropy is applause-worthy as it is supporting fundamental research. “It is geared not towards short-term economic gains but towards long-term research goals and that is what makes it special,” said Mashelkar. Ravindranath said that she and others working on the new brain research centre are willing the entity to be successful and transformational
so that it can spur others to give to scientific causes. Who knows, what Gopalakrishnan has done could set off more giving and birth the private-public partnership model in science and research in India.

Needed, PEST control,CSAT

One of the requirements of articulating policy issues these days is the use of slightly forced acronyms. So here’s one: PEST (potential education sector troubles). The government is looking constructive in some areas, like infrastructure and labour. But in education, the early signs are ominous. Admittedly, education has suffered from decades of regulatory malfunction. But rather than course correction, the government seems to be regressing, setting up an already troubled sector for potential storms.
Let us just look at four areas to start with. The first is pedagogy. The UPSC row is a warning. The row is not just about language; it is rather a congealed expression of a broader education crisis. The scandal is not that English is marginally favoured. The scandal is that even those who have had years of education in the subject feel ill-equipped to take on a basic test, and rightly feel cheated. The scandal is not that the UPSC will not draw on the skills of vernacular students; it is that the way most students have been educated will deprive them of opportunities in so many professions that they think of the UPSC as a life or death issue. The scandal is not that the UPSC is trying to test certain comprehension skills; it is that schools stopped testing for those ages ago. The language crisis is equally a creation of our school curriculum, which progressively tested all languages in a way that under-emphasised analytical skills. Even apart from the UPSC, there are instances of pressure that either led to huge modifications in grading standards in universities, or changed the character of entrance exams.
Whether these are justified or not is a separate matter. Even the UPSC itself is an example of an ends and means mismatch in Indian education. It is irrational to select everyone from revenue officers to police officers to diplomats through the same selection process.
A vast majority of students, in public as well as private universities, are pedagogically cheated. That is what the UPSC crisis is really about. Our current thinking is incapable of addressing this crisis. It will require innovative thinking at many levels. But this pedagogical crisis will soon turn into a political one in various forms.
It is in this context that the second potential storm becomes more significant. The UGC has been on a slash and burn exercise since this government took office. The manner in which it handled the Delhi University four-year undergraduate programme issue has frozen innovation. Even reputed institutions like the Indian Institute of Scienceno longer seem to have the right kind of autonomy. New universities trying innovative degree structures have had to roll back. It is even interfering in appointments in universities. The UGC is displaying a retrospective regulatory terrorism, creating an uncertain environment. With the “deemed university” mechanism in crisis, there is, at the Central level, no effective mechanism to allow high-quality private institutions to come into existence. The UGC is broken in more ways than one can list.
The government has set up a committee to review the functioning of the UGC. But I would urge you to read the order setting up the committee. The order makes the same old mistake: it presumes that the only way to ensure accountability is an even greater command and control structure. The idea that a single body can, through regulatory inspections, ensure standards in thousands of colleges, is patent nonsense. It is a recipe for rent seeking.
The UGC has never understood how good universities are built. The order talks about improving the “teaching environment” but the UGC has not displayed the slightest understanding of how you build good departments, because flexibility, innovation and diversity are anathema to it. The order is, typically, also confused over regulatory jurisdiction, bringing distance education within the purview of the UGC. And even if you want to cut the government some slack, see the composition of the committee. It would be inappropriate to comment on particular members. But the composition will remind you of a certain Murli Manohar Joshi, leavened with the same bureaucracy that has created the current mess in the first place. Where is the promise of the new? The regulatory storm will continue.
The third potential storm has to do with the implementation of the right to education (RTE). The goal of creating a more integrated schooling system is laudable, but the actual design and implementation of the RTE is seriously fraught. This piece of legislation is not this government’s, but at some point it will be left dealing with the consequences. This is a classic example of legislation that tries to do everything (except improve outcomes) and therefore risks being ineffective. There is inordinate emphasis on inputs and regulation at the expense of pedagogy. The design and implementation of its famous clause 12, mandating that private schools take children from economically weaker sections, is a mess. The governance structure it envisages is simply not taking hold.
There is a tricky constitutional issue here. The fact that minority schools have been exempt from the RTE, and the fact that the process of notification of minorities is a political one, risks creating massive opportunities for regulatory arbitrage. Many minority schools that are coming up have little to do with minority interests as we classically understand them. They have more to do with using an available exemption to escape the state. This has the makings of a real institutional storm.
The fourth potential storm has to do with potentially disruptive changes in higher education brought about by technology. The government seemsdimly aware of this in its emphasis on MOOCs. But this strategy seems not to have been thought through at two levels. First, there is no clear diagnosis or analysis of whether MOOCs can actually solve existing problems. Second, there is the usual waste of physical resources. IGNOU is sitting on assets worth thousands of crores, yet we will create another parallel structure for distance education. Rather than fixing institutions, we will create parallel inputs that will go equally to waste.
There is still time for some fresh thinking on education. But the human resource development ministry’s early moves give little assurance that the best academics will feel more empowered. The fault does not lie exclusively with government. The academic community has also let short-term interest and ideological fervour trump regulatory good sense. We spent so much energy agitating on the wrong issues. I wish there had been one political agitation or one teachers’ union that had taken the lead in improving the quality of universities. There is more hand-wringing about the self-promoting Dina Nath Batra than about the irrational strategies likely to hobble Indian education. No wonder HRD has always managed to conquer and destroy.

SAMVEG IAS / PCS ,DEHRADUN,Uttarakhand announcement for IAS - 2015


11 August 2014

Samveg ias,Dehradun focus on revision before IAS PRE exam

Dear IAS Aspirants 

It is REVISION time .whatever you have prepared well,you should focus to revise the same as many time as possible.Avoid reading fresh material.
first revise the static part focussed way like ..
indian polity and governance
indian and basic geography
modernhistory and art and culture

and then
basic economics and economic survey for current news
current affairs related to environment and science and technology.

* Make strategy for speedand accuracy for CSAT.


Earth System Science Organisation (ESSO)



The Earth System Science Organization (ESSO) addresses holistically various aspects relating to earth processes for understanding the variability of earth system and for improving forecast of the weather, climate and hazards.   The investigations related to polar regions are carried out to understand the impact of climate change.  The ESSO is also responsible for development of technology towards the exploration and exploitation of marine resources in a sustainable way for the socio-economic benefit of the society. 

Some of the major accomplishments during the last one year are as follows:

1.                   Cyclone Prediction:  India, has witnessed a number of tropical cyclones - PHAILIN, HELEN, LEHAR, MAHASEN, MADI, and extreme weather events with heavy rainfall over Uttarakhand and Gujarat. The operational weather forecasts and advisories rendered in respect of these extreme events has received an overwhelming appreciation, and demonstrated quality of such services at par with international agencies or even better in the case of Phailin cyclone.  There has been a remarkable improvement in the prediction of track and landfall of cyclones.  This has been accomplished by virtue of augmentation of observation, both in situ and satellite, for ocean and atmospheric observations, enhanced computing capability and use of dynamical models. The precise forecast of the track and landfall of cyclone, storm surge, high waves and associated rainfall and wind during the Phailin cyclone, helped the government at all levels to effectively respond to the cyclone to save lives.

2.                   Agromet Advisory Services: Extension of biweekly district-level weather forecast and crop specific advisory in local languages to cater to needs of 5.0 million farmers which contributes significantly to the GDP.  Dissemination of AAS services to cover all the 600 agricultural districts of India.

3.                   Monsoon Prediction:  The implementation of the Monsoon Mission and improvement in prediction of forecast of rainfall on different space and time scales.  For the first time, dynamic model was employed on experimental basis to predict quantitative precipitation associated with the southwest monsoon. The long range forecast for the season (June-September) rainfall for the country as a whole was 104-108% against actual rainfall of 106% of LPA for the year 2013. The Mission has adopted the NCEP CFSv2.0 model to identify its strength and weakness and incorporate new physics/parameterization schemes to improve the simulations/prediction skill of the monsoon rainfall. Based on this model, an indigenous climate model has been developed for studying variability and predictability of monsoon on seasonal, inter-annual and decadal time scale.  As a part of these studies, a cloud-physics laboratory at Mahabaleswar has been made functional.  

4.                  High Performance Computing:  High performance computation facilities have been substantially augmented by upgrading the existing 170 Teraflop to 01 Petaflop, which is ranked at 36th position in the world and first in the country.

5.                  International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography:  An International Training Centre for Operational Oceanography has been established at the ESSO-INCOIS, Hyderabad for promotion of capacity building in the countries of the Indian Ocean region, in coordination with IOC / UNESCO. 

6.                  Polar Research:  India successfully commenced operations at the 3rd Permanent Station “Bharati”, in the Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica.  This will provide a major thrust to studies in the fields of glaciology, atmosphere, paleoclimate and Polar biology.  India has been accorded Observe status in the Arctic Council in recognition of India’s scientific contribution and endeavour in Polar research. India successfully deployed Ocean Observing System in the Arctic water in July, 2014.

7.                  Ocean Survey and Mineral Exploration:  India’s application filed for the allotment of a site (~10,000 sq km) for exploration of Polymetallic Sulphides in the Indian Ocean has been approved during the meeting of the International Seabed Authority, Kingston, Jamaica in July 2014. As a part of exploration of ocean mineral and survey program, a series of seven major research cruises of 30 days each have been conducted in the central Indian Ocean Basin for acquisition of marine geophysical data.  Quantum of data collected to date, in the Central Indian Ridge (CIR) and South West Indian Ridge (SWIR), include Multi-beam Eco Sounder (MBES) surveys of ~65,000 km2 (area), Magnetic surveys  of ~17,000 km (line) and Gravity surveys of ~9,115 km (line). 

8.                  National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS):  The Centre for Earth Science Studies (CESS), Thriruvananthapuram, Govt. of Kerala, was brought under the administrative control of the ministry with effect from 1.1.2014. The purpose is primarily to strengthen the solid earth research.

9.                  Deep bore holes investigations in Koyna Warna region:  A Research program in the Koyna-Warna region of Maharastra has been launched to address major issues pertaining to the occurrence of earthquakes and their mechanism, by drilling a deep borehole of 6-7 km in a continental earthquake zone, enabling study of physical and chemical changes before, during, and after an earthquake.  Preparatory activities including drilling of 4 boreholes up to 1.5 km have been completed which provided insights on the Deccan volcanism and stress regime, pore fluid pressure and its variations, heat flow and its variations, orientation of faults etc. There are no sedimentary rocks found below the basaltic rocks.  The thickness of basalt rocks at both the sites are about 933 m and 1185 m at Koyna and Warna, respectively, underlining by the granite basement with no sediments in between.  The core retrieved from boreholes revealed a flood basalt pile comprising a number of lava flows, each flow being characterized by a vesicular and/or amygdaloidal layer underlain by fine grained massive basalt.  Flow top breccias has been identified in some flows.

10.              Coastal Vulnerability:  A Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) atlas comprising 157 maps on 1:100000 scales was prepared for nine coastal states and Islands for use by various agencies, primarily in responding to various ocean hazards, viz., Tsunami, Cyclones, and Storm Surges

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UKPCS2012 FINAL RESULT SAMVEG IAS DEHRADUN

    Heartfelt congratulations to all my dear student .this was outstanding performance .this was possible due to ...