TRIUMPH IAS ACADEMY MUMBAI

Digital and Cashless Economy : A New Way of Life after demonetization Deepak Razdan Pay Digital and Win Prizes! As India moves towards a digital and cashless economy, the Government announced on 15th December, 2016 two schemes Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana to give cash awards to consumers and merchants who utilize digital payment instruments for personal consumption expenditures. The prizes range from Rs 1000 to Rs 1 crore and the transactions permitted are from Rs 50 to Rs 3000 to keep the focus on the common man. The schemes will not only give a boost to cashless transactions, but will particularly bring the poor, lower middle class and small businesses into the digital payment fold, and new way of life. The poorest of poor will be eligible for rewards by using USSD, (the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) System that is applicable to ordinary GSM mobile phones. People in village and rural areas can participate in this scheme through Aadhaar Enabled Pa...

Indomitable spirit of Indian farmers GARGI PARSAI Agriculture was at the centre-stage of priority sectors for the government in 2016, upstaged only at the fag-end of the year by the demonetisation drive of the government. Significantly two consecutive droughts did not dampen the indomitable spirit of Indian farmers who, as per the fourth advance estimates for 2015-16 crop year, produced 252.22 million tonnes of foodgrains as against the output of 252.02 million tonnes last year. There was a marginal dip in the output of rice, coarse cereals, oilseeds, pulses and cotton due to monsoon deficiency that hit kharif crops in parts of the country this year.  Although rabi wheat yield was projected to be higher at 93.5 million tonnes in 2015-16 as against 86.53 million tonnes the previous year, procurement this year was lower than the set target, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh said at a press conference in New Delhi on 29 th  December. To a...

Successful Test launch of AGNI V *Dilip Ghosh               India successfully conducted the fourth and final experimental test of its indigenously developed  Inter Continental Ballistic Missile, ICBM, Agni-V from Wheeler Island off Odisha coast on yesterday, the 26 th  December 2016.The nuclear-capable missile with its strike range of over 5,000-km was test-fired from its canister on a launcher truck. Designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, DRDO, the three stage solid propellant missile will now go for user trials before its induction into the tri-service Strategic Forces Command, SFC which manages India's nuclear arsenal.  The 17.5 meter long,  50 ton missile can carry a nuclear warhead of more than one ton. It can be transported and swiftly launched from anywhere. The surface to surface Agni V missile is the most advanced among the Agni series,...

3.          National Virtual Library of India ·                       Under the aegis of the National Mission on Libraries, the National Virtual Library of India (NVLI) has been envisaged as the platform which would bring together all information generated in India and about India and make such information accessible to the citizens through user friendly search interfaces. ·                       A number of web based information services have been conceived to make best use of information technology. NVLI will provide a platform for users from all sectors to seek information through well researched services implemented through user-friendly interfaces.

The President of India approves the Promulgation of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Ordinance, 2016 today; The President of India has approved the promulgation of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Ordinance, 2016 today i.e. on 30 th December, 2016. The Ordinance is a follow-up to the decision taken by the Government of India to cancel the legal tender character of the existing series of banknotes, as on November 8, 2016, in the denominations of Rs.500 and Rs.1000  (Specified Bank Notes-SBNs) in circulation. The main objectives of the Ordinance are  (i) to  provide clarity and finality to the liability of the Reserve Bank of India and the Government of India for the SBNs; (ii) to provide an opportunity to those persons who were unable to deposit the SBNs within the time provided; and (iii) to declare holding, transferring or receiving SBNs as illegal, with provisions for penalty for contravention of any of the prov...

Cabinet approves International Solar Alliance (ISA): Signing of the Framework Agreement The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has given its ex-post facto approval to the proposal of Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE) for ratification of ISA’s Framework Agreement by India. ISA was launched jointly by the Prime Minister of India and the President of France on 30 th November, 2015 at Paris on the side-lines of the 21 st  CoP meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  The ISA will strive to bring together more than 121 solar resource rich nations for coordinated research, low cost financing and rapid deployment. The foundation stone of the ISA Headquarters was laid at Gwal Pahari, Guragaon in Haryana. India has already committed the required support of operationalization of ISA.  ISA will put India globally in a leadership role in climate and renewable energy issues. It will also give a platform...

If weather permits, two important missile launches are to take place this month. India’s long-range, subsonic cruise missile, Nirbhay, will lift off from the Launch Complex-III of the Integrated Test Range, Balasore, Odisha, on Wednesday. The redoubtable Agni-V, which can carry nuclear warheads over a distance of about 5,000 km, will be fired from a canister mounted on a massive truck from Wheeler Island, off the Odisha coast, on December 26. Nirbhay, which has a range of about 1,000 km, has blended missile and aeronautical technologies into a single contraption. It will take off vertically like a missile. A mechanism in its first stage will tilt it horizontally and the first stage with its booster engine will then fall off. The second stage with a turbo-jet engine will cruise horizontally like an aircraft at a subsonic speed of 0.7 Mach. The missiles will be fired by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, which has conceived, designed and developed them.