Indian Railways has announced on 17 March 2015 the increase in platform ticket price from Rs.5, which would be effective from 1 April 2015. What will be new platform ticket price in India from 1 April 2015?: Rs.10
Explanation: The increase of platform ticket from rs. 5 to rs.10 will be effective from 1 April 2015. The decision was made to check the unwanted rush at railway stations during the peak seasons like any festivals or mela. Divisional Railway Managers (DRM) have been empowered to increase the rate of platform ticket beyond Rs 10 to regulate rush at platform during specific requirements. Along with this in 2015-16 budget, it was approved to increase the advance booking from 60 days to 120 days which would also be going to be effective from 1 April 2015.
The government on 18 March 2015 launched a Rs 200 crore scheme to set up a network of technology and incubation centres to accelerate entrepreneurship and promote start-ups for innovation and entrepreneurship in which industry?: Agro-industry
Explanation: The scheme emanates from Budget presented in July 2015 by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in which he had proposed a technology centre network to promote innovation, entrepreneurship and agro-industry by setting up a fund with a corpus of Rs 200 crore. Thus under this proposed plan this new scheme is designed to provide necessary skill set for setting up business enterprises and also to facilitate the market linkages available to entrepreneurs and to provide hand holding for a critical period to ensure self sustainability. Therefore to start the project and make the fund available government has ensure that credit is available for start-ups, the MSME Ministry has created a fund of funds of Rs 60 crore to be channelized through SIDBI.
Eight Investment Banks will share token money Re.1 Fee for which bank’s Divestment thus helping the bank to raise 1000-15000 Crore?: State Bank of India
Explanation: The ministry wanted to follow the department of disinvestment model in awarding mandates and hence, banks had to quote the lowest fee possible. There are two reasons for investment bankers rushing to manage such prestigious mandates: One is the fight to capture the top slot in the league table and second, the issue will get some of the banks a share of the float in some of its branches. Out of 8 (Eight) investment banks, Four of the investment banks selected to manage the issue - Citigroup Capital Markets, Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are global players while the other four — Kotak Mahindra Capital Co, JM Financial, ICICI Securities and SBI Caps are from National players.
In an Event on 19 March 2014, India is likely to take a "flexible approach" on tariffs on which 2 category of service in the free-trade agreement negotiations with the European Union, marking a shift from the hard stance it adopted until the talks broke down two years ago?: Spirits and Auto components
Explanation: India’ Flexible approach comes after the Indian parliament approved raising the foreign investment cap in the insurance sector to 49% from 26% which was also a key demand of the EU. The negotiations on the FTA, which began in 2007 and came to halt after the April 2013 talks that ran into a deadlock. Negotiations for the broad-based investment and trade agreement (BITA) between India and the EU began in 2007 and the two sides had 15 rounds of talks till April 2013, when India gave the option of an incremental approach to the FTA (which means signing whatever has been achieved and taking up the pending issues later) however, EU was keen on the entire agreement at one go and declined the incremental approach.
Country's largest insurer LIC on 19 March 2015 has picked up 9.9 percent stake in which rating agency for about Rs 428 crore?: CARE
Explanation: CARE Ratings commenced operations in April 1993 and over nearly two decades, it has established itself as the second-largest credit rating agency in India. With the rating volume of debt of around Rs. 57,111 bn (as on March 2014), CARE Ratings is proud of its rightful place in the Indian capital market built around investor confidence. CARE Ratings has also emerged as the leading agency for covering many rating segments like that for banks, sub-sovereigns and IPO gradings. Thus, LIC on 19 March 2015 acquired 28,82,136 shares of the rating agency CARE through a bulk deal.
The Union Government on 20 March 2015 approved an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore to which government scheme/Yojana to provide skills training to youth, including Class 10 and 12 drop outs.?: Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)
Explanation: The flagship scheme “Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana” (PMKVY) will cover 24 lakh persons will be implemented by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Currently NSDC has 187 training partners that have over 2,300 centres and in addition, Central/state Governments affiliated training providers would also be used for training under the scheme.
Therefore, under this scheme the total money allocated as:
- Out of the total outlay of Rs 1,120 crore to be spent on skill training of 14 lakh youth.
- Special emphasis has been given to recognition of prior learning for which an amount of Rs 220 crore has been granted.
- Awareness building and mobilization efforts would be focused for attention, for which Rs 67 crore has been provided
- An allocation of Rs 150 crore has been made for training of youth from the North-East region
Which city will become the first state in the country to launch an e-ration card service next week which links ration and Aadhaar cards in order to curb and check corruption and increase transparency in the system?: Delhi
Explanation: E-Ration service is applicable to those who have Aadhaar card or applied for it. Person having Aadhaar card can apply e-Ration online by mentioning the Aadhaar number while those whose application is pending can provide online slip for the proof. However, this is not mandatory as other identity proofs are also applicable to avail the scheme. With the launch of e-Ration service, Delhi government will also look to start issuing temporary Fair Price Shop (FPS)-licences. At present there are around 25,000 FPS in Delhi, according to government data and in case of cancellation of any license the process to get new license is too lengthy and also it take almost 3 months to issue and set-up an FPS, which is operated by private players to provide subsided food grains thus government will now issue temporary licenses in seven days which will be valid for three months.
The Union Government on 20 March 2015 approved an outlay of Rs 1,500 crore to which government scheme/Yojana to provide skills training to youth, including Class 10 and 12 drop outs.?: Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)
Explanation: The flagship scheme “Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana” (PMKVY) will cover 24 lakh persons will be implemented by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Currently NSDC has 187 training partners that have over 2,300 centres and in addition, Central/state Governments affiliated training providers would also be used for training under the scheme.
Therefore, under this scheme the total money allocated as:
- Out of the total outlay of Rs 1,120 crore to be spent on skill training of 14 lakh youth.
- Special emphasis has been given to recognition of prior learning for which an amount of Rs 220 crore has been granted.
- Awareness building and mobilization efforts would be focused for attention, for which Rs 67 crore has been provided
- An allocation of Rs 150 crore has been made for training of youth from the North-East region
Eight Investment Banks will share token money Re.1 Fee for which bank’s Divestment thus helping the bank to raise 1000-15000 Crore?: State Bank of India
Explanation: The ministry wanted to follow the department of disinvestment model in awarding mandates and hence, banks had to quote the lowest fee possible. There are two reasons for investment bankers rushing to manage such prestigious mandates: One is the fight to capture the top slot in the league table and second, the issue will get some of the banks a share of the float in some of its branches. Out of 8 (Eight) investment banks, Four of the investment banks selected to manage the issue - Citigroup Capital Markets, Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are global players while the other four — Kotak Mahindra Capital Co, JM Financial, ICICI Securities and SBI Caps are from National players.
In an Event on 19 March 2014, India is likely to take a "flexible approach" on tariffs on which 2 category of service in the free-trade agreement negotiations with the European Union, marking a shift from the hard stance it adopted until the talks broke down two years ago?: Spirits and Auto components
Explanation: India’ Flexible approach comes after the Indian parliament approved raising the foreign investment cap in the insurance sector to 49% from 26% which was also a key demand of the EU. The negotiations on the FTA, which began in 2007 and came to halt after the April 2013 talks that ran into a deadlock. Negotiations for the broad-based investment and trade agreement (BITA) between India and the EU began in 2007 and the two sides had 15 rounds of talks till April 2013, when India gave the option of an incremental approach to the FTA (which means signing whatever has been achieved and taking up the pending issues later) however, EU was keen on the entire agreement at one go and declined the incremental approach.
