IAS / IPS STUDIES -3

RAPID GK SERIES
QUESTIONS

1. The Banking Regulation Act was passed in this year
2. The Present Base Year for Inflation is
3. India’s first Private Hill Station which registered as Pearly Blue Lake Resorts which also got controversy recently is
4. ‘Rewriting the Future’ is the caption of this IT Product Related Company
5. In Budget, the term ‘Aam Aadmi’ represents this concept
6. The BSE Index SENSEX reaches the highest ever in this year
7. The first Indian President who was invited to address the European Parliament
8. The first Chairman of Rajya Sabha was
9. The famous Hindu temple Angokr Wat is situated in
10. The Cannes Festival is associated with this industry

ANSWERS

1. 1949
2. 2004-05
3. Lavasa
4. Moser Baer
5. Inclusive Budget (Budget for all People)
6. 2008
7. Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
8. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan
9. Cambodia
10. Film Industry


Govt defers decision on FDI in retail

Decision on much-awaited FDI in multi-brand retail is likely to be delayed further in wake of fresh inter-ministerial differences on the politically sensitive issue. Differences between the Ministry of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion surfaced, even as Wal-Mart said today it is waiting for a policy clearance to pump in investment in the sector.

"There are some differences among ministries over FDI in multi-brand retail. Our Department is processing what stand we have to take," Food and Consumer Affairs Minister K V Thomas said on the sidelines of a CII event here.

He said his ministry would formulate, within a week, stand on the terms and conditions which should be enforced for allowing the foreign direct investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail, estimated at over USD 500 billion market.

"The question is not about the percentage of FDI only. There are large number of small shops in villages...," he said. En route his return from the US, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also expressed concern about protecting the small traders.

"It is our task to go about it in a manner, in which the nation enjoys the benefits of more FDI in retail trade, without hurting our domestic interests. I can assure that we will do nothing which will hurt the essential interests of the small Indian trade community," Singh had said yesterday.

Wal-Mart India President, Raj Jain, who was also present at the CII meeting, said, "There would be manifold increase in investment (by us) if FDI in multi brand retail is opened up,"

At present, world's largest retailer operates in India through a cash and carry model. Though 100 per cent FDI is permitted in this format, Walmart has a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises for nine wholesale stores in the country.

The Food Minister said the multi-national companies are interested for business in cities alone."Who will look after interest of small shop keepers in remote villages? They should be properly protected," Thomas asked. He said in his recent meeting with traders in Mumbai, a concern was raised about some big companies stocking food material which could trigger price increase.

The Committee of Secretaries (CoS) headed by Cabinet Secretary Ajit Kumar Seth has recommended that 51 per cent FDI could be allowed in multi-brand retail, which is dominated by neighbourhood kirana stores.

It also suggested that at least 50 per cent of the investment and jobs should go to rural areas. Global players will have to commit a minimum of USD 100 million investment in infrastructure.

Our investment in India will grow if FDI rules relaxed: Walmart

The world's largest retailer Walmart today said its investments in India will grow manifold if foreign direct investment regulations on multi-brand retail are relaxed in the country.

Walmart said it will ramp up its investment here to strengthen supply chains and enhance direct linkages with farmers in order to provide "quality products at affordable" prices to Indian consumers. "There would be manifold increase in investment by Walmart in India if FDI in multi-brand retail is opened up," Walmart India President Raj Jain told reporters on the sidelines of a CII event here.

Walmart currently has nine cash-and-carry stores in India through a joint-venture with Bharti Enterprises.

"Investment in India is not a problem, policy (FDI regulations) is a problem," Jain said.

At present, India does not allow FDI in multi-brand retail, which has restricted international players to the wholesale cash-and-carry business.

In the wholesale business, 100 per cent FDI is allowed, whereas in single brand retail, 51 per cent overseas investment is permitted.

While a committee of secretaries has given a green signal to FDI in multi-brand retail, the move requires political approval. The government is still in the process of finding a political consensus on the issue. Walmart currently works with a large number for farmers for direct sourcing of products.

"We already work with farmers in the North and will soon start that in South too... We are doing as much as we can, but our investments cannot be monetised on the back of wholesale alone," he said.

Through wholesale, the company anyway can not control the prices that end-consumers pay for the final products, he added.

Jain, however, did not share absolute numbers on the quantum of investment being made by the company in the country and the expected increase in case FDI is allowed in multi-brand retail in India going ahead....



HAL aspires to be $6 billion firm in a decade: Ashok Nayak

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) aspires to be one of the top 20 global defence companies, with a turnover of $6 billion, within the next 10 years, Chairman Ashok Nayak said on Wednesday.

“HAL plans to provide seamless maintenance support, encompassing first and second line support, for aircraft and helicopters at customer bases,” he said.

The target would call for a multi-fold increase in production requirements and HAL believes growth in India’s aviation sector will act as an opportunity for the over seven-decade-old company to meet its objectives, Mr. Nayak said.

With 19 production units and 10 research design centres at eight locations across India, the company has an impressive track record, including 14 types of aircraft manufactured with in-house R&D and 14 produced under licence, he said.

HAL has positioned itself as a comprehensive solutions provider to the Indian Defence Services in aviation, contributing to modernisation efforts by manufacturing aircraft and helicopters of various types and using diverse technologies, he said.

“With new initiatives and future programmes, the company continues to be a major partner of the defence forces,” he added.

HAL has already diversified into aerospace-related fields, with its aerospace division supplying critical components, structural assemblies and tankages for various launch vehicles and satellites of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Mr. Nayak said.



India accounts for 58 percent of those practising open defecation globally

India accounts for 58 percent of those who practice open defecation across the globe.

In its finding for the year 2008, UNICEF estimated that as many as 63.8 crore people, that is, 54 percent of the country's population, practice open defecation due to inadequate sanitation.

On this ignominious list, Indonesia is a distant second with 5.7 crore people lacking toilet facilities, and it accounts for 5 percent of the hapless population which still are denied sanitation, with China following where 5.6 crore people have no other option.

On one count, Ethiopia's condition is worse than India's - 60 percent of its population are put to discomfiture against the 54 percent in India. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka follow suit; but the fact remains they are still are better off than India in providing sanitation to their population.

“It is a matter of shame,” said Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation told The Hindu, resolving to wipe out the problem during the 12th Five Year Plan and make the country open defecation-free by 2017.

Economic impact

According to another report, the economic impact of inadequate sanitation costs India about Rs. 2.4 trillion or about 6.4 per of its gross domestic product. Diarrhoea alone claims four lakh lives annually, of which 90 percent are children.

But tragically enough, the annual central budget is just Rs. 2000 crore which is just about two percent of the entire budget for Rural Development which is close to Rs.1 lakh crore.

Only five states in India - Kerala, Sikkim, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra - are doing well in sanitation; others have a long way to go. Uttar Pradesh alone accounts for 10 percent of population that suffers on account of inadequate sanitation.

Awareness campaign

Mr. Ramesh has written to the Planning Commission to at least raise the annual allocation to Rs. 10000 crore, and has written a letter to all the Chief Ministers to join the one month long Swachchata Utsav awareness campaign that he will launch on Gandhi Jayanthi - October 2- laying emphasis on adoption of safe sanitation practices.

The issue of open defecation will have to be taken up as a challenge, he said, as only 25000 villages have been declared as ‘nirmal grams' out of 6 lakh villages in the country and because it was the root cause for spreading public health problems.

Mr. Ramesh said that what was needed is a political and social movement to cope with the problem and it could not be just an administrative programme. The first and last man to spearhead the cause of hygiene and sanitation in the country was Mahatma Gandhi, he underlined.



All set for China's space module launch

A spokesperson for China's manned space programme said on Wednesday that fuel had been injected into the Long March-2FT1 carrier rocket in preparation for launching the Tiangong-1 space module on Thursday as planned.

The Long March-2FT1 is the latest modified model of the Long March-2 rocket series and features a more powerful thrust force, said spokeswoman Wu Ping at a press conference at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

The Long March-2FT1, given more than 170 improvements, is 52-metre long with a payload to low Earth orbit of 8.6 tonnes,said Mr. Wu.

The modifications came after an unsuccessful launch in August when a Long March-2C rocket failed to send an experimental satellite into orbit. Engineers conducted comprehensive technical evaluations and made modifications to Tiangong-1's Long March-2F carrier rocket, which shares most of its components with the failed Long March-2C.

To contain the Tiangong-1 module, which is larger than China's Shenzhou manned spacecraft, the Long March-2FT1 has a larger nose fairing, according to Jing Muchun, chief designer of the Tiangong mission's carrier rocket system.

The shape of the rocket's boosters has also been modified to allow for greater fuel volume than the Long March-2F model, resulting in an increase in its thrust power, said the chief designer.

Compared with carrier rockets that the United States and Russia have used to launch Moon-landing vehicles and space station components, China's Long March rocket series is much less powerful.

For example, a carrier rocket must have a payload capacity of at least 20 tonnes to send one single part of the International Space Station into low Earth orbit. “China's manned space programme aims at building up a space station, so we need a more powerful carrier rocket,” Jing told Xinhua at the launch center.

“Research and development on a new, bigger carrier rocket that burns more environmentally-friendly liquid-oxygen-kerosene fuels is in progress,” he said.



Seven years imprisonment for violating Gujarat cow protection bill

The state legislative assembly unanimously cleared a bill to control the transportation of cattle within the state and outside. The Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 2011, specifically prevents the transportation of cow, the calf of a cow, a bull or a bullock.

The bill makes it obligatory for anyone wanting to transport the animal to obtain a permit from a new authority to be set up. The transporter will have to show that he is ferrying bovines only for bonafide agricultural or animal husbandry purpose.

States agriculture minister Dileep Sanghani said that anyone violating the proposed law will not only face seizure of the animals and vehicles in which they are sought to be transported, but also up to seven-year imprisonment and a fine up to Rs 50,000. The vehicles captured will not be released for six months.

Leader of opposition in the assembly Shaktisinh Gohil said that the need of the hour was to get to the bottom of the problem. Earlier, Maldhari community that rears cattle had about 3.32 lakh hectare of land for grazing at their disposal. However, the present government has given away this gauchar land at a throw away prices to the industrial houses. Also earlier, nonproductive cows were sent to graze in these areas, but since there are no more gauchar land available, cattle herders were forced to spend Rs 40-50 per cow for fodder. This was driving then to sell their cows, Gohil said.

The government should put off their celebrations and partying for one year and open government-owned cattle ponds so that Maldharis can send their cattle to such ponds instead of leaving them for butchers, he added. The Congress was of the opinion that the changes in the law would not have any impact. He said the amendment in the bill was to pacify the Maldharis who are agitating against the state government.


Pranab Mukherjee writes to Prime Minister, defends P Chidambaram

With no let-up in the opposition fire, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday stepped forward to defend home minister P Chidambaram against the charge that he eventually concurred with jailed telecom minister A Raja's decision not to auction 2G spectrum.

In a four-page letter to the prime minister, Mukherjee said the finance ministry's note of March 25 was based on deliberations among ministries and should not be interpreted as a verdict on anyone's culpability.

The letter acquires significance as it rebuts the perception that the contentious note suggested that Chidambaram, as finance minister in UPA-1, had caved in to Raja's stubborn insistence to give away 2G spectrum in 2008 at 2001 prices. Besides, it counters the impression that the finance minister was behind the note which was seen as an offshoot of the widely perceived rivalry between the two senior ministers.

Mukherjee's letter has detailed how the March 25 note was drafted. It said the communication was prepared at the instance of the PMO to forge a common stance for the different ministries to take on the 2G controversy.

Pranab letter after meet with Sonia

Flying down from the US, Pranab Mukherjee lost little time in getting to firefighting on the finance ministry note that appeared to suggest that P Chidambaram, as finance minister in UPA 1, had concurred with A Raja on the 2G spectrum allocation.

On Wednesday, two days after Mukherjee met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, Mukherjee wrote to the Prime Minister, defending his colleague, coinciding with the Supreme Court calling for the files on the finance ministry's stance on spectrum allocation during Chidambaram's tenure.

According to sources close to him, Mukherjee discussed the contents of the letter with Sonia Gandhi who had stepped in to seal what was seen as an escalating fight between Mukherjee and Chidambaram.

The March 25 note, "seen" by Mukherjee, became a weapon in the hands of the opposition parties and the government's detractors like Subramanian Swamy because it suggested that Raja would have been forced to cancel allocation of licences if the finance ministry under Chidambaram had insisted on auctioning spectrum.

Many in the party felt that Mukherjee did appear to be involved in hammering out the judicial defence for the home minister, with latenight discussions with law minister Salman Khurshid on the day of his return from the US.

However, a question may continue to dog him as to how the finance ministry note could contain something as incendiary as accusing Chidambaram of not doing enough on spectrum pricing.