75 per cent of world's extremely poor people live in rural areas: Icrisat

John Kerin AM, chair of the Crawford Fund and former Australian national Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, has been appointed 'International Ambassador of Goodwill' for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat).

This is a role that recognizes that 75% of the world's extremely poor people live in the rural areas and are dependent on agriculture, and so the best way to overcome poverty is to make farming profitable. The recognition was conferred to him by the ICRISAT director-general Dr William Dar at the annual Crawford Fund Parliamentary Conference on food security.

As an ICRISAT Ambassador of Goodwill, Mr Kerin has agreed to champion the need for science-based solutions for farming in the fight against poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation.

"I'm very pleased to take on the role as an ICRISAT Ambassador of Goodwill, to help support their important work. I well-remember my visit to ICRISAT in India some years back. Not only does their research improve the lives of the poor, it is also helping farmers in Australia," said Mr Kerin.

"We cannot be any prouder of all our Ambassadors of Goodwill, who include Mr Bill Gates and Prof MS Swaminathan," said Dr Dar.

"The drylands are also the producers of the new Smart Foods - foods that are not only good for you but also good for the environment because of their low usage of water and other inputs, as well as being lifesavers for the rural poor who have few other options. Crops like millets are less known but are hailed to be the next quinoa and the new Smart Food," Dr Dar continued.

"Through our Ambassadors, we can further spread the word on crops like millets and legumes that have triple benefits of being highly nutritious, good for the planet, and play an important role in overcoming poverty and malnutrition in poor areas," he added.

John Kerin is the Chair of the Crawford Fund, a non-profit non-government organization that works to raise awareness of the benefits to Australia and to developing countries from international agricultural research. He has been the national Minister for Primary Industries (1983-1987), Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (1987-1991), Minister for Transport and Communications (1991), Minister for Trade and Overseas Development (1991-1993), and Treasurer (1991).

The ICRISAT Ambassadors of Goodwill program was launched in May 2013 with the acceptance of Mr Bill Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to become the first Ambassador during his visit to the ICRISAT global headquarters.

Mr Bill Gates has since been joined by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, renowned scientist and 11th President of India; Rt. Hon. James Bolger, former Prime Minister of New Zealand; Dr Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nigeria; Dr Nigel Poole, former Chair, ICRISAT Governing Board; Professor MS Swaminathan, renowned agricultural scientist and Father of India's Green Revolution; and Ms Saina Nehwal, Olympic medalist, ace badminton player and youth icon of India, as ICRISAT Ambassadors.

Dr Dar is an invited speaker at this year's Crawford Fund conference, an annual event which holds a key place in the development and food security calendar in Australia. This year's theme "Ethics, Efficiency and Food Security: Feeding The 9 Billion, Well" focused on a range of vital issues facing the developing world and Australia in efforts to produce more food in an ethical and efficient way.

Universal Health Assurance to galvanise Health Care sector

Dr Harsh Vardhan tells CII to prepare for “next revolution”

Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister, has stated that India’s health care sector is set for unprecedented growth as Shri Narendra Modi government’s Universal Health Assurance (UHA) programme will cause an explosion of demand by making medical treatment affordable for the millions who have been excluded for the past seven decades by prohibitive costs. UHA is in the process of being finalised and will be presented to the nation within the current financial year, the Minister disclosed at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)’s 8th Health Insurance Summit, here today. “I have set up committees comprising the best possible academic, administrative and technical experts on public health, institutional strengths and weaknesses and, above all, health insurance. Their interim reports are with me and I can disclose at this stage that the future indeed looks good,” he added. The health care sector of India is already growing at a CAGR of about 15 percent since 2011 and is today worth about $ 80-85 billion. Independent projections have put the turn-of-decade size in the region of $ 150 billion. But this could have been under-estimation as UHA was not factored in, he said. “For instance, I am talking about 50 free essential drugs for all, which means demand on an unimaginable scale. What does this mean for India’s pharmaceutical companies? Will they be able to cope given their present, limited capacity utilisation? I ask them to tighten their belts if they want a share of the coming boom because the government will not compromise on quality standards and transparency,” the Minister said. Apart from free drugs, there will be government paid-up health insurance cover for the poor and competitively premiumed health insurance for all. The private sector hospitals and clinics will benefit from far larger volumes than at present, thereby leading to massive spinoffs in terms of business and employment, the Minister stated. Already private hospitals and nursing homes are welcoming patients covered by the Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojana (RSBY) because government backed insurance is translating into higher footfalls. Once UHA kicks in, the implications will be much more salutary, the Health Minister said. Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “I believe that India’s health sector will see the same revolution as the one witnessed in mobile telephony in the early 2000s. Back then it was Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s bold decision to make incoming calls free which kick-started it. Industry contributed by introducing the pre-paid system for small subscribers. Now it will be Shri Narendra Modi’s UHA which will transform the health sector resulting in wide social and economic benefits. I invite you all to come aboard.” The Health Minister said that just as millions of new jobs were thrown open by the mobile telephone revolution, the health care boom will stimulate a huge downstream. The MSME sector will be given special advantages because government will become the biggest marketplace for buying and selling of health care goods and services, he said. He cautioned the private sector of the high benchmarks for transparency, quality and consumer protection in the evolving UHA. At the same time, the government is aware of its own responsibilities, he said. “The Information Technology component in UHA will be so strong and tamper-proof that corruption and sleaze will be absolutely impossible. The consumer, i.e. the patient, will be treated as king. Anti-competitive practices and consumer rights violation will be dealt with through a regulatory body,” he stated. One of the biggest challenges, Dr Harsh Vardhan observed, would be to keep up the supply of doctors and technical personnel. The present doctor to population ratio -1:1700- needs to be improved. A great number of technical personnel in diagnostics, radiology, etc. are also necessary, he said. “The expansion of the health sector will be felt in Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) as well. The 21st century belongs to holistic medicine and I intend making AYUSH a way of life because most of the ailments with which people report to doctors can easily be treated by these forms of therapy. I have already formed a committee to suggest steps for expansion of holistic health care through development of protocols,” Dr Harsh Vardhan said. The Minister disclosed that the government has already firmed up plans to give medical education a fillip. As far as possible existing district hospitals all over India would be provided with funds to add medical colleges to their campuses, he said. “Please be patient and prepare for the coming explosion of business and jobs,” was Dr Harsh Vardhan’s advice. “We cannot hope to have Health for All without a social movement at its core. Let government and private sector pool synergies and make making people healthy good business.” He said that Shri Narendra Modi government was swept to power because the people believed it could come out with out-of-the-box solutions for India’s problems. The health care sector is poised to be the stage of the inter-play of government-people-corporate interests, all motivated by the urge to make India a healthy nation, he said. “In January 2014, we were declared a polio free country. When I first tried the pulse polio project in the early 1990s, many thought I was overreaching myself considering the logistics of that era. This time I am attempting something which is more possible than eradicating polio,” Dr Harsh Vardhan added.

Prime Minister to Launch Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana Tomorrow: To Dedicate Mobile Banking Facility on Basic Mobile Phones to the Nation

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi will launch the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) tomorrow at a function in the national capital. On this occasion, an exhibition on Technology and Financial Literacy will be organized. The Prime Minister will visit this exhibition. A film on ‘Financial Inclusion’ will also be screened. The Prime Minister will unveil a Logo and a Mission Document on Financial Inclusion.  He will also distribute awards to the winners of the Logo contest and the ‘account opening kit’ to five beneficiaries on this occasion. He will dedicate the mobile banking facility on the basic mobile phone (USSD) to the nation.                     The Union Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of State for Finance, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, Cabinet Secretary and Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will be present on this occasion among other dignitaries. Under PMJDY, Comprehensive Financial Inclusion based is proposed be achieved under the six pillars as under: Phase I (15th August ,2014-14th August,2015)- v     Universal access to banking facilities v     Providing Basic Banking Accounts with overdraft facility of Rs.5000 after six months and RuPay Debit card with inbuilt accident insurance cover of Rs. 1 lakh and RuPay Kisan Card v      Financial Literacy Programme Phase II (15th August 2015-15th August,2018)- v     Creation of Credit  Guarantee Fund   for coverage of defaults in overdraft  A/Cs v     Micro Insurance v     Unorganized sector Pension schemes like  Swavlamban In addition, in this phase, coverage of households in hilly, tribal and difficult areas would be carried out. Moreover, this phase would focus on coverage of remaining adults in the households and students. ·        All the rural & semi urban areas of the country is proposed to be mapped into Sub Service Area (SSA) comprising 1000-1500 households with an average 3-4 villages with relaxation in NE/ Hilly states. ·        It is also proposed that looking to the viability of each centre around 74000 villages with population more than 2000 which were covered by Business Correspondents under Swabhiman Campaign will be considered for conversion into full fledged Brick & Mortar branches with staff strength of 1+1/1+2 in the next three years. ·        All the 6 lakh villages across the entire country are to be mapped according to the Service Area of each Bank to have at least one fixed point Banking outlet catering to 1000 to 1500 households, called as Sub Service Area (SSA). It is proposed that SSAs shall be covered through a combination of banking outlets i.e branch banking and branch less banking. Branch banking means traditional Brick & Mortar branches.Branchless banking comprises of fixed point Business Correspondents agents, who act as representative of Bank to provide basic banking services. ·        The implementation strategy of the plan is to utilize the existing banking infrastructure as well as expand the same to cover all households. While the existing banking network would be fully geared up to open bank accounts of the uncovered households in both rural and urban areas, the banking sector would also be expanding itself to set up an additional 50,000 Business correspondents (BCs), more than 7000 branches and more than 20000 new ATMs in the first phase . ·        The comprehensive plan is necessary considering the learnings from the past where a large number of accounts opened remained dormant, resulting in costs incurred for banks and no benefits to the beneficiaries. v     The plan, therefore, proposes to channel all Government benefits (from Centre/State/Local body) to the beneficiaries to such accounts and pushing the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme of the Union Government including restarting the DBT in LPG scheme. MGNREGS sponsored by Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD, GoI) is also likely to be included in Direct Benefit Transfer scheme. ·        Keeping the stiff targets in mind, in the first phase, the plan would focus on first three pillars in the first year starting from 15th August, 2014. ·        The target for setting up additional 50,000 BCs is quite challenging given the constraints of telecom connectivity. ·         In order to achieve this plan, phase wise and State wise targets for Banks have been set up for Banks for the period 15th August, 2014 to 14th August, 2015.  ·        In order to achieve a “demand” side pull effect, it would be essential that there is Branding  and awareness of Business Correspondent model for providing basic banking services, Banking Products available at BC outlets and RuPay Cards. A media plan for the same is being worked out in consultation with banks. ·        A Project Management Consultant/Group would be engaged to help the Department implement the plan. ·        It is proposed to launch the programme simultaneously at National level in Delhi, at every State capital and all district headquarters. ·        A web-portal would be created for reporting/monitoring of progress. ·        Roles of various stakeholders like other Departments of the Central Government, State Governments, RBI, NABARD, NPCI and others have been indicated. ·        Gram Dak Sewaks in rural areas are proposed as Business Correspondent of Banks. ·        Department of Telecom has been requested to ensure that problems of poor and no connectivity are resolved. They have informed that of the 5.93 lakh inhabited villages in the country (2011 census) only about 50,000 villages are not covered with Telecom connectivity.

Bharat Domain Name

The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has announced that .IN Registry has launched the Bharat domain name (भारत written in Devanagari script). It was launched by Minister for Communications and Information and Law and Justice, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad today at a function held here. Speaking at the function the minister said, most of the future expansion of the internet is going to come from Asia, Africa and the developing world. Local languages, content and culture will increasingly become important themes for the future expansion of the internet, he said, while adding that Mobile devices and applications as well as social media will be important determinants of this growth. The minister said that e-commerce is going to bring in revolutionary changes in the economic activities of rural India. It will not only generate new jobs but also create large number of business opportunities for all sections of populations in rural India. He said Digital India project aiming to offer a one-stop shop for government services and would use the mobile phone as the backbone of its delivery mechanism. Digital India promises to transform India into a connected knowledge economy offering world-class services at the click of a mouse and will be implemented in a phased manner. The government’s Rs 1.13 lakh crore initiative would also attract investment in electronics manufacturing, create millions of jobs and support trade, the minister said. The plans to digitally connect the entire country will be supported by 20- and 40-hour modules on digital literacy in regional languages, which the government plans to run over the next few years. The government is bringing the open access to "broadband highways" across cities, towns and villages would also give a fillip to trade across the country. The minister unveiled the portal containing a few .भारत based popular domain names by cutting the ribbon electronically through the computer mouse. Since the same .भारत ccTLD is shared by other Indian languages such as Boro, Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali and Sindhi-Devanagari, the end user can now get domain names in these languages apart from Hindi. The sunrise period for the same has commenced from August 15, 2014. This is soon to be followed in the coming months by similar launches in regional languages such as Tamil, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, Telugu and Bangala etc. NIXI has been spearheading the goal of multilingual Internet and to this end NIXI has collaborated with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) in setting up of an expert team on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).This is expected to enhance the reach and relevance of Internet for remote and far flung villages, further bridging the digital divide.

State IT Ministers Conference on “Digital India”

The Union Minister of Communications & Information Technology and Law & Justice, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad chaired a conference of IT Ministers and IT Secretaries of States / UTs on 26.8.2014 to discuss the ‘Digital India’ programme. IT Ministers from 10 states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Orissa, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh participated in the conference. IT Secretaries and senior officials from the IT Department from 33 States/UTs also participated in the conference. ‘Digital India’ is a new initiative of Government of India, to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. The focus is on being transformative to realize that Indian Talent (IT) + Information Technology (IT) = India Tomorrow (IT). ‘Digital India’ is an Umbrella Programme that covers multiple Govt. Ministries and Departments. It weaves together a large number of ideas and thoughts into a single, comprehensive vision so that each of them is seen as part of a larger goal. Digital India programme is to be coordinated by DeitY and implemented by the entire Government. The vision of ‘Digital India’ is centred on three key areas namely, Digital Infrastructure as a Utility to Every Citizen, Governance & Services on Demand and Digital Empowerment of Citizens. Digital Infrastructure as a utility to every citizen includes availability of high speed internet as a core utility for delivery of services to citizens, cradle to grave digital          identity that is unique, lifelong, online and authenticable to every citizen, mobile phone & bank account enabling citizen participation in digital & financial space, easy access to a Common Service Centre, shareable private space on a public cloud and safe & secure cyber-space. Governance & Services on Demand includes seamlessly integrated services across departments or jurisdictions, availability of services in real time from online & mobile platforms, all citizen entitlements to be available on the cloud, digitally transformed services for improving ease of doing business, making financial transactions electronic & cashless and leveraging GIS for decision support systems & development. Digital Empowerment of Citizens includes universal digital literacy, accessible digital resources universally, availability of digital resources / services in Indian languages, collaborative digital platforms for participative governance and portability of all entitlements through cloud. Citizens would not be required to produce Government documents or certificates, etc. in physical form. Digital India comprises nine pillars, viz. Broadband Highways, Universal Access to Mobile Connectivity, Public Internet Access Programme, e-Governance: Reforming Government through Technology, e-Kranti - Electronic Delivery of Services, Information for All, Electronics Manufacturing, IT for Jobs and Early Harvest Programmes. Each of these components is a complex programme in itself and cuts across multiple Government Ministries and Departments. The Digital India Programme pulls together many existing schemes, which will be restructured and re-focused in terms of enhancing the scope, leveraging emerging technologies like cloud, mobile etc, focusing on transformational process reengineering and process improvements, undertaking interoperable and integrated service delivery based on standards and will be implemented in a synchronized manner. Digital India will also enhance the portfolio of “Made in India” electronic devices, products & services and will create job opportunities for our youths within the country. The deliberations and interactions during the conference were very participative and useful in informing the participants about various aspects of implementation of the Digital India programme. All the IT ministers from states present at the conference made very useful interventions and participated actively in the discussions. Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology; Secretary and Additional Secretary, Department of Telecommunications and various senior officers of the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology addressed the participants. This conference would enable better coordination between Centre and States to achieve the vision of ‘Digital India’ and digitally empower the country through ICT & e-Governance.

Signing of Memorandum of Cooperation between India and Japan in the field of healthcare

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today gave its approval for the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) in the field of healthcare between the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. The signing of this MoC will benefit people of both countries. The Memorandum of Cooperation covers the following areas of cooperation:- i. Human resource development, such as training programs for medical practitioners, nurses and public health professionals. ii. Health financing towards universal health coverage, through sharing of experiences in the public health insurance system. iii. Healthcare service delivery including technical exchange to improve quality of care. iv. Healthcare system governance and management, including sharing of know-how on management of hospitals and community healthcare centers. v. Health information systems, including sharing of experiences and technology regarding telemedicine and electronic-health information system. vi. Pharmaceuticals and medical devices. vii. Health research. viii. Disease surveillance. ix. Traditional medicines, and x. any other areas as may be mutually decided upon. A Working Group will be set up to further elaborate the details of cooperation and to oversee the implementation of this MoC.

SAMVEG IAS ,DEHRADUN UTTARAKHAND

Dear aspirants
Those who has not done well in prelims,they should now focus for IAS-2015,and if you are getting more than 210 marks in pre,you should focus on ias mains.we are expecting UKPCS advertisement as they have declared final result of ukpcs 2010.