The Big Picture: Union Budget - Arun Jaitley's roadmap

India’s challenge of securing the seas

Three recent events underline India’s efforts to highlight its growing maritime interests and ambitions in order to secure them unilaterally and in partnership with others. The first was the quiet release of the Indian Maritime Security Strategy (IMSS) titled Ensuring Secure Seas in October. The second was the holding of the combined senior commanders’ conference, with top officers from all three services, on board INS Vikramaditya , the Indian Navy’s latest aircraft carrier and its largest platform, in December. The last and most recent was India’s hosting of its second International Fleet Review (IFR) at Visakhapatnam in early February. While the pomp and circumstance as well as the photo-ops of the IFR, which attracted naval vessels from 50 countries, predictably, created the biggest splash, its significance is best understood in tandem with the 185-page IMSS-2015. Although the document is simultaneously comprehensive, conservative and cautious, it conveys on...

Differences between Indus civilization & Vedic Culture

What were the Differences between Indus civilization & Vedic Culture? The Indus civilization and Vedic culture constitute two great corner stone's in the history of Indian culture and civilization. When we make a comparison between the two, we notice more differences than similarities. Our sources of information of the Harappan civilization are mainly archaeological, while the Vedic culture is mostly known from the literary sources - the Vedas. Differences: Harappans are said to have been the original inhabitants of India while the Aryans, the founders of Vedic culture, are believed to have come to India from Central Asia. The Harappan civilization was urban in nature as is evidenced by its town-planning, drainage system, and granary and so on. The Vedic culture was rural. There is almost complete absence of towns in the Rigvedic period. At best the Rigvedic Aryans lived in fortified places protected by mud walls; and these cannot be regarded as towns in the Harap...

UDAY bonds fetch Rs.99000 crore

Eight states have issued bonds worth over Rs.98,959.96 crore under UDAY Bonds scheme in 2015-16, which is aimed at improving operational and financial efficiency of state power distribution companies . As part of the scheme, Reserve Bank had issued the special bonds (non-SLR special securities) on behalf of eight state governments in the last fiscal, according to a Reserve Bank of India statement. The Power Ministry had unveiled UDAY (Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) on November 20, 2015. The scheme is expected to help discoms save about Rs. 1.8 lakh crore in the next three years . The cumulative debt of discoms is Rs 4.37 lakh crore. These securities have been issued by the state governments under the Government Securities Act, 2006 and are eligible for market repo , RBI added. UDAY (Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana) for financial turnaround of Power Distribution Companies Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojna or UDAY – new scheme moved b...

Civil Service Bytes

Search This Blog