Sunday, October 25, 2009

CashTree

CashTree is an interbank network in India that has been in operation since March 2004. Bank of India is the settlement bank for this network, which started with just 6 public sector banks but later expanded to admit private sector banks.

The network has 12 member banks:


The Bank of Maharashtra left the network in April 2007. City Union Bank joined the network in June 2007.

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Economics

Sectors

Capitals Market

Reserve Bank of India

The Reserve Bank of India was established on April 1, 1935 in accordance with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934(External website that opens in a new window). The Central Office of the Reserve Bank was initially established in Calcutta but was permanently moved to Mumbai in 1937. The Central Office is where the Governor sits and where policies are formulated. Though originally privately owned, since nationalisation in 1949, the Reserve Bank is fully owned by the Government of India.

The Reserve Bank's affairs are governed by a central board of directors. The board is appointed by the Government of India in keeping with the Reserve Bank of India Act.

  • Appointed/nominated for a period of four years
  • Constitution
    • Official Directors
      • Full-time: Governor and not more than four Deputy Governors
    • Non-Official Directors
      • Nominated by Government: ten Directors from various fields and one government Official
      • Others: four Directors - one each from four local boards

Securities and Exchange Board of India

The Securities and Exchange Board of India was established on April 12, 1992 in accordance with the provisions of the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992.

National Stock Exchange

The National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. is the largest stock exchange of the country. NSE is setting the agenda for change in the securities markets in India. The last 5 years have seen us play a major role in bringing investors from 363 cities and towns online, ensuring complete transparency, introducing financial guarantee of settlements, ensuring scientifically designed and professionally managed indices and by nurturing the dematerialization effort across the country.

NSE is a complete capital market prime mover. Its wholly-owned subsidiaries, National Securities Clearing Corporation Ltd. (NSCCL) provides clearing and settlement of securities, India Index Services and Products Ltd. (IISL) provides indices and index services with a consulting and licensing agreement with Standard & Poor's (S&P), and NSE.IT Ltd. forms the technology strength that NSE works on.

Source India portal

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Public Sector Bank

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The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY)

The Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY)- External website that opens in a new window was launched on 25 December 2000 as a fully funded Centrally Sponsored Scheme. The primary objective of the PMGSY is to provide connectivity to all the eligible unconnected habitations of more than 500 persons in the rural areas (250 persons in the hilly and desert areas) by good quality all-weather roads.

Under Bharat Nirman, goal has been set to provide connectivity to all the habitations with population of more than 1000 in the plain areas and habitations with a population of 500 or more in hilly and tribal areas in a time-bound manner by 2009. The systematic upgradation of the existing rural road networks is also an integral component of the scheme. Accordingly, an Action Plan has been prepared for connecting 66,802 habitations with 1,46,185 km of all-weather roads. This Action Plan also envisages upgradation/renewal of 1,94,130 km of the existing rural road network. Subsequently, based on ground verification by States, 62,985 habitations were found eligible to be connected under the programme, out of which 3421 habitations have been connected under other schemes. Thus, the revised target is to connect 59,564 habitations. It is estimated that an investment of about Rs.48,000 crore would be required for achieving the targets under Bharat Nirman. The implementation strategy focuses on quality, cost management and 'on time' delivery.

Up to July, 2008, project proposals amounting to Rs. 81,717 crore have been approved against which a sum of Rs. 38,499 crore has been released for 86,146 roads covering a length of 3,31,736 km. Against these, 52,218 road works having road length of 1,75629 km have been completed with a cumulative expenditure of Rs. 35,295 crore.

Source: National Portal Content Management Team,

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Contemporary Art

Contemporary Art

With the strengthening of the British control in India, creative Indian art suffered a setback. The English engaged Indian artists to paint landscapes in water and oil colour, resulting in loss of originality. Soon the political wave hit the country and what came about was the famous Bengal (revivalist) School. The pioneers of this school were ace painters like Abanindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore and Nandlal Bose. They contributed a lot in re-shaping the Indian art and motivating others for the same. Abanindranath specialised in portraiture, Gaganendranath in cartoonist-critic of social and political mishappenings of that time and Nandlal was an expert in painting epic themes and later graduated to explore Asian art. However, nationalism witnessed some of the painters move towards folklore. Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel Prize winner) gave a charter for free variations on naturalism, abstraction and expressionism. Today, India has a host of world famous painters like Jamini Roy (discovered the virility of the folk tradition and modulated it in many ways), Amrita Sher-Gill (integrated the pictorial idiom of the west and an Indian vision), Binod Mukherjee and Ram Kinkar. New genres of painters who have invaded the old space are M.F Hussain, Krishnan Khanna and Satish Gujral.


Source : India Portal

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Award watch

Kalinga Prize

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science is an award given by UNESCO for exceptional skill in presenting scientific ideas to lay people. It was created in 1952, following a donation from Biju Patnaik, Founder President of the Kalinga Foundation Trust in India.

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Stagflation

Stagflation is an economic situation in which inflation and economic stagnation occur simultaneously and remain unchecked for a significant period of time.[1] The portmanteau stagflation is generally attributed to British politician Iain Macleod, who coined the term in a speech to Parliament in 1965.[2][3][4] The concept is notable partly because, in postwar macroeconomic theory, inflation and recession were regarded as mutually exclusive, and also because stagflation has generally proven to be difficult and costly to eradicate once it gets started.

source--wikipedia
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Ujjawala Scheme

Ujjawala Scheme

The trafficking of people, mostly of women and children is a burgeoning criminal activity that generates unbelievably large profits every year, third only to illegal drugs and weapons trade. Every year, thousands of women and children are reported missing from their homes in different parts of the globe. Such victims of trafficking are usually lifted from deprived regions and villages and exported to mainly urban areas within or across borders.

The 'Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children', defines trafficking in persons to mean the use of threats, force, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or other forms of coercion for the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes prostitution, other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

Trafficking of women and children is a major issue in India, with people being illegally transported across States as well as being brought in over borders from neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh. The main reason for trafficking people is commercial sexual exploitation, though people may also be trafficked for forced labour, marriage, begging, adoption and organ trade.

The Constitution of India- External website that opens in a new window, the fundamental law of the land, specifically forbids "traffic in human beings and other similar forms of forced labour" in Article 23. The welfare of women and children is of vital importance to the Indian Government, with the administration regularly formulating provisions and schemes for their benefit. One of the most promising schemes brought about is the 'Ujjawala Scheme- External website that opens in a new window' designed to liberate victims of commercial sexual exploitation

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Bretton Woods system

Bretton Woods system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid 20th century. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states.

Preparing to rebuild the international economic system as World War II was still raging, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The delegates deliberated upon and signed the Bretton Woods Agreements during the first three weeks of July 1944.

Setting up a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system, the planners at Bretton Woods established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which today is part of the World Bank Group. These organizations became operational in 1945 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement.

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Industry watch

Industrial Park Scheme in India

The Industrial Park Scheme was introduced by the Government of India in 1997 to give impetus to the infrastructure sector. The scheme was revised in 2002 and was valid up to March 2006. A Draft Industrial Park Scheme was prepared in 2006. And the new scheme was finally introduced this year.

The scheme extends 100 per cent tax holiday on profits derived by an undertaking from the activity of developing, developing and operating, or maintaining and operating an Industrial Park and is applicable to all Industrial Parks set up between April 1, 2006 and March 31, 2009.

The objective of providing a tax holiday is to promote and incentivise capital investment. The industrial units set up under the new scheme can undertake certain specified manufacturing activities.

To gain the tax benefits, a developer essentially needs to comply with certain conditions, such as minimum requirement of 30 units, all units of same group would be considered as a single unit, a single unit cannot occupy more than 25 per cent of total area, minimum area of 50,000 sq mt needs to be developed, etc.

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Some Govt. Schemes

Govt. Schemes

The Main object of Central Tibetan Schools Administration Society is to establish, manage and assists schools in India...
The National Knowledge Commission is a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, with the objective of transforming...
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is an effort to universalise elementary education by community-ownership of the school...
Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET) is a constituent unit of the NCERT. Its chief aim is to promote Educational...
A full fledged Ministry of Education was established on 29th August 1947 to look after India's education needs and wants...
The Government of India has approved a new scheme called Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) for setting...
The Mid-Day Meal Scheme was launched by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of Education) with effect from ...
The Navodaya Vidyalaya System is a unique experiment unparalleled in the annals of school education in India and elsewhere...
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an apex resource organisation set up by the Government...
National Literacy Mission (NLM) which aims at imparting functional literacy to 80 million illiterate persons in 15-35 age- group...
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coffee

Indian filter coffee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

South Indian Coffee, also known as Filter Coffee is a sweet milky coffee made from dark roasted coffee beans (70%-80%) and chicory (20%-30%), especially popular in the southern states of Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The most commonly used coffee beans are Peaberry (preferred), Arabica, Malabar and Robusta grown in the hills of Kerala (Malabar region), Karnataka (Kodagu,Chikkamagaluru) and Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris District,Yercaud and Kodaikanal).

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list of Indian state

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