National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 14th January 2019
Technology centres for MSMEs
Topic: Indian Economy
IN NEWS: The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) will develop 20 technology centres, along with extension centres across the country in another 3-5 years.
More on the Topic:
- These centres would come up at an investment of Rs. 200 crore each. There are plans to have about 100 extension centres, each at an investment of Rs. 20 crore.
- The aim is to ensure that maximum [number of] units are benefited from the facilities.
- As many as 18 tool rooms are operational in the country and 15 more are in different stages of development or have started functioning. These tool rooms are specific to electronics, general engineering and high-end engineering sectors.
- They have modern technology machinery and testing equipment and the services are offered to industries at a competitive price.
- With the development of technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, the manufacturing units in the MSME sector need to have access to these.
- The Ministry is creating trained manpower in virtual reality through the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC). It has also developed training modules that use virtual reality and these will be launched across the country through the NSIC in a couple of months.
Model Mains Question: Analyse the importance of MSME sector to the Indian Economy.What are the challenges faced by the MSME sector and the way out of the challenges ?
Source: The Hindu
Bhogali Bihu
Topic: Art and Culture
IN NEWS: A contentious Bill to legitimise the stay of non-Muslim migrants from India’s neighbourhood has made many in Assam decide to break an age-old tradition — by fasting during an agrarian festival of feasting. Large swathes of Assam have been witnessing protests since the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was passed by the Lok Sabha .
More on the Topic:
- Bhogali Bihu (mid-January, also called Magh Bihu) comes from the word Bhog that is eating and enjoyment. It is a harvest festival and marks the end of harvesting season.
- During the festival particularly young men go to the field, preferably near a river, build a makeshift cottage called Bhelaghar with the hay of the harvest fields and the bonfire or Meji.
- Different types of sports like Buffalo-fight, Egg-fight, Cock-fight, Nightingale-fight etc. are held throughout the day. There are other conventional festivals observed by various ethnic-cultural groups. Me-dam-me-phi, Ali-aye-ligang, Porag, Garja, Hapsa Hatarnai, Kherai are few among them.
Source:The Hindu
NPA spike in MUDRA loans
Topic: Indian Economy
In news: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has raised a red flag over spike in non—peforming assets (NPAs) under the government’s flagship scheme to support micro enterprises in the country — the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana.
More on the Topic:
- Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) is a flagship scheme of Government of India to “fund the unfunded” by bringing such enterprises to the formal financial system and extending affordable credit to them.
- It enables a small borrower to borrow from all Public Sector Banks such as PSU Banks, Regional Rural Banks and Cooperative Banks, Private Sector Banks, Foreign Banks, Micro Finance Institutions (MFI) and Non Banking Finance Companies (NBFC) for loans upto Rs 10 lakhs for non-farm income generating activities.
- Any Indian Citizen who has a business plan for a non-farm sector income generating activity such as manufacturing, processing, trading or service sector and whose credit need is less than Rs 10 lakh can approach either a Bank, MFI, or NBFC for availing of Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Ltd. (MUDRA) loans under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY).
Under the aegis of Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, MUDRA has already created the following schemes.
- Shishu : covering loans upto 50,000/-
- Kishor : covering loans above 50,000/- and upto 5 lakh
- Tarun : covering loans above 5 lakh and upto 10 lakh
For all PMMY loans, the following are to be noted.
- No processing fee
- No collateral
- Repayment period of loan is extended up to 5 years
- Applicant should not be defaulter of any Bank / Financial Institution
Source: The Hindu
Right to disconnect bill
Topic: Polity and Governance
In news: The Right to Disconnect Bill mandates companies to detail out-of-work demands “as a way to reduce stress and ease tension between an employee’s personal and professional help.
More on the Topic:
- The Private Member’s Bill forbids disciplinary action if an employee does not reply to employers’ attempts to contact outside of the established conditions. If the employee works outside of the agreed-upon conditions, he or she is entitled to overtime,
- Similar provisions have been implemented via the French Supreme Court, introduced in New York, and discussed in Germany.
- An Employee Welfare Authority will be set up, including IT, Communication and Labour ministers, under the Bill which was introduced on December 28. Besides publishing a study regarding the impact of digital tools beyond work hours and yearly reports, the authority is required to outline a charter outlining employee-employer negotiations.
- Companies with more than 10 employees would periodically negotiate specific terms with their workers, publish their own charter, and create an Employee Welfare Committee consisting of representatives of the company’s workforce, the Bill states.
- In addition, the government would have to provide employee counseling, digital detox centers, and similar resources “to free an employee from digital distractions and enable him to truly connect with the people around him”.
Why the Bill:
- Studies have found that if an employee is expected to be available round the clock, they tend to exhibit risks of over-work like sleep deprivation, developing stress and being emotionally exhausted
- This persistent urge to respond to calls and e-mails (termed as ‘telepressure’), constant checking of e-mails throughout the day, and even on weekends and holidays, is reported to have destroyed work-life balance of employees.
Source: The Hindu
National Youth Parliament Festival
Topic: Government Initiatives
In News: Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Col Rajyavardhan Rathore today launched the National Youth Parliament Festival.
More on the Topic:
- The theme of the festival is- Be the Voice of New India and Find solutions and contribute to policy.
- The Ministry has decided to organise the youth festival at every district of the country so that the youth between the age group of 18 to 25 years can participate and discuss and debate about how to make a New India.
- The festival will be held at District, State and National level to select the best speakers.
- The two best speakers selected from each State Youth Parliament will participate at National Youth Parliament.
Objectives of National Youth Parliament:
- To hear the voice of youth between 18 and less than 25 years of age, who are allowed to vote but cannot stand as a candidate for election, through deliberations in Youth Parliaments at district level and above.
- To encourage the youth to engage with public issues, understand the common man’s point of view, form their opinions and express it in an articulate manner.
- To develop and enhance decision making
- To develop in them a respect and tolerance for the views of others.
- To develop in them an understanding that respect for rules is essential for conducting any discussion systematically and effectively.
- To obtain and document their opinions on Vision of New India in 2022.
- To make available their views to policy makers and implementers to take it forward.
Source: The Hindu
One Family One Job’ scheme in Sikkim
Topic: Schemes
In news: Sikkim Chief Minister launched the ‘One Family One Job’ scheme which entitles one government job for every family in the state.
More on the Topic:
- At a “Rojgar Mela” (employment fair) organised in Gangtok, over 12,000 unemployed youths were handed out appointment letters.
- The letters were awarded only to members of those families which do not have a government job at present.
- Sikkim has become the first state in the country to carry out such an exclusive programme.
- Sikkim is the only state that earmarks 70 per cent of its revenues towards salaries for state government employees.
Source: The Hindu
Bill for ads on criminal record
Topic: Polity and Governance
In news: Congress and BJP have both questioned the Election Commission’s diktat that a candidate should foot the bill to publicise his criminal record, especially since it eats into his poll expenditure limit.
More on the Topic:
- The SC had, in a bid to check increasing criminalisation of politics, ordered that it be made mandatory for every candidate in the fray in an election to inform the public at large about his criminal record in “bold letters” and at least three times after filing of nomination papers through newspapers at large and electronic media.
- EC implemented the order for the first time in the recently held state elections, bringing out standard formats for each candidate to make a public declaration of his criminal record.
- While the SC order did not clarify on who would foot the bill for these advertisements and under which precise electoral account it would fall.
- It was added to the candidate’s election account in the elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram.
Concerns:
- The politicians pointed out that the impact could be significant for candidates in urban centres as compared to their counterparts from rural constituencies as newspaper and TV advertisements pricing is typically higher in cities.
- The Election Commission has already sought details of expenditure incurred towards such public notices by the candidates who contested in the recent elections, to make an assessment.
- One suggestion being made to EC is to shift the expenditure to the political party’s account instead as there is no expenditure limit for the party as of now.
- There are also, however, arguments that the party and candidates are being unfairly made to bear expense for advertising their own criminal record and it may be better to allocate airtime and newspaper space for this purpose as well just as is done for campaign purposes.
- As of now, the expenditure limit for a state assembly candidate is capped at Rs 28 lakh while it is Rs 70 lakh for candidates for general elections.
- All newspaper and electronic media advertisements/publicity material are currently included within this limit. Interestingly, many a candidate do not even exhaust this limit towards campaign expenditure even as flow of cash and freebies is only increasing in every election.
Source: The Hindu
AMRUT Scheme
Topic: Government Schemes
In news: The Central Government’s Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), launched for developing urban infrastructure.The project has completed just 20 per cent of the total projects utilising 3 per cent of the total funds approved.
More on the Topic:
- The government launched AMRUT in 2015 in 500 mission cities with focus on water supply, sewerage and septage management, stormwater drainage, non-motorised urban transport and development of green space and parks.
- The mission period is up to March, 2020. The total mission outlay is ₹1 lakh crore, including a Central assistance of ₹50,000 crore.
- Projects under AMRUT are selected, appraised, approved and implemented by States/Union Territories. The Centre only approves the State Annual Action Plans (SAAPs) submitted by States/UTs and releases assistance as per mission guidelines.
- The scheme is dependent with public private partnership(PPP) model. If required, various other schemes like Swachh Bharat Mission, Housing for All 2022, along with the local state schemes like that related to water supply and sewerage and other infrastructure related schemes can be linked to AMRUT.
