16 July 2015 daily current affairs / General Knowledge / GA : Reserve Bank of India (RBI) constitutes Mohanty committee to prepare a 5 year action plan to spread the reach of financial services across country to unbanked population.
About Mohanty Committee :
- The committee will be headed by RBI executive director Deepak Mohanty.
- It will comprise total of 14 members.
- It will review the existing policy of financial inclusion, including customer protection framework and supportive payment system.
- it will also take into account the recommendations made by various committees set up earlier.
Learn : How to solve direction sense problem easily
Rakesh Sahni was on 14 July 2015 appointed as the Chairman of Narmada Valley Development Authority (NVDA).
- He is an IAS officer of 1972 batch.
- Sahni retired as an IAS officer after serving post of chief secretary of States.
- Post retirement, he served as the Chairman of MP Electricity Regulatory Commission.
- About NVDA : NVDA is a multidisciplinary organization of the Madhya Pradesh State Government headquartered at Bhopal.
- It was constituted for planning water resources development in Narmada basin and expeditious implementation of projects.
Varanasi selected as “city of music” by UNESCO.
- In a development set to tremendously boost its age-old traditions, Varanasi has joined the global bandwagon of UNESCO “Cities of Music” under the Creative Cities Network.
- It has been chosen in the music category under UNESCO’s “field of excellence” plan.
- The fields of excellence are classified into categories of literature, film, music, craft and folk art, design, media arts and gastronomy.
- The inclusion in the network has also paved way for representing the cultural heritage of the holy city on the world stage through the UNESCO project.
- It will not only provide a fillip to tourism, but will also give a chance to local artists and musicians to visit countries that are a part of this network.
- Nine cities — Glasgow in the UK, Hanover and Mannheim in Germany, Ghent in Belgium, Hamamatsu in Japan, Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, Bogota in Columbia, Seville in Spain and Bologna in Italy — are a part of UNESCO “Cities of Music”.
India’s one of the oldest port discovered in Goa.
- Scientists of National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa on 15 July 2015 discovered the remnants of a historically important port on Goa’s Zuari river which is expected to be amongst the oldest signs of human trade on the central west coast.
- The Port is supposed to be existed between 1000 to 3500 AD which makes it India’s oldest ports.
- The researchers are also of the opinion that they may discover a dockyard similar in structure to Lothal dockyard in Gujarat which was discovered by Archeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1954.
Jaitley launches the “National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana ” ( HRIDAY) for 12 cities in Amritsar.
- Government of India has sanctioned 69.31 crore as 100% grant for Amritsar city.
- Union Finance Minister said that Punjab, being a cradle of Indian civilization, was all set to lead the country in the arena of agriculture and defense for which it was aptly known as the sword arm and granary of the nation.
- Making a strong case for the farmers, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said that it was the high time to redress the grievances of beleaguered peasantry, which was on cross roads due to the apathy of the previous Congress governments at the Centre.
Learn : How to solve time and work problem
Modern Indian artist Sayed Haider Raza conferred with the highest French civilian honour, the Commandeur de la Legion d’ Honneur (the Legion of Honour).
- Award was presented by French Ambassador Francois Richier on the occasion of the French National Day celebrations.
- He conferred with the award for his superior achievements transcending all boundaries, for the lasting ties he has forged between France and India and for his continuing artistic quest straddling nations, cultures, religions and philosophies.
- About Award : The la Legion d’ Honneur award was created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte.
- It is the highest civilian award given by the French Republic for outstanding service to France, regardless of the nationality of the recipients.
- The President of the French Republic is the Grand Master of the Order of the Legion of Honour.
Agriculture Ministry launches three new websites for farmers.
The portals aims at making organic farming certification, fertiliser quality checks and disbursal of soil health cards easier.
The portals, developed by National Informatics Centre, are part of the existing schemes.
- The ‘Participatory Guarantee System’ portal will help small and marginal farmers engaged in organic farming to secure certification after checks for compliance to standards are carried out.
- The ‘Soil Health Card’ portal has been developed to register soil samples and record tests results along with fertiliser recommendations to create a national database on soil health for future use in research.
- The ‘Fertiliser Quality Control System’ portal will collate results of drawn samples of imported fertilisers helping both consumers and importers with analysis reports.
