FDI Inflow
- According to RBI data, total FDI inflow in to India stood at USD 37.36 billion in 2017-18 financial year.
- It is a marginal rise over the USD 36.31 billion recorded in the previous fiscal.
- Mauritius remained the top source of foreign direct investment (FDI) into India in 2017-18 followed by Singapore.
- FDI in Manufacturing sector witnessed a substantial decline, whereas in Communication services, retail and wholesale trade, financial services sector witnessed a rise.
- These data reflect the global interest in new areas, including online marketplaces and financial technologies.
Report on Pollution
- Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based think tank has released a report titled “The urban Commute”.
- The report collected statistics from 14 cities - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kochi, Bhopal, Vijayawada and Chandigarh.
- According to the report, Bhopal has got the top spot for lowest overall emission and energy use from urban commute.
- On the other hand, Delhi ranked last in overall emission and fuel use.
- Kolkata and Mumbai are among the mega cities which emit least due to high usage of public transport and walking.
- The reason attributed for this is sheer number of people, high volume of travel and personal vehicles, and long trip distance.
- The report also highlighted that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from transport sector were highest among all other sectors in India.
India Post Payment Bank
- India Post Payment Bank (IPPB) was recently launched with an intention to make banking facility available at the doorstep of citizens and leverage the workforce of 300,000 postmen.
- It will be a 100% government owned entity.
- It will act as a bank, allowing accounts to be opened.
- A customer can make deposits into the account but the total amount is limited to Rs 1 lakh.
- Amounts deposited in excess of Rs 1 lakh will get automatically transferred to the savings bank account.
- Other normal services offered by banks like payments and remittance services, mobile payments, transfers, purchases, ATM cards, net banking and third-party fund transfers will all be made available.
- It can issue debit cards but not credit cards.
- However, it cannot lend loans to customers.
- The interest on the IPPB savings account will be the same as what the banks offer, which is 4% per annum.
EAS-EMM
- East Asia Summit - Economic Ministers’ Meeting (EAS-EMM) was recently held in Singapore.
- The meeting was attended by Economic Ministers from 10 ASEAN countries and their eight dialogue partners.
- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam are ASEAN members.
- The dialogue partners are Australia, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the Russian Federation and the United States of America.
- It was followed by the 15th ASEAN Economic Ministers - India Consultation.
Department of Official Language
- It is under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
- Union Home Minister has recently chaired the first review meeting of the Department of Official Language.
- The officials discussed the functioning and issues related to implementation of Hindi language in official work.
- An E-learning platform called the “Pravah” is being developed by the department for use in 16 Indian languages including English.
- It will enable anybody learn Hindi through his/her mother tongue with the help of this E-learning platform.
- A software called “Kanthasth” has also been developed by the department.
- It is for translating the all kinds of official files from English to Hindi and vice versa to make the translation work simpler and quicker.
Source: PIB, The Hindu
