Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)

Why in new?

The Election Commission said all VVPATs would be delivered well within the time required for preparations ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha poll.

About Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT)

• Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) or Verifiable Paper Record (VPR) is a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballot less voting system.
• A VVPAT is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored electronic results.
• It contains name of the candidate (for whom vote has been casted) and symbol of the party/individual candidate.

Girinka Programme

Why in news?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted 200 cows to villagers from Rweru villages as part of Rwandan Government’s Girinka Programme.

About Girinka Programme

• The programme was initiated by President Paul Kagame in response to alarmingly high rate of childhood malnutrition and as way to accelerate poverty reduction and integrate livestock and crop farming.
• Under this programme, poorest residing in region get cows from Government and gift first female calf to neighbour to promote brotherhood.
• The programme is based on premise that providing dairy cow to poor, transforms livelihoods, reconciles communities improving agricultural productivity through use of manure as fertilizers.

• The program has contributed to increase in agricultural production in Rwanda – especially milk production and products and has reduced malnutrition and increased incomes.

Inter-Creditor Agreement (ICA)

Why in news?

More than 50 banks and financial institutions in India have entered into an inter-creditor agreement to speed up the resolution of stressed assets of Rs 50 crore and above that are under consortium lending.

What is Inter-Creditor Agreement (ICA)?

• The inter-creditor agreement is aimed at the resolution of loan accounts with a size of ₹50 crore and above that are under the control of a group of lenders. It is part of the “Sashakt” plan approved by the government to address the problem of resolving bad loans.
• The agreement is based on a recommendation by the Sunil Mehta committee that looked into resolution of stressed assets.
• The agreement says if 66% of lenders by value agree to a resolution plan, it would be binding on all lenders. The dissenting creditors will, however, have the option to sell their loans to other lenders at a discount of 15% to the liquidation value, or buy the entire portfolio paying 125% of the value agreed under the debt resolution plan by other lenders.
• The agreement says each resolution plan would be submitted to an overseeing committee comprising experts from the banking industry. For dissenting creditors, the agreement says the “lead bank has the right, but not the obligation, to arrange the buyout of the loan facilities at a value that is equal to 85% of the liquidation or the resolution value —whichever is lower.”
• Dissenting creditors can also exit by selling their loans to any entity at a price mutually arrived at between the lender and buyer.

World’s fastest man-made spinning object

Why in news?

Scientists have developed the fastest man-made rotor in the world, which they believe will help them study quantum mechanics.

The fastest man- made spinning object

• The scientists synthesised a tiny dumbbell from silica and levitated it in high vacuum using a laser. The laser can work in a straight line or in a circle – when it is linear, the dumbbell vibrates, and when it is circular, the dumbbell spins.
• A spinning dumbbell functions as a rotor, and a vibrating dumbbell functions like an instrument for measuring tiny forces and torques, known as a torsion balance.
• At more than 60 billion revolutions per minute, this machine is more than 100,000 times faster than a high-speed dental drill.

Applications

With this, scientists will be able to study things like quantum mechanics and the properties of vacuum. Understanding these mechanisms is an essential goal for the modern generation of physics.