The Things You Should Know

26 th November 1949 - The day when India officially adopted its constitution. The Constitution of India is the lengthiest of all the written constitutions of the world. It is a very comprehensive, elaborate and detailed document. Originally (1949), the Constitution contained a Preamble, 395 Articles (divided into 22 Parts) and 8 Schedules. Presently, it consists of a Preamble, about 465 Articles (divided into 25 Parts) and 12 Schedules. The various amendments carried out since 1951 have deleted about 20 Articles and one Part (VII) and added about 85 Articles, four Parts (IVA, IXA, IXB and XIVA) and four Schedules (9, 10, 11 and 12). No other Constitution in the world has so many Articles and Schedules. The idea of a Constituent Assembly was put forward by M N Roy (Manabendra Nath Roy – Indian revolutionary, radical activist, political theorist, founder of Mexican Communist Party and Communist Party of India) for the first time in 1934. In 1935, the Indian National Congress (INC)...

What is Multi brand Retail : Multi brand retail means selling similar products of multiple brands under one roof. For example DMart or Big Bazzar sells same products like soaps, shampoos, t-shirts of multiple brands under one roof. Whereas Adidas or Nike is an example of 'Single Brand Retail'. It sells products of its own brand only for example Nike t-shirts, Nike shoes etc. FDI in Multi Brand Retail in India:  The UPA-1 wanted to allow 51% FDI in multi brand retail, but it wasn't allowed by the Left parties and the BJP. In the UPA-1 government Congress party had only 145 MPs in the Lok Sabha. Left had 60 MPs and it was part of UPA alliance. Hence Congress was not able to allow FDI in multi brand retail without the support of Left parties.  Scenario changed little bit in favour of Congress in UPA-2. Congress had 209 MPs in 15th Lok Sabha. Hence Congress tried to implement its FDI reform more rigorously during UPA-2. Opposition was still there from BJP and other opposi...

On Tuesday 4th October 2016, The Governor of Reserve Bank of India Mr Urjit Patel announced his first monetary policy in Mumbai. This is the fourth Bi-Monthly monetary policy of financial year 2016-17.  Monetary Policy Committee(MPC):   On June 27, 2016, the Government amended the RBI Act to hand over the job of monetary policy-making in India to a newly constituted Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). MPC is a six member committee. This committee has three members from RBI - Governor, deputy Governor and one other official and three independent members selected by the government. The MPC will meet four times a year to decide on monetary policy by a majority vote. And if there’s a tie, the RBI governor gets the deciding vote. Members of MPC: Urjit Patel - Governor of RBI R Gandhi - Deputy Governor of RBI Michael Patra - Executive Director Chetan Ghate - A ssociate professor of Planning Unit at Indian Statistical Institute Delhi  Pami Dua - Director at Delhi sch...

The Union Cabinet has decided to advance the Union Budget from February to January. The reason behind is to approve the budget constitutionally by the Parliament and get assent by the President of India and allocate at different tires disseminated to budget holders before the financial year begins on April 1st.This process will eliminate the current 'vote on account' procedure, require to withdraw the amount from the consolidated fund of India to carry out normal activities after 31st March till the Appropriation bill becomes Appropriation Act. Advancing the budget date will allow the government to release fund by April. The Finance Ministry has proposed that the budget presentation be fixed for 1st February and entire exercise be completed till March 24.  It wanted the Budget Session of Parliament to begin before January 25 and go in for a three-week break between February 10 and 15 before reconvening between March 10 and 15 to complete the legislative exercise.  But wit...

The 92 years old colonial practice of presenting separate Rail Budget will come to an end next year. From next fiscal, there will be  no separate Rail Budget. Railway Minister will now announce his projects after the annual budget is presented. The Railway Budget was separated from the General Budget in 1921, on the recommendations of Acworth Committee. The first separate rail budget was presented in 1924. The main objective of the separation of Rail Budget was to introduce flexibility in railway finance. To facilitate a business approach to the railway policy, to secure stability of the general revenues by providing an assured annual contribution from railway revenues and to enable the railways to keep their profits for their own development were among the other reasons. The move to separate rail budget comes after the two member committee comprising of NITI Ayog member Bibek Debroy and Kishor Desai recommended the exercise be scrapped. As per the Government sources, t...

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is popularly known as Forest Rights Act 2006. The bill was introduced by the then UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government in the Lower House of the Parliament (Lok Sabha) on December 13, 2005. The bill was passed by the Parliament on 18th December, 2006. The main objective of this bill was to recognise and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have been residing in such forests for generations but whose rights could not be recorded; to provide for a framework for recording the forest rights so vested and the nature of evidence required for such recognition and vesting in respect of forest land. The recognised rights of the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other forest dwellers include the responsibility and authority of sustainable use, conservation of biodiversity and maintenance of...

The financial inclusion has always remain the high priority for all the governments after independence. But it has been a huge challenge for the government specially in the rural regions. Nationalisation of banks in 1980 by the Indira Ganghi government gave huge boost to the financial inclusion program. Swabhimaan is a path breaking initiative by the government of India and Indian Banks'association to bridge the gap between the rural India and urban India. The main objective of Swabhimaan Yojna is to take the banking system to door steps of the remote village where the banking facility is not available and to bring the deprived sections of the society in the banking network to ensure that the benefits of economic growth reach everyone at all levels. It was the big step towards socio-economic equality by bringing the underprivileged segments of Indian population into the formal banking fold for the first time. The Swabhimaan Yojna was launched by the UPA (United Progressi...

What is Devaluation of Currency?   The devaluation of currency means officially lowering the value of the currency with respect to the foreign exchange currency within a fixed exchange rate system and the monetary authority sets the new value of exchange rate with respect to the foreign currency. Rupee Devaluation 1991: The end of the year 1990 and the beginning of 1991 was very crucial time for India. India was going through its biggest financial crisis. The new government led by P. V. Narasimha Rao took charge at the Delhi after 1991 general elections. The government was close to default and its foreign exchange reserves had dried upto the point that India could barely afford the three week's worth of imports. The problem began in the middle 80's when the total imports of the country started to overtook the total exports of the country. It was not the condition that export was its lowest level, even as the exports continued to grow through the late 80's, intere...

Pay Commission of India: Central Pay Commission of India is appointed by the Central Government, most probably once in every decade. The Central Pay Commission is appointed by the government to analyse and revise the salary and pension structure of the central government employees. The first Central Pay Commission was appointed in January 1946 and submitted its report in May 1947 to the then interim government headed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The chairman of the 1st Pay Commission was Srinivasa Varadachariar. Till date total seven Pay Commissions are set up by the government to take recommendations on the salary structure of central government employees. 7th Central Pay Commission: The 7th Central Pay Commission was constituted in 2013 by the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. In September 2013, Mr P Chidambaram made official announcement regarding the constitution of 7th Pay Commission and also declared that the recommendations will be i...

Currently there are 7 national parties in India. The status of political parties are periodically reviewed by the Election Commission of India. The new parties that wish to contest local, state or national elections are required to be registered by the Election Commission of India. The registered parties are upgraded as recognised state or national parties based upon the criteria set by the Election Commission. The recognised party has reserved party symbol. It can consult in setting of election dates and give inputs in setting electoral rules and regulations. In the current amendment of the symbols order the commission has mentioned that the party that loses its recognition will not immediately lose its party symbol but will be given facility to use its symbol some time to try and retrieve its status. However the grant to use the party symbol will not give parties other facilities such as free time in Doordarshan/AIR, free supply of copies of electoral rolls etc.   ...