GK and Current Affairs Updates

The State Bank of India (SBI) on 1 July 2016 launched SBI Mingle, a social media banking platform for Facebook and Twitter users.
•    The platform was launched by SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya, on the occasion of 61st State Bank Day that is observed on 1 July every year.
•    It will allow SBI’s customers to access various banking services via these social platforms. 
•    To avail services from this platform, customers will have to register for it through a simple one time registration process using either their social account number or their ATM/Debit Card details. 
•    After registering they can undertake the various banking facilities available on the platform. 
•    Currently, SBI services such as balance enquiry, mini statement, funds transfer within SBI as well as inter-bank and beneficiary management services are available for Facebook. 
•    On Twitter, customers using hashtags can find out their account balance and view mini statements.
•    With this, the Bank will offer its millennial customers a new digital experience allowing them to do banking as part of their everyday lives, when and where they want.

Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti on 7 July 2016 inaugurated 231 projects under the Namami Gange Programme.
•    The projects were inaugurated from Haridwar, Uttarakhand in various locations in different states namely Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Haryana and Delhi.
•    These projects involve modernization and redevelopment of Ghats and crematoriums, development of sewage infrastructure and treatment, afforestation, tree plantation, pilot drain project, interceptor drain project, trash skimmers and conservation of biodiversity.
•    47 such projects were inaugurated at various locations in Dehradun, Garhwal, Tehri Garhwal, Rudraprayag, Haridwar and Chamoli districts of Uttrakhand.
•    20 projects will be inaugurated at various locations in North 24 pargana, Nadia, South 24 pargana and Howrah districts of West Bengal.
•    26 projects were inaugurated at various locations in Buxar, Vaishali, Saran, Patna and Bhagalpur districts of Bihar.
•    112 projects under Namami Gange programme were inaugurated at various locations in Amroha, Bijnor, Hapur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Mathura, Allahabad, Varanasi, Farukhabad and Kanpur districts.
•    It is an Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission which integrates the efforts to clean and protect the Ganga River in a comprehensive manner.
•    It will result in socio-economic benefits in terms of job creation, improved livelihoods and health benefits to the vast population that is dependent on the river.
•    Its focus is on pollution abatement interventions namely Interception, diversion and treatment of wastewater through bio-remediation or appropriate in-situ treatment or use of innovative technologies such as sewage treatment plants (STPs) or effluent treatment plant (ETPs).
•    It has a budget outlay of 20000 crore rupees for 2015-20. 
•    This is a significant four-fold increase over the expenditure in the past 30 years as the Union Government incurred an overall expenditure of approximately 4000 crore rupees on this task since 1985.

Zee Learn, education branch of Essel Group, on 6 July 2016 appointed Debshankar Mukhopadhyay as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
•    Essel Group is among India’s most prominent business houses with a diverse portfolio of assets in media, packaging, entertainment, education etc.
•    Debshankar Mukhopadhyay holds over 20 years of experience in educational and financial sectors across South Asia.
•    Prior to joining Zee Learn, he was the Head of Educational Sales, Financial Services and Insurance at Manipal Global Education Services.
•    He has also been associated with Max Life Insurance, Western Union, Scholastic India, Zee Interactive Learning Systems and DHL Worldwide.
•    Zee Learn is India’s leading company in education segment.
•    It operates chain of K-12 schools, such as Mount Litera Zee School and Kidzee, which is Asia’s No 1 chain of pre-school network.
•    Mount Litera Zee School was awarded as the K-12 School Chain of the Year at Indian Educational Congress in 2015.
 

India is rapidly moving into the mobile app age and is already the fourth-largest mobile app economy. 
•    The amount of time Indians spend on apps has also increased dramatically, says mobile-app analytics company App Annie. 
•    In total app downloads per year, only China, US, and Brazil are ahead of India.
•    The annual figure for India is projected to grow by 92% to reach 7.7 billion downloads this year, and further to 20.1 billion by 2020. 
•    China’s app download is expected to grow at a much slower 29% this year, but the absolute figure will be more than 6 times that of India’s at 49 billion.
•    The amount of time Indians spent on apps in the first quarter of 2016 more than doubled compared to that in the first quarter of 2014. 
•    In retail apps, the time spent grew by 11.5 times during the same period, driven by e-commerce majors like Flipkart-Myntra, Amazon, and Snapdeal. 
•    The time spent on video streaming apps grew by 7.4 times, with YouTube and Hotstar leading the way.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 5 July 2016 expanded his Council of Ministers which included inducting of some new Ministers of State, changes in portfolio of some ministers and dropped 5 Ministers from CoM.
Prime Minister
•    Narendra Modi - Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; Department of Atomic energy; Department of Space; and all important policy issues, and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister
Cabinet ministers
•    Rajnath Singh - Home affairs
•    Sushma Swaraj - External affairs
•    Arun Jaitley – Finance and Corporate Affairs
•    Venkaiah Naidu - Urban Development and Housing; Urban Poverty Alleviation; Information and Broadcasting
•    Nitin Jairam Gadkari - Road Transport and Highways; Shipping
•    Manohar Parrikar - Defence
•    Suresh Prabhu - Railways
•    DV Sadananda Gowda - Statistics and Programme Implementation
•    Uma Bharati - Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
•    Najma A Heptulla - Minority Affairs
•    Ramvilas Paswan - Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
•    Kalraj Mishra - Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
•    Maneka Sanjay Gandhi - Women and Child Development
•    Ananth Kumar - Chemicals and Fertilizers; Parliamentary Affairs
•    Ravi Shankar Prasad - Law and Justice; Electronics and Information Technology
•    Jagat Prakash Nadda - Health and Family Welfare
•    Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati - Civil Aviation
•    Anant Geete - Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
•    Harsimrat Kaur Badal - Food Processing Industries
•    Narendra Singh Tomar - Rural Development; Panchayati Raj; Drinking Water and Sanitation
•    Chaudhary Birender Singh - Steel
•    Jual Oram - Tribal Affairs
•    Radha Mohan Singh - Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
•    Thaawar Chand Gehlot - Social Justice and Empowerment
•    Smriti Zubin Irani - Textiles
•    Harsh Vardhan - Science and Technology; Earth sciences
•    Prakash Javadekar - Human Resource Development
Ministers of state
•    Rao Inderjit Singh - Planning (Independent Charge); Urban Development; Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation
•    Bandaru Dattatreya - Labour and Employment (Independent Charge)
•    Rajiv Pratap Rudy - Skill development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge)
•    Vijay Goel - Youth Affairs and Sports (Independent Charge); Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
•    Shripad Yesso Naik - AAYUSH (Independent Charge)
•    Dharmendra Pradhan - Petroleum and Natural Gas (Independent Charge)
•    Piyush Goyal - Power (Independent Charge); Coal (Independent Charge); New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge); Mines (Independent Charge)
•    Jitendra Singh - Development of northeastern region (Independent Charge); Prime Minister’s Office; Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions; Department of Atomic Energy; Department of Space
•    Nirmala Sitharaman - Commerce and industry (Independent Charge)
•    Mahesh Sharma - Culture (Independent Charge); Tourism (Independent Charge)
•    Manoj Sinha - Communications (Independent Charge); Railways
•    Anil Madhav Dave - Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge)
•    VK Singh - External affairs
•    Santosh Kumar Gangwar - Finance
•    Faggan Singh Kulaste - Health and family welfare
•    Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi - Minority Affairs; Parliamentary Affairs
•    SS Ahluwalia - Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Parliamentary Affairs
•    Ramdas Athawale - Social Justice and Empowerment
•    Ram Kripal Yadav - Rural Development
•    Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary - Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
•    Giriraj Singh - Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
•    Hansraj Gangaram Ahir - Home Affairs
•    GM Siddeshwara - Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises
•    Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi - Drinking Water and Sanitation
•    Rajen Gohain - Railways
•    Parshottam Rupala - Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Panchayati Raj
•    MJ Akbar - External Affairs
•    Upendra Kushwaha - Human Resources Development
•    Radhakrishnan P - Road Transport and Highways; Shipping
•    Kiren Rijiju - Home Affairs
•    Krishan Pal - Social Justice and Empowerment
•    Jasvantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor - Tribal Affairs
•    Sanjeev Kumar Balyan - Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
•    Vishnu Deo Sai - Steel
•    Sudarshan Bhagat - Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
•    YS Chowdary - Science and Technology; Earth Science
•    Jayant Sinha - Civil Aviation
•    Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore - Information and Broadcasting
•    Babul Supriyo - Urban Development Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation
•    Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti - Food Processing Industries
•    Vijay Sampla - Social Justice and Empowerment
•    Arjun Ram Meghwal – Finance; Corporate Affairs
•    Mahendra Nath Pandey - HRD
•    Ajay Tamta - Textiles
•    Krishna Raj - Women and Child Development
•    Mansukh L Mandaviya - Road transport and Highways, Shipping; Chemicals and Fertilizers
•    Anupriya Patel - Health and Family Welfare
•    CR Chaudhary - Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution
•    PP Chaudhary - Law and Justice; Electronics and Information Technology
•    Subhash Ramrao Bhamre - Defence

The Union Finance Ministry has constituted four members committee to examine the feasibility and desirability of having a new financial year. 
•    The committee has been tasked to examine the merits and demerits of various dates for the commencement of the financial year including the existing date (April to March) by taking into account the various relevant factors. 
•    The committee will be headed by Dr. Shankar Acharya (former Chief Economic Adviser). 
•    Besides it will consist of PV Rajaraman (former Finance Secretary, Tamil Nadu), KM Chandrasekhar (former Cabinet Secretary) and Dr. Rajiv Kumar (Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research) as its members. 
•    Take into consideration genesis of the current financial year and the earlier studies made in the past on the desirability of change in financial year. 
•    It will take into consideration suitability of the financial year from point of view of 
(i) Correct estimations of receipts and expenditure of Union and State Governments. 
(ii) Effect of the different agricultural crop periods. 
(iii) Relationship of financial year on the working season. 
(iv) Impact on business. 
(v) Taxation systems and procedures. 
(vi) Statistics and data collection. 
(vii) Convenience of the legislatures for transacting budget work. 
(viii) Other relevant matters 
•    Recommend the date of commencement of the financial year which in its views is most suitable for the country. 
•    In case the committee recommends change in financial year, it will also work out on the modalities for effecting the change. It will include 
(i) Appropriate timing of change 
(ii) Determination of transitional period 
(iii) Changing tax laws during transitional period 
(iv) Amendments needed in various statues 
(v) Changes in coverage of the recommendations of the Finance Commission. 
•    It can interact with experts, institutions, Government Departments and others as deemed necessary. The committee will submit its report to the Union Government by 31st December 2016.

India was placed at 91st position in the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 2016 that was released by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF) on 6 July 2016. The index was released as the part of the WEF’s Global Information Technology Report 2016.
It measures countries’ success in creating the necessary conditions for a transition to a digitised economy and society.
•    It finds seven countries are excelling when it comes to economically benefiting from investments in information and communications technologies
•    Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, the Netherlands and the US are leading the world when it comes to generating economic impact from investments in information and technology.
•    Singapore leads the Index followed by Finland, Sweden, Norway and the United States.
•    India (91st) was ranked the lowest among the BRICS countries- Russia (41st), China (59th), South Africa (65th) and Brazil (72nd). 
•    The upper echelons of the NRI continue to reflect a strong correlation between networked readiness and per capita income, roughly 75% of the countries show a score improvement in 2016. 
•    Convergence, at the global and regional level, remains elusive, with four regions – Eurasia, Emerging Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan (MENAP) group, and sub-Saharan Africa.
•    Europe remains at the technology frontier; seven of the top 10 NRI countries are European.
•    Several Eastern European countries, notably the Slovak Republic, Poland and the Czech Republic made big strides landing spots in the NRI top 50.
•    The Eurasia region continues its upward trajectory, with the average NRI for the region increasing significantly since 2012.
•    Malaysia leads the Emerging Asian economies in 2016 and moves up one spot to 31st position overall.
•    The top five in the Asian region in terms of overall ICT readiness remain Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka.
•    The performance range by countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region remains widely dispersed with almost 100 places between Chile (38th) and Haiti (137th).
•    The United Arab Emirates (26th) and Qatar (27th) continue to lead the Arab world in networked-readiness.
•    The NRI also sees several sub-Saharan African countries among the top upward movers, including South Africa (65th), Ethiopia (120th) and Côte d’Ivoire (106th).
•    India’s position on the list has come down for the fourth consecutive year in a row in 2016 from 89th in 2015, 83rd in 2014 and 68th in 2013. 
•    In different parameters of Index, India has scored better in terms of political and regulatory environment (78th position). 
•    It ranked very high (8th) place in terms of affordability. 
•    It scored worse in terms of business and innovation environment (110th). 
•    In terms of infrastructure, it scored worse place at 114th position.

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the National Mineral Exploration Policy (NMEP). 
The NMEP primarily aims at accelerating the exploration activity in the country through enhanced participation of the private sector. 
There is a need for comprehensive mineral exploration of the country to uncover its full mineral potential so as to put the nation's mineral resources (non-fuel and non-coal) to best use and thereby maximize sectoral contribution to the Indian economy. 
The policy emphasizes on making available baseline geoscientific data of world standards in the public domain, quality research in a public-private partnership, special initiatives for search of deep-seated and concealed deposits, quick aerogeophysical surveys of the country, and creation of a dedicated geoscience database etc. 
i.    The Ministry of Mines will carry out auctioning of identified exploration blocks for exploration by private sector on revenue sharing basis in case their exploration leads to auctionable resources. The revenue will be borne by the successful bidder of those auctionable blocks. 
ii.    If the explorer agencies do not discover any auctionable resources, their exploration expenditure will be reimbursed on normative cost basis. 
iii.    Creation of baseline geoscientific data as a public good for open dissemination free of charge. 
iv.    Government will carry out a National Aerogeophysical Program for acquiring state-of-the-art baseline data for targeting concealed mineral deposits. 
v.    A National Geoscientific Data Repository is proposed to be set up to collate all baseline and mineral exploration information generated by various central & state government agencies and also mineral concession holders and to maintain these on geospatial database. 
vi.    Government proposes to establish a not-for-profit autonomous institution that will be known as the National Centre for Mineral Targeting (NCMT) in collaboration with scientific and research bodies, universities and industry for scientific and technological research to address the mineral exploration challenges in the country. 
vii.    Provisions for inviting private investment in exploration through attractive revenue sharing models. 
viii.    On the lines of UNCOVER project of Australia, the government intends to launch a special initiative to probe deep-seated/ concealed minerals deposits in the country in collaboration with National Geophysical Research Institute and the proposed NCMT and Geoscience Australia. 
•    In order to implement the recommendations of the NMEP, initially an amount of about Rs.2116 crore over 5 years would be required over and above the annual plan budget of the Geological Survey of India under the Ministry of Mines. The NMEP will benefit the entire mineral sector across the country. 
•    The pre-competitive baseline geoscientific data will be created as a public good and will be fully available for open dissemination free of charge. This is expected to benefit public and private exploration agencies. 
•    The collaboration with scientific and research bodies, universities and industry for the scientific and technological development necessary for exploration in public- private partnership. 

•    Government will launch a special initiative to probe deep-seated/concealed mineral deposits in the country. Characterizing India's geological cover, investigating India's lithospheric architecture, resolving 4D geodynamic and metallogenic evolution, and detecting and characterizing the distal footprints of ore deposits, would be the main components of this initiative. 
•    A National Aerogeophysical Mapping program will be launched to map the entire country with low altitude and close space flight to delineate the deep-seated and concealed mineral deposits. 
•    Government will engage private agencies for carrying out exploration in identified blocks / areas with the right to certain share in the revenue accruing to the State government through auction. 
•    Public expenditure on regional and detailed exploration will be prioritized and subject to periodical review based on assessment of criticality and strategic interests.

China inducted its largest indigenously-built transport aircraft named as Y-20, marking a crucial step in its Air Force history for improving its strategic power projection capability. 
•    It is also considered as a breakthrough for Chinese defence sector especially in military aviation technology which will allow the world’s largest force to transport cargo and troops over long distances in diverse weather conditions. 
•    The indigenously designed and developed Y-20 officially joined the PLA Air Force in Chengdu. 
•    It is ideal for transporting cargo and personnel over long distances in diverse weather conditions. It has a maximum take-off weight of 200 tonnes. 
•    The plane is comparable to the Russian-made IL-76 and US made C-17. 
•    It is more advance than the IL-476. 
•    Its induction will make easier for Chinese PLA to deploy troops, enable military to act more promptly and respond to emergencies in a better manner 
•    The Y-20 had undergone its maiden flight in January 2013 and since then it had undergone trials runs, including in the rugged Tibetan terrain, 
•    It had made its debut at the 10th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in November 2014.

Rajasthan in the first week of July 2016 became the first state in the country to introduce minimum wages for part time workers.

• The Labour Department of Rajasthan has also issued a notification in this regard.
• As per the notification, it becomes mandatory to pay 50% of the prescribed a day minimum wage to a person who works for less than four hours in a day.
• With the notification, part time workers now come under the Minimum Wages Act 1948.
• The Minimum Wages Act 1948 is an Act of Parliament concerning Indian labour law that sets the minimum wages that must be paid to skilled and unskilled labours.
•During November 1948, the Central Advisory Council in its first session appointed a Tripartite Committee of Fair Wage.
•This committee came up with the concept of Minimum Wages.
• Indian Government introduced the Minimum Wages Act in 1948, giving both the Union Government and State Governments jurisdiction in fixing wages.
•The act is legally non-binding, but statutory.