In January 2019, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) marked its third anniversary. India has been the bank’s biggest beneficiary, with a quarter of the AIIB’s approved projects geared towards its development. India is also the only country apart from Chinato enjoy a permanent seat on the Bank’s board of directors. Headquartered in Beijing, it … Continue reading Prelims Primer

In June 2017, the government of India launched the National Data Repository (NDR) and Open Acreage Licensing Policy (OALP) under the progressive, market driven Hydrocarbon Exploration and Licensing Policy (HELP) of Government of India. What is OALP and how is it different? OALP is a new government policy which marks a departure from the previous … Continue reading Open Acreage Licensing Policy

The U.S. is the World Bank’s largest shareholder and has 16% of its voting power, normally picks its President, with the Europeans picking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) head. Centre’s scheme of income support for farmers announced in the Union budget which envisages the payment of Rs. 6,000 per annum to marginal and small farmers … Continue reading Prelims Primer

History of Universal Basic Income (UIB) in India: The first serious attempt to figure out how to guarantee a minimum standard of living for every Indian was made way back in 1962. A group of economists at the Planning Commission, led by Pitambar Pant, wrote about how every citizen could be guaranteed a minimum standard … Continue reading Universal Basic Income

  The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the restructuring of existing National Health Agency as "National Health Authority" for better implementation of Pradhan Mantri - Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). With this approval, the existing society "National Health Agency" has been dissolved and will be replaced by National Health Authority … Continue reading Prelims Primer

This article is the sixth part of the ‘Education’ series of articles. Read Part V here. ‘Education ’ is a hot topic for UPSC. Questions from this topic can be expected in the essay paper or any other general studies paper. Therefore, in order to cover various aspects and dimensions of this topic we bring to … Continue reading Education Series – Part VI

The Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change had constituted a Committee in June 2014 under the Chairmanship of Dr. Shailesh Nayak (Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences) to examine the various issues and concerns of Coastal States/UTs and other stakeholders for recommending appropriate changes in the CRZ Notification, 2011. Committees on defence reforms - The … Continue reading Prelims Primer

Relevance - Palghar district (in Maharashtra) has seen thousands of small earthquakes since November 2018, but the March 01, 2019 quake measuring 4.3 on the moment magnitude (Mw) (a measure of earthquake magnitude) scale was the first time the magnitude crossed 4 here. What is a earthquake swarm? As on February 6, a seismometer located … Continue reading Hydro-seismicity

Kerala has become the first State to set up a price monitoring and research unit (PMRU) to track violation of prices of essential drugs and medical devices under the Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO). The move comes more than five years after the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) proposed such a system for the States … Continue reading Prelims Primer