Economy

Land reforms Distribute ceiling-surplus and waste lands; Prevent diversion of prime agricultural land and forest to corporate sector for non-agricultural purposes. Ensure grazing rights and seasonal access to forests to tribals and pastoralists, and access to common property resources. Establish a National Land Use Advisory Service, which would have the capacity to link land use … Read more

Unorganised sector: unorganised sector  is defined as a  production or service oriented enterprise owned by individuals or self employed workers (one who is not working for an employer and is engaged in an unorgnised sector job earning an income below a threshold or owning land below a notified limit) and if workers are employed, then … Read more

The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is a U.S. trade program designed to promote economic growth in the developing world by providing preferential duty-free entry for up to 4,800 products from 129 designated beneficiary countries and territories. GSP was instituted on January 1, 1976, by the Trade Act of 1974. Under the GSP program, certain products can enter the … Read more

Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are labour intensive, have the advantage of low cost of production and can make good use of locally available resources pushing demand and growth. The sector offers a wide range of employment opportunities and absorbs most of the working age population. Majorly consists of handlooms, handicrafts, coir, sericulture, khadi and … Read more

Big data is the huge amount of data which is present in an unprocessed way. It is a complex data. Big data is characterised by 3 Vs ie. Volume of data, velocity of data i.e. processed and complex variety of data. Big data has various useful application. The application of Big data can be seen … Read more

P2P lending is the popular type of crowd funding, whereby an internet platform collects small amounts of funds from individuals in a crowd to finance collectively a larger loan to individuals or businesses. Websites that facilitate peer-to-peer lending have greatly increased its adoption as an alternative method of financing.P2P lending is also known as social … Read more

The food processing sector comprises of three segments based on the levels of processing Primary processing of food Primary processing of food comprises of sorting, grading and packaging of fruits and vegetables, milk, rice, spices, etc. Secondary Processing of Food Secondary processing of food comprises of re-shaping of food for ease of consumption. It includes … Read more

The National Agriculture Market is envisaged as a pan-India electronic trading portal which seeks to network the existing APMCs and other market yards to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities. NAM is a “virtual” market but it has a physical market (mandi) at the back end. NAM is proposed to be achieved through … Read more

Establishment of Some More Agencies Apart from Food Corporation of India, some more agencies should be set up for ensuring rational prices of other agricultural products and also for procuring other agricultural products. In the meantime the government has already set up Cotton Corporation and Jute Corporation, which needs to be further strengthened. Extension of … Read more

RMSA has following objectives:- To ensure that all secondary schools have physical facilities, staffs and supplies at least according to the prescribed standards through financial support in case of Government/ Local Body and Government aided schools, and appropriate regulatory mechanism in the case of other schools. To improve access to secondary schooling to all young … Read more

Merchant Banks:      A bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. They manage and underwrite new issues, provide consultancy and corporate advisory services for corporate clients on raising finds and other financial aspects. b) Venture Capital Fund: Usually the financial institutions are hesitant to finance new products because the profitability of new products is uncertain and … Read more

Crowding out is an economic concept that describes a situation where government spending and borrowing reduces overall private sector consumption and investment. Crowding out can be caused by an expansionary fiscal policy financed by increased taxes, borrowing or both. Crowding out can refer to when government borrowing absorbs all the available lending capacity in the … Read more

Featuring the new Global Competitiveness Index, the Report assesses the competitiveness landscape of 140 economies, providing unique insight into the drivers of economic growth in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Current position of india The country’s favourable demographic has earned it a rank of 58 among 140 countries in the World Economic Forum’s … Read more

The Central Gov­ernment has set up a Board for Industrial and Fi­nancial Reconstruction (BIFR) with effect from 12 January 1987 in pursuance of enactment of the Sick Industrial Companies (Special Provision) Act, 1985. This is a major step for intervening at an early stage and detecting, preventing, as well as taking ameliorative, remedial and such … Read more

Following are some of the important functional factors responsible for adoption of decentralised planning in the present context in India: Considering the huge size and proportion of rural population in India, it is felt that proper linkages must be established between dispersed small villages and also between such villages and adjacent small towns by developing … Read more

Highlights of the Bill This Bill amends the principal Act passed in 2013. The Bill enables the government to exempt five categories of projects from the requirements of: (i) social impact assessment, (ii) restrictions on acquisition of multi-cropped land, and (iii) consent for private projects and public private partnerships (PPPs) projects. The five categories of … Read more

It is a e governance too which stands for Crime and Criminal Tracking network system. It aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for effective policing through e governance.  It is envisaged as a countrywide integrated database on crime incidents and criminals. It aims to connect all police stations, with their crime and criminal … Read more

‘Late Converger Stall’ refers to the phenomenon wherein a low-income country that hopes to grow into a middle or high-income country, after witnessing a period of high economic growth, fails to achieve its goal. Instead, it gets trapped in its lower income status due to various reasons. Rapid growth witnessed by such countries turns out … Read more

·       Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY)    Launched: 8April2015 Main Objective: Financial support for growth of micro enterprises sector. Pradhan Mantri MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) Yojana was launched with the purpose to provide funding to the non-corporate small business sector. Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) is open and is available from all Bank branches … Read more

The Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan is a flagship scheme of Government of India, launched in March, 2009, to enhance access to secondary education and improve its quality. The implementation of the scheme started from 2009-10 to generate human capital and provide sufficient conditions for accelerating growth and development and equity as also quality of life … Read more

NITI Aayog as guided by the central government has come up with a unique and promising idea of ‘Aspirational Districts Programme’ based on mass movement approach. The uniqueness of the programme lies in its approach and implementation based on creating a competitive environment and empowering State Governments (mains driver) diving respective districts as competitors. (total … Read more

Parallel economy, based on the black money or unaccounted money, is a big menace to the Indian economy. It is also a cause of big loss in the tax-revenues for the government. We can define black economy as the money that is generated by activities that are kept secret, in the sense that these are … Read more

India imports 40% of the World’s total production of Gold, making India as the top importer of Gold metal. India imports approx 1000 tons of Gold per year. The imports are mainly from China, USA, Australia, South Africa and Russia. In India, approx 4000 tons of gold is lying idle in Temples, and approx 15000 … Read more

Medium of Exchange The only alter­native to using money is to go back to the barter system. However, as a system of ex­change the barter system would be highly impracticable today.  For example, if the baker who supplied the green-grocer with bread had to take payment in onions and carrots, he may either not like … Read more

Demand-Pull Effect The demand-pull effect states that as wages increase within an economic system (often the case in a growing economy with low unemployment), people will have more money to spend on consumer goods. This increase in liquidity and demand for consumer goods results in an increase in demand for products. As a result of … Read more

The Indian textile industry has a significant presence in the economic life of our country. It is the second largest textile industry in the world after China. The textile industry contributes about 14% to the country’s industrial output and about 17% to export earnings. After agriculture, this industry is the second largest employer in India … Read more

A Development Financial institution (DFI) is defined as “an institution endorsed or supported by Government of india primarily to provide development/Project finance to one or more sectors or sub-sectors of the economy. the institution differentiates itself by a thoughtful balance between commercial norms of operation, as adopted by any financial institution like commercial bank and … Read more

Industry is not the substitute of agriculture, rather they are complementary to one another. Both these sectors are so attached with each other that it is not possible to increase the growth of one sector sector without the improvement of the other sector. If agriculture is considered as the ‘heart’ of the country, then obviously … Read more

Financial problems The paucity of adequate and timely finance and credit is the main setback in the development of SSI units. It is even worse in case of cottage and village industries. The capital base of the small industrial units is usually very weak since they generally have partnership or sole proprietorship form of organization. … Read more

Indian economy has some inherent vulnerabilities and that is becoming hurdle in holistic development of the economy. These areas are as follows: Investment rate is on decline. It is near about 29%. It has to be 36-38% for sustaining high growth rate as per economic survey. Investment is way better than savings as engine of … Read more

SHAKTI stands for Scheme for Harnessing and allocating Koyala Transparency in India. It is a  transformational policy for auction and allotment of coal linkages. This policy will award fuel supply agreements to coal plants already holding letter of assurance. Coal linkage would be allocated to state owned power distribution companies. The major objective to bring … Read more

Financial inclusion has been recognised as a key building block which will form the foundation for achieving several of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  As a construct, it provides much more than access to financial services.  In a country like India, till a few years ago, a bank account was a source of pride.  If properly … Read more

Open market operations is the sale and purchase of securities, bills and bonds of government as well as private financial institutions by the Central Bank. This is one of the qualitative too available with the central bank to deal with inflation and money supply in the economy. Functioning:  If the central bank sells these instruments, … Read more

Inflation is the general increase in the price level. This increase in the price level reduce the purchasing power and the disposable income. This decrease hurts the poor most. There are various ways to control inflation. Some of them are as follows:   Credit Control: Central bank (RBI in India) can control the money flow … Read more

GDP includes the final value of all goods and services. It is a benchmark tool which is used to gauge the direction and overall wealth of the economy. For example India is 6th largest economy but it is one of the poorest country more than 22% of the people are living in abject poverty. The … Read more

Higher education has to be taken to next level to make India a knowledge economy. But quality of HE is an issue and that need quick redressal. The  major steps that can be taken to transform Higher education are: Implementation: Implementation of reforms as pointed out by TSR Subramanian Committee. Autonomy: Reforming or replacing UGC, … Read more

Government: The Indian Government utilizes numerous techniques to ascertain how people areresponding to government action, as well as ideas for policy augmentation. Healthcare: Big data analytics plays a vital role in improving services and tackling some of theforemost challenges in the healthcare sector, especially in terms of patient profile analysis,genomic analysis, public health monitoring, diagnosis … Read more

Quite often the funds allocated for tribal welfare are not spent or are spent without correspondingresults and sometimes funds are even misappropriated. The watch dog of tribal interests, Tribal AdvisoryCouncil has not functioned effectively. Administrative personnel are either ill trained or prejudiced against tribals. A major handicap from which tribals suffer is denial of justice, … Read more

With increase in the average expectancy age , the issue of elderly population will arise in the near future. The economy has to look into to take care of the elderly population. But there are some issues attached with ageing population: Lack of uniform and accessible pension system. Premium rates are different and there are … Read more

Minimum wages is the minimum wage to be given to workers as per rule and law. The non payment or below payment of wages attract Penalty and sanctions. As per the International Labour Organisation India wage report one in every three wage workers in India is not protected by the minimum wage act. As per … Read more

It is a dedicated fund set up by Ministry of Finance,in 2013, for implementation of initiatives aimed atenhancing the safety and security for women inthe country. It is a non-lapsable corpus fund.Ministry of Women and Child Development is thenodal Ministry to appraise schemes under NirbhayaFund and also to review and monitor the progressof sanctioned Schemes … Read more

The term “liberalization” in this context implies economic liberalization. The essence of thispolicy is that greater freedom is to be given to the entrepreneur of any industry, trade orbusiness and that governmental control on the same be reduced to the minimum. Rules and laws which were aimed at regulating the economic activities became majorhindrances in … Read more

The  major reasons are: Rise in Prices and galloping inflation. It surged from 6.7% to near about 16% Increase in the Fiscal deficit. Increase in non -development expenditure. Adverse Balance of payment and pressure on Balance of Payment. Iran-Kuwait war led to increase in Petrol price and hence pressure on Indian Imports. Adopted approach of … Read more

Nutrient bases subsidy scheme is to ensure balanced use of fertilizers and to improve agriculture productivity. The major features of NBS are: Under the NBS Policy, a fixed amount of subsidy decided on annual basis isprovided on each grade of the subsidized Phosphatic & Potassic (P&K) fertilizersdepending upon its nutrient content.Minimum Retail Price (MRP) of … Read more

Lack of infrastructure–Approximately 95.2 per cent of schools are not yet compliant with the complete set of RTE infrastructure indicators according to survey conducted in 2010.They lacks drinking water facilities, a functional common toilet, and do not have separate toilets for girls. Number of boards causes non uniformity of curriculum throughout India so maintenance of … Read more

Selection Process The selection process of Smart Cities is based on the idea of Competitive and Co-operative Federalism and follows a Challenge process to select cities in two stages. In January 2016, based on the All India Competition, 20 smart cities were selected in Round 1.13 more Smart Cities were selected in May 2016 in … Read more

The Indian peninsula juts 1,980 km into the Indian Ocean with 50% of the Indian Ocean basin lying within a 1500 km radius of India, a reality that has strategic implications. Between the Gulf of Aden and Malacca Strait, is seen as India’s sphere of influence. India is one of very few countries in the … Read more

The Government of India encourages foreign investment in the automobile sector and allows 100 per cent FDI under the automatic route. Some of the recent initiatives taken by the Government of India are – The government aims to develop India as a global manufacturing centre and an R&D hub. Under NATRiP, the Government of India … Read more

Viability Gap Funding (VGF): Under the Ministry of Finance ‘Scheme for Support to Public Private Partnerships in Infrastructure’ in the form of capital grant at the stage of project construction will be given as per the VGF guidelines. The total Viability Gap Funding under this scheme shall not exceed twenty percent of the total project … Read more

The current account shows the records of exports and imports of both the material goods and services of a country with the rest of the world. Export and import of goods are totally different from the export and import of services. While goods are tangible and called as merchandise or visible trade, and of which … Read more