(2)
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*Loans to self-help groups will increase to Rs75,000 crore.
* Govt. allocated Rs5,750 crore to National Livelihood Mission and Rs2,600 crore to the groundwater irrigation scheme.
* Ayushman Bharat program discussed.
* Eklavya schools for tribal children.
* 24 new government medical colleges.
* Government is implementing a comprehensive social security scheme.
* Govt. will initiate an integrated B-Ed programme for teachers.
* Government proposes to launch the Revitalising of Infrastructure and Systems of Education (RISE) by next year.
* Govt. proposed to set up two new full-fledged schools of planning and architecture.
* 18 new schools of planning and architecture will be set up in the IITs and NITs.
* Rs. 1 lakh crore over 4 years for initiative for Infrastructure Devt. in education.
* 2 major initiatives as part of Ayushman Bharat program.
* Eklavya schools to be open for tribal children.
* National health protection scheme to cover 10 cr poor families. Health cover of up to 5 lakh per family per year for poor & vulnerable. National health protection scheme to benefit 50 crore people.
* 24 new govt medical college & hospitals.
* Rs. 600 crore for nutritional support to all TB patients.
* Rs. 1200 crore for health and wellness centres.
* Loans to women self-help groups of women to be increased to 75,000 cr by March 19.
* Govt. is launching a new national health protection scheme – Rashtriya Samaj Beema Yojana. This will have 50 crore beneficiaries and 10 crore families will get 5 lakh per year for their families to cover secondary and tertiary hospital expenses. This is the world's largest government-funded healthcare program.
* A Rs 600 crore corpus is being set up to help Tuberculosis patients. This will build a new India in 2022 and enhance productivity and will also generate lakhs of jobs for women.
* PM Jeevan Beema Yojana benefitted more than 2 crore families.
* Jan Dhan Yojana will be extended to all 60 crore bank accounts.
* The government increased allocation for SC-ST earmarked programmes: Rs 56,000 crore for SCs and Rs 39,000 crore for STs.
* By 2022, every block with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal people will have 'Ekalavya' school at par with Navodaya Vidyalas.
* The government will announce measures to address non-performing assets of MSMEs.
* As per the FM, Rs. 3 lakh crore for lending under is being allocated in FY 19 for PM's MUDRA Yojana.
* Smart city Mission and AMRUT discussed.
* Smart city command control centre discussed.
* Govt to contribute 12% of wages of new employees to EPF for 3 yrs.
* Rs. 7148 crore allocation for the textile sector.
* Govt. will launch a scheme for Galvanising Organic Bio-Agro Resources Dhan (GOBARDHAN).
* Under the Smart City mission, 99 cities selected with the outlay of Rs. 2.04 lakh crores.
* EPF contribution has been reduced to 8% for the first 3 years of employment and 12% government contribution to EPF in sectors employing a large number of people, however, there will be no changes in employer contribution.
* 10 tourist cities to be developed into iconic tourist destinations.
* 600 railway stations to be redeveloped.
* Over 3600 km railway track renovation targeted in the current year.
* Scheme for revitalizing school infrastructu[...]

re, with an allocation of 1 lakh crore rupees over four years. Called RISE - Revitalizing Infrastructure in School Education.
* The Bharatmala project has been approved and we are confident of completing 9000 km of highway construction.
* In Railways, 18,000 kms of doubling of tracks would eliminate capacity constraints.
* We are moving towards optimum electrification of railway. Over 3,600 km of track renewal is being targeted in 2018-19.
* 150 km additional suburban railway network at the cost of Rs. 40,000 cr.
* Regional air connectivity scheme shall connect 56 unserved airports.
* Airport capacity to be hiked to handle 1 billion trips per year.
* Training for 50 lakh youth by 2020.
* Customs duty increased on mobile phones from 15% to 20%.

The Super Blue Blood Moon: The term “Blood Moon” is used to describe a total lunar eclipse, because it causes the Moon to turn a dark reddish color. This happens whenever the Earth passes directly between the Sun and the Moon, and the Moon falls into our planet’s shadow, or umbra. The Moon doesn’t go completely dark, though: the Sun’s light still manages to shine onto the lunar surface, but it will appear mostly reddish-orange, thanks to a phenomenon known as “scattering.”

From today need for mock test practice.
To achieve the Goal

#KARPATHUIAS

Civil Services (Main) Examination, 2018 will commence on 28.09.2018 in place of 01.10.2018.
as per revised calendar of UPSC.

Economic Times
 
Business Standard
@UPSC_18

Ø  State Oil cos plan capex of Rs 89k crore, 50% for E&P

Ø  FPIs infuse Rs 22,000 crore in capital mkts in Jan

Ø  Assam all set to get Rs 1,00,000 crore investment

Ø  'Govt working to raise share of exports in GDP to 20%'

Ø  NITI Aayog facilitator for Act East Policy: Kant

Ø  RCom seeks withdrawal of directive on subscriber refund

Ø  DoT to float new draft telecom policy within a week

 

Ø  Cash-strapped government has cut back on budgetary support to PSUs

Ø  LTCG tax kitty from stocks to double to Rs 400 bn in FY20: Hasmukh Adhia

Ø  Govt expects up to Rs 40-bn surplus fund from Sebi: DEA Secretary

Ø  Sterlite Power to invest $10 bn in transmission lines to expand business

Ø  No federal financing for Adani's Carmichael rail line: Australian official

Business Line

 

Mint

Ø  Revenue deficit no longer a target of the govt

Ø  Central govt jobs go up 2.53 lakh in 2 years

Ø  FPI inflows at $3.5-bn in Jan on better earnings expectation

Ø  Richest companies have the lowest tax liability

Ø  Jaitley to brief SEBI board on Budget proposals

Ø  Strides Shasun arm gets USFDA nod for 2 products

 

Ø  Sebi may allow metal ETFs to attract retail investors

Ø  Expert panel rules against setting up new category of stents

Ø  Mahindra wins an order to supply 1000 e-Veritos to Bhagirathi

Ø  JSW Steel-Piramal to bid for Bhushan Steel, JFE Steel opts out

Ø  Maruti open to forge partnerships with local tech firms

Financial Express

 

Financial Chronicle

Ø  Central Board of Excise and Customs to be renamed CBIC by April

Ø  Godrej Properties sells Rs 700 cr worth office space in Mumbai

Ø  India to be manufacturing hub for Middle East & Africa, says Panasonic CEO Tetsuro Homma

Ø  ICICI Bank sees March quarter margin settling at 3.5 pct

 

Ø  FM signals fiscal slippage amid revenue uncertainty

Ø  Divestment target points to likely consolidation of oil & gas PSUs

MAINS DUE DATE IS PREPONE
Smart Strategy 🏆🥇

So less time between Pre and Mains and it includes many subjects with currents affairs allot.

So Feb is best time to complete once optional with basic command and answer writing practise. Beacuse all Rankers in top 150, Score more only via Optional Papers.

UPSC CSE-IAS Exam 2018 ☑️
Notification out
(February 07 to March 06)
June 3rd Exam.

There is no change in UPSC Mains Pattern 2018 : Optional subjects are have.

Notification_CSP_2018_Engl

Course on ‘digital citizenship and safety’

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Google and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have signed a pact to integrate a course on ‘digital citizenship and safety’ in information and communication technology curriculum

NCERT has curriculum on IT and communication technologies embedded in teachers training programme

The curriculum developed by NCERT in collaboration with Google will be used to train students from class I to class XII across 1.4 million schools in India

Components of curriculum

The curriculum is spread into four themes—being smart, being safe, being a digital citizen and being future ready

This will help student identify good content and bad content

In advance classes, it will focus on privacy, device management, intellectual property and reputation management


National Council of Educational Research and Training

The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India established on 1 September 1961

It is registered as a literary, scientific and charitable Society under the Societies’ Registration Act (Act XXI of 1860)

The NCERT was established with the agenda to design and support a common system of education which is national in character and also enables and encourages the diverse culture across the country

It is separate from the National Council for Teacher Education

National Curriculum Framework: The council came up with a new National Curriculum Framework in 2005, drafted by a National Steering Committee. This exercise was based on 5 guiding principles:

connecting knowledge to life outside school

a shift from the rote method of learning

enriching the curriculum for the overall development of children so that it goes beyond textbooks

making examinations flexible and integrating them into classroom life and

nurturing an identity informed by caring concerns.

Misuse is not a ground to strike down Aadhaar Act: SC
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The mere possibility of misuse cannot be a ground for striking down the Aadhaar Act, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud orally observed during a Constitution Bench hearing on the validity of the unique identity scheme.

“There has been a long list of judgments holding that a mere possibility of misuse will not lead to the striking down of legislation.

We have a little bit of a problem with that line of your argument,” Justice Chandrachud, a member of the five-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, told the Aadhaar petitioners.

To this, senior advocate Kapil Sibal said misuse has ceased to be a “possibility.”

“Misuse is happening. Misuse exists. Personal data is already out in the public domain. Once a genie is out of the bottle, it cannot be put back... So, if there is a consistent line of judgments, treat Aadhaar as an exception,” Mr. Sibal, who opened his submissions for petitioners Raghav Tankha and former IAS officer M.G. Devasahayam, submitted.

Justice A.K. Sikri, on the Bench, at one point, observed that if the government wanted information about a person it could access it even without the help of Aadhaar. “No, you cannot.

The government needs a court order,” Mr. Sibal reacted. Justice Sikri responded that “surely there were other ways...”

“On that, less said the better,” Mr. Sibal answered.

Noting that information is power in the digital world, Mr. Sibal said the “Right to Information Act of 2005 made the citizen more powerful, but the Aadhaar Act wants to make the state more powerful.”

Indian Tiger census

India’s tiger census, which began late last year, will see coordination with Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh in estimating the territorial spread of the animal in the subcontinent.

While India has engaged with Nepal and Bangladesh in previous tiger counts, this is the first time all countries are uniting in arriving at tiger numbers, particularly in regions with shared borders.

“We’ve had officials from these countries come to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for training,” said Y. Jhala, senior scientist.

“This time we hope it will be a simultaneous exercise and tigers aren’t double-counted.”

Since 2006, the WII — a Union Environment Ministry-funded body — has been tasked with coordinating the tiger estimation exercise.

The once-in-four-years exercise calculated, in 2006, that India had only 1,411 tigers.

This rose to 1,706 in 2010 and 2,226 in 2014 in later editions on the back of improved conservation measures and new estimation methods.

The survey — divided into four phases — began last winter and is expected to reveal its findings in early 2019.

Commissioned by the Union Environment Ministry’s National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Rs. 10 crore exercise this year involves 40,000 forest guards traversing 4,00,000 sq. km. of forests; wildlife biologists independently assessing them; approximately a year’s duration of field work; 14,000 camera traps; and coordination with 18 States.

Along with tigers, the survey also collects information on the prey population of deer and other animals.

Forest guards have Android phones and an app to storedata.

Officials said one challenge in past censuses was that a sighting, or traces of a tiger’s presence, had to be manually logged in. This led to errors in location data.

Agni-1 successfully test-fired

India successfully test-fired its short-range nuclear capable ballistic missile Agni-1 with a strike range of over 700 km from a test range off the Odisha coast, Defence sources said.

The indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile was launched as a part of a periodic training activity by the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Army to consolidate operational readiness, they said.

The state-of-the-art missile was launched around 8.30 a.m. from a mobile launcher at Pad 4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at the Dr. Abdul Kalam Island, formerly known as Wheeler Island, the sources said.

Describing the trial a “complete success”, they said that all the missio

n objectives were met during the test.

The sophisticated Agni-I missile is propelled by a solid rocket propellant system and is equipped with a specialised navigation system that ensures it reaches the target with a high degree of precision, the sources said.

Long Term Capital Gains Tax
@UPSC_2018

Any profit or gain that arises from the sale of a ‘capital asset’ is a capital gain. This gain or profit is charged to tax in the year in which the transfer of the capital asset takes place.

Capital gains are not applicable when an asset is inherited because there is no sale, only a transfer. 
Capital asset is defined to include:

a) Any kind of property held by an assesse, whether or not connected with business or profession of the assesse.

b) Any securities held by a FII which has invested in such securities in accordance with the regulations made under the SEBI Act, 1992.

However, the following items are excluded from the definition of "capital asset":
Any stock-in-trade, consumable stores, or raw materials held by a person for the purpose of his business or profession.

Government has introduced long-term capital gains tax of 10 percent if the gains exceed Rs 100,000 without allowing the benefit of indexation. However, all gains till 31st January 2018 will be grandfathered and short term capital gains remains unchanged at 15 percent.

For example, if the equity share is purchased 6 months before 31st January 2018 at Rs100 and the highest price quoted on 31st Jan is Rs120. There will be no tax on the sale, if the stock is sold after 1 year. However, any gains in excess of Rs20 earned after 31st Jan 2018 will be taxed at 10 percent if this share is sold after 31st July 2018.

Long-term capital gains were made tax exempt in 2004. 

PAIKA REBELLION

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#KARPATHUIAS
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Odisha government decided to make a formal demand to the Centre for declaring Paika Rebellion of 1817 as the first war of independence in Indian history. 

About Paika Rebellion

The Paik Rebellion was an armed rebellion against the British East India Company's rule in Odisha in 1817. 

Paikas were essentially the peasant militias of the Gajapati rulers of Odisha who rendered military service to the king during times of war while taking up cultivation during times of peace. They unfurled the banner of rebellion against the British under the leadership of Baxi Jagandhu Bidyadhara as early as 1817 to throw off the British yoke. 

History behind Paika rebellion

The British, having established their sway over Bengal Province and Madras Province to the north and south of Odisha, occupied it in 1803.The Gajapati King of Odisha Mukunda Deva-ll was a minor then and initial resistance by Jai Rajguru, the custodian of Mukunda Deva-II, was put down brutally and Jai Rajguru was torn apart alive. A few years later, it was the Paikas under Baxi Jagabandhu, the hereditary chief of the militia army of the Gajapati King, who rose in rebellion, taking support of tribals and other sections of society. 

Reason for revolt

The Paiks were alienated by the British regime, who took over the hereditary rent-free lands granted to them after the conquest of Khurda. They were also subjected to extortion and oppression at the hands of the company government and its servants. 

Initiatives

The Paikas attacked British symbols of power, setting ablaze police stations, administrative offices and the treasury during their march towards Khurda, from where the British fled.

The Paikas were supported by the rajas of Kanika, Kujang, Nayagarh and Ghumusar and zamindars, village heads and ordinary peasants.

The Union government will hire 782 officers to fill up vacant positions in the prestigious IAS, IFS and IPS through civil services exam 2018.
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@UPSC_2018

What is clinical trial?
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Introduction:
• Clinical trials are experiments or observations done in clinical research. 
• Such prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants are designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, dietary choices, dietary supplements, and medical devices).
• Clinical trials generate data on safety and efficacy.
• They are conducted only after they have received health authority/ethics committee approval in the country where approval of the therapy is sought. These authorities are responsible for vetting the risk/benefit ratio of the trial.
• Clinical trials can vary in size and cost, and they can involve a single research center or multiple centers.
• Clinical study design aims to ensure the scientific validity and reproducibility of the results.

Background:

• The current trend is to take clearances from respective ethics committee and start trials without registering with CTRI. The registry was launched in 2007, and trial registration was made mandatory by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) in 2009.
• Trial registration involves public declaration and identification of investigators, sponsors, interventions, patient population etc. before recruitment.
• The data and reports of various trials are often difficult to find and in some cases do not even exist as many trials are abandoned or not published due to negative or equivocal results.

Details:

• Currently, all trials in India are registered on the Clinical Trials Registry India (CTRI). 
• Of the trials registered with the CTRI (as on June 30, 2017), 3,318 are prospective and 5,604 are retrospective registrations which means details of these trials were uploaded after the companies conducting them had begun recruiting patients.
• To ensure transparency, safety and quality standards across human trials, India’s apex research body has made it mandatory for all researchers to register trials before they begin.
• Beginning April 1, the Clinical Trials Registry India (CTRI) will register clinical trials/studies prospectively before the first participant is enrolled.
• Under the new rule, any researcher conducting a trial for drugs, surgical procedures, preventive measures, lifestyle modifications, devices, educational or behavioural treatment, rehabilitation strategies, including in the AYUSH system, must register before enrolling the first participant.
• The trials that have already begun will not be registered after April 1, 2018.
• Clinical Trials are of two types:
a. Investigator-origin trials: It is led by an institution/clinician and could be funded by the institution itself or by a government agency.
b. Pharma- or medical-device-driven trials: In this, research is designed by the company, the clinicians are chosen by them and the team of researchers are given a fee by them. 
• Bilateral agencies may also fund certain trials, and these may be done through the government or certain NGOs.
• Informed consent is at the heart of enrolment, so it is the participant’s right to know of every aspect of the trial. There is a 16-point check-list for this, including letting the patient know of the nature of the research, what the study is about, what it hopes to prove, what previous studies say on the subject, risks, possible benefits, compensation (life and disability insurance, travel allowance, compensation for loss of wages).
• There is a confidentiality clause that does not allow the person’s name to be disclosed. 
• A person can opt out of any study at any point in the process without being penalised and can continue to have the standard of care treatment provided.
• All expenses of the medical treatment are borne by the funding agency, including toxicity management (either due to the new drug or the standard of care, like chemo).
• Every trial will have to be approved by a government-recognised ethics committee, consisting of an amalgam of people, ranging from clinicians, priests,