Current Affair 1:

A New Draft National Policy for Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), 2021

The Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India published a Draft National Policy for Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan), 2021.

The policy has been drafted following a review of the existing 2006 policy so as to bring India’s policy in consonance with the developments that took place since then.

India signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (UNCRPD) 2007, enacted the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (RPwD) and adopted the National Education Policy, 2020.

Persons with disabilities constituted 2.2% of the Indian population according to the 2011 Census

According to Census 2011, there are 2.68 crore persons with disabilities (PwD) in India which accounts for 2.2% of India’s population.

This number is expected to increase significantly as the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 has come into force, under which the government has added more types of disabilities, increasing the number of types from 7 in the 1995 Act to 21. See below once.

Ministry of Health & Ministry of Social Justice have legislations dealing with PwDs

As of now, there are four major national legislations which deal with PwDs, viz; Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992; National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999; and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 implemented by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 implemented by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

 

The new draft policy calls for interventions in disability prevention, education, healthcare, social security, sports, culture, recreation, and accessibility.

Some of the key measures suggested in the policy are:

1. Measures to make the certification process faster
2. Compliance with RPwD Act is mandatory for granting permission to educational institutions
3. An employment exchange portal for PwDs will be developed
4. MoRTH will issue guidelines to make modifications to personal vehicles used by PwDs.

Not necessary to read more about draft. This is enough for now.

 

Current Affair 2:

Impact of Dollar and other foreign currencies appreciation/depreciation on India's Forex Reserves

Our FOREX reserve has several foreign currencies including US dollar. But our forex is expressed in terms of US dollars. So, now suppose we have in our forex one billion Pound also. and the Dollar Pound rate is:  $ 1 = pound 0.8  . So, one billion pound will be $ 1.25 billion in our forex. Now suppose pound appreciates to $1 = pound 0.75. So, now the same one billion pound will be $ 1.33 billion in our forex. and RBI will say that our forex increased. But if dollar appreciates say, $ 1 = pound 1. So, now one billion pound will be just $ 1 billion in our Forex and RBI will say our Forex decreased.

So, if other currencies in our Forex appreciates, our Forex will increase. And if Dollar appreciates with respect to other currencies, then our Forex will decrease.

Current Affair 3:

Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS)

News is: Cabinet approves Computerization of Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS). We will learn news in the end. We will see PACS before.

Understand the basics.

The rural co-operative credit system in India is primarily mandated to ensure flow of credit to the agriculture sector. It comprises short-term and long-term co-operative credit structures. The short-term co-operative credit structure operates with a three-tier system - Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) at the village level, Central Cooperative Banks (CCBs) at the district level and State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) at the State level.

PACS are outside the purview of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and hence not regulated by the Reserve Bank of India. StCBs/DCCBs are registered under the provisions of State Cooperative Societies Act of the State concerned and are regulated by the Reserve Bank.

PACS are regulated by State Government and the Registrar of Co-operative Societies appointed by the State.

PACS is the first building block of the century-old cooperative banking system of India. Each PACS was designed to be a village-level credit society into which the farmers brought in share capital, deposits and provided loans to each other. Elected members, one- member-one-vote, transparency, ground-level reach, ease of operations, speed, human connect—almost everything about the structure of a PACS makes for robust ‘public policy for credit’.

Powers have been delegated to National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) under Sec 35 (6) of the Banking Regulation Act (As Applicable to Cooperative Societies) to conduct inspection of State and Central Cooperative Banks.

Recently, NABARD has decided to develop 35,000 PACS into Multi Service Centres (MSCs) in mission-mode. The initiative will enable PACS to support farmers in post-harvest marketing activities and provide ancillary services to its members like creation of storage and processing facilities, custom hiring centres and collective purchase of inputs. This will also help in increasing non-fund-based income of the PACS.

Cabinet approves Computerization of Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS)

1) As PACS were not computerized till now, there is no uniformity in the software being used by them and they are not interconnected with the DCCBs and StCBs.

2) It will bring efficiency in PACS, transparency and accountability in their operations

3) It will facilitate PACS to diversify their business and undertake multiple activities/ services.

4) PACS account for 41%  of the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans given by all entities in the Country and 95 % of these KCC loans are to the Small and Marginal farmers.

5) Computerization of PACS, besides serving the purpose of financial inclusion and strengthening service delivery to farmers especially Small & Marginal Farmers (SMFs) will also will become nodal service delivery point for various services such as DBT, Interest Subvention Scheme (ISS), Crop Insurance and provision of inputs like fertilizers, seeds etc.

6) Computerization will help in improving the outreach of the PACS as outlets for banking activities as well as non-Banking activities apart from improving digitalisation in rural areas.

 

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