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Year: 2016

  • Railway Budget 2016-17: Reorganize, Restructure & Rejuvenate

    Suresh Prabhu has set out an ambitious medium-term goal to reset the country’s oldest institution, including its governance, and restore its key place in the Indian economy. Railway is facing twin challenges of finances and ability to be a growth driver for the economy

    Few Glimpses of Railway Budget 2016-17

    • The minister fixed the revenue target for next fiscal at Rs.1.84 trillion, marginally above the budget estimate of 2015-16, though it failed to achieve its target for this year by a big margin
    • Railways will have to bear the burden of an additional payout of Rs.28,000 crore as part of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations
    • The railways will end up with operating ratio of 90 for 2015-16. For 2016-17, it expects the operating ratio to further worsen to 92 
    • No changes in passenger fares and freight rates

    Finances

    Railwaythe

    There is shortfall in traffic receipts worsened by low freight demand from core sector. The Railway minister outlined the medium-term plan of investing Rs.8.5 trillion by 2019-20. The investment plan for 2016-17 is Rs 1,21,000 crore –

    • Transfer from the Union budget – Rs.45,000 crore
    • Internal resources – Rs.12,700 crore
    • Partnerships with state governments – Rs.18,000 crore
    • Life Insurance Corporation of India – Rs.23,000 crore
    • Indian Railway Finance Corporation – Rs.21,700 crore

    Do you know about Sundry earnings of Railways?

    Sundry Earnings: All earnings on add-on services (which are not free of cost), including WiFi, concierge service, advertising, etc. Simply put, Railway puts all its non-tariff earning as Sundry Earnings in its account books. 

    These earnings stood at an estimated Rs. 6229 crore this year.

    Budget Proposal

    • The target of non-tariff earnings for next year has been scaled up by 53% to Rs. 9590 crore
    • Advertising is a major source of non-tariff revenues. So, Railways will install around 20,000 screen across its ecosystem to display ads
    • The Railways will also monetise its data bank on passengers so that frequent travellers get value-added, targeted services
    • Railways to monetise land on tracks by leasing out for horticulture and tea plantation
    • Holding company to be explored for monetising assets of Railway companies

    Freight

    Challenge: The freight business provides two-thirds of Indian railways’ revenues, but it is struggling with capacity constraints and slow industrial demand. Also, our freight rates are among the highest in the world, which make our products uncompetitive.

    Budget Proposal: To expand the list of commodities it services—increasing it to 40 from nine at present by including automobiles, packaged consumer goods, cotton, fruits and vegetables.

    Dedicated Freight Corridors: It is proposed to take up the following freight corridors:

    • North-South connecting Delhi to Chennai,
    • East-West connecting Kharagpur to Mumbai
    • East Coast connecting Kharagpur to Vijayawada

    Impact: They can radically slash transit time for goods. Also, shifting of freight traffic from existing tracks to the new corridors would release capacities, helping increase speed of passenger trains.

    Criticism: The high freight rates have diverted railway traffic to roads. In fact, discounting for the fuel component in freight charges, the rates should have been reduced this year.

    New Trains

    The budget announced 4 new types of trains:

    • Antyodaya Express: A long-distance, fully unreserved, superfast train service, for the common man, to be operated on dense routes
    • Humsafar: It will be a fully air-conditioned train for the budget passengers
    • Tejas: It will showcase the future of train travel. It will travel at 130 km an hour and offer on-board WiFi services
    • Uday: It will be an overnight double decker service for the busiest routes in the country with 40% more carrying capacity

    Better Governance

    Challenges: Departmental orientation, absence of cross-functional collaboration and lack of business focus

    Budget Proposal: To reorganize the Railway Board along business lines and suitably empower Chairman, Railway Board to lead the organization effectively

    Vulnerable Sections : Old People/ Disabled/ Women/ Porters

    • A “Saarthi seva” will be introduced to help the old and disabled at stations. Railways to increase lower berth quota for senior citizens by 50%.
    • Disabled enabled toilet in 11 Class-A stations this year
    • 33% reservation to women in reserved quota in Railways
    • Porters to be called ‘Sahayaks’ now. They will be trained in soft skills

    Sanitation

    • 17000 bio toilets and additional toilets at 475 stations will be provided before the close of this year
    • World’s first Bio-Vacuum toilet was developed by IR and is being used in Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express
    • For those queasy about train travel because of dirty toilets and coaches, the minister has “clean-my-coach” on demand through SMS

    Improving Railway Stations

    • 400 stations to be re-developed through PPP
    • Beautification of stations at pilgrimage centres: Ajmer, Amritsar, Gaya, Mathura, Nanded, Nashik, Puri, Tirupati, Varanasi, Nagapattinam and others

    Technology

    • 400 railway stations to be equipped with wifi, 100 this year.
    • To reduce the waiting period for passengers, the railways will introduce bar-coded tickets at select stations.
    • Scanners and access control on a pilot basis on major stations.

    Railway Budget: Few Shortfalls

    • There is a shortfall in the number of engines required to run even our existing fleet of freight and passenger vehicles. With increased capacity, we will need many more locomotives. The budget does not indicate a comprehensive strategy for these issues
    • Most tracks and rolling stock are already fit for speeds above 100 kmph for passenger services and above 75 kmph for goods services. However, average speeds of passenger services are around 40-50 kmph and those of freight 20-25 kmph. This is because we don’t have the capacity to run them at optimum speed. Increasing capacity by doubling/ quadrupling lines would in itself improve speeds. Budget does not have much to offer to overcome this lacunae

    Want to read more?

    Published with inputs from Pushpendra

  • Part 6 | I am the most backward! | Landmark Judgements that Transformed India

     

    This is an issue that affects almost every citizen. Perhaps every Indian has had arguments on this which often end in acrimony. This is also an immensely political issue which crops up just before every major election. No doubt then, battles have been fought in courts, legislatures as well as on streets. At one point it took a very ugly and vicious turn and threatened to tear apart entire fabric of society.

    Yes, we are talking about issue of reservation in jobs and educational institutions. We will limit our arguments to legal and constitutional angles and some politics (can’t help it) without going into philosophical and practical desirability or otherwise of such provisions.

    Before we analyse Parliament and Supreme Court back and forth on the issue of reservation, let’s have a look at relevant constitutional provisions as they existed before amendments.

    Article 15

    Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth

    • (1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them
    • (3) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children

    Article 16

    Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment
    (1) There shall be equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the State
    (2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, descent, place of birth, residence or any of them, be ineligible for, or discriminated against in respect or, any employment or office under the State
    (4) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favor of any backward class of citizens which, in the opinion of the State, is not adequately represented in the services under the State

    Article 29

    Protection of interests of minorities

    (2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.

    Article 46, a DPSP

    • Promotion of educational and economic interests of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections
    • The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation

    Article 335

    • Efficiency in administration
    • The claims of the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes shall be taken into consideration, consistently with the maintenance of efficiency of administration.

    Article 340

    Appointment of a Commission to investigate the conditions of backward classes.

    Note that I have highlighted the word “only” every time. “Only” here implies that state can not discriminate on religion, race, caste etc only but can discriminate on other grounds.

    Now let’s come back to the courts

    #1. Champakam dorairajan v/s state of madras

    She challenged madras govt orders of caste quotas in medical colleges-

    1. Discrimination based only on caste not allowed under Article 15
    2. Discrimination in admission to public funded institutions not allowed (Art. 29)
    • Government claimed it was following instructions given under Art. 46
    • But court concluded that Fundamental Rights trump DPSP and quashed the unconstitutional order related to reservation

    Predictably parliament passed 1st CAA (Constitutional amendment)

    Along came art 15 (4)

    Nothing in this Article or in Clause 2 of Article 29 shall prevent the state from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

    Public sort of accepted the reservation but governments can take people for a ride, right! Mysore increased reservation to 68%.

    #2. Balaji vs State of Mysore

    Argument was that extravagant quota was a fraud on constitutional policy of reservation.

    Supreme court concurred and balanced the competing interests of rewarding merit and uplifting weaker sections by prescribing 50% limit.

    Court also held that whole caste was an important criteria it could not be the only criteria to ascertain backwardness since other religions did not have caste.

    #3. In comes the Mandal commission

    • In pursuant of art 340, president set up 1st backward class commission known as Kaka Kalelkar commission in 1953
    • It identified more than 2000 castes as backward on the basis of education, employment, trade and occupation and most importantly position in traditional Hindu caste system
    • Obviously recommendations were consigned to respective dustbins and states were left free to frame their own criteria
    • Janata party had promised to constitute 2nd backward class commission and Morarji desai appointed a Commission under B.P. Mandal. It applied 11 relative indicators under 3 broad groupings, social, educational, and economic and came to conclusion that more than 3700 Castes were backward.

    Following points are to be noted:

    1. 1st commission had identified about 2000 castes as backward
    2. Last caste census was conducted in 1931. Basically we were data which was 50 years old
    3. It inferred 52% of the population as OBC which nobody took seriously

    To not breach 50% ceiling it recommended 27% reservation in jobs including govt aided pvt. firms as well as educational institutions.

    By the time recommendations came, Janata govt had already fallen. Indira Gandhi consigned it to the same fate as earlier recommendations.

    Now some politics

    In 1990 when V.P. Singh’s corruption crusade was going nowhere, he played the master card of Mandal. Well if one govt order can get 52% of population voting for you, who would need support of kisan leaders like Charan Singh.

    He released 2 office memorandums:

    1. 27% reservation for OBCs in govt. jobs
    2. 10% for economically weaker among general. It was to blunt the criticism from upper castes.

    These announcements provoked unprecedented violence, protests and rioting in northern India. Rajiv Gandhi had shown the younger generation the dreams of 21st century but India seemed to be in drift. Corruption scandals had left them disillusioned. Now their whole career was at stake. They boycotted classes, torched vehicles etc. It took an ugly turn when in a tragic incident, Rajiv Goswami, student of Hindu college, DU immolated himself in public in front of live cameras. This sparked off a series of over 100 immolation. Whole nation was horrified. Unsure of whether to support or oppose reservation, Advani started his rath yatra. Shah Bano case had already polarized the communal atmosphere. Rest is a very tragic story which will be told some other day.

     

    Rest continues in the next post of this series. Want to read more?

     

  • Starting a comprehensive series on IR for Pre & Mains

    Hey guys,

    Hopefully you have read the primer post on IR above – https://www.civilsdaily.com/an-ias-aspirants-guide-to-cracking-international-relations/

    What we intend to do in subsequent long form posts is – Profile each major/ minor organisation of importance under these heads –

    1. Origin
    2. Members
    3. Reason for existence
    4. Advantage India?
    5. Evolution and importance in world scenario
    6. Concerns

    —-

    We are focussing on ASIA first – covering all important organisation of developmental/ economic importance – example – SAARC, BIMSTEC, MGC, ASEAN, BRICS etc.

    Here’s the plan – We do not want to miss out on any information worthy of inclusion so get your thinking hats on and share important news around these organisations in this thread. Look forward to your help and contribtion.

  • An IAS Aspirant’s guide to cracking International Relations

    IR forms quite an important portion of the GS Paper 2 syllabus – UPSC Syllabus | GS Paper 2 | IAS Prep. In this post, we are going to analyse this portion, answer some basic doubts and help you get started with IR.

     

    After this introductory post, jump onto the compiled collection on International Organisations – Click here

    #1. Why do IAS aspirants tend to neglect IR?

    1. Because it is so overwhelmingly dynamic
    2. Not much of an importance in prelims

    For a beginner, the pain point with IR is a general lack of familiarity with the subject matter. It is very less likely that one could/would Modi Ji’s entourage in real time. The deals and negotiations, the untimely withdrawal from strategic talks and the bold diplomatic parley etc. seem so overwhelming that we look skywards! Without a proper backstory, these developments look disconnected.

    Besides, when would we be mugging the articles for polity or read about those eloping monkeys for environment & biodiversity, haan?

    Add to that, prelims is not really bullish about the complexities of inter country relations, hence aspirants tend to leave IR for the end of time.

    Confronted by these practical issues, we are going to relook the IR portion of IAS Mains (GS Paper 2) and World Affairs (Prelims) to try and help you get familar with them.

    #2. Official UPSC Syllabus of International Relations (IR) for GS Paper II

    1. India and its neighborhood – relations
    2. Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests
    3. Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
    4. Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate

    #3. Deconstructing IR – What are you exactly supposed to prepare for?

    You are not supposed to do a PHD in IR. That’s for sure. Why this red flag? The flipside of preparing sincerely for UPSC is that sometime the subject matter becomes so appealing that you start to get drawn into it. You tend to lose a sense of space and time and inadvertently step into the shoes of a hardcore foreign policy analyst (which is not what UPSC wants you to be!)

    Reading about the genesis of ASEAN and taking note of its evolution trajectory is great but getting into the thick of each meeting with micro-analysis on the terms of agreements may leave you with a lot lesser time to prepare for other subjects.

    Focus on two things – Get the context and remember the facts correct!

    [Get the context] India and the world: Catch up with the backstory and look out for conflicts

    As an aspirant, you are expected to think through the changing scenario, understand the evolution and weigh the pros and cons of a treaty/ diplomatic move which disrupts the status quo. Easier said than done, right?

    Understand India’s backstory first

    To get upto speed with the backstory, you may try to get your hands on Pax Indica by Shashi Tharoor. This will do good to bring you upto speed with our past with most of the important nations. Doing this increases your odds of understanding the current affairs with some context. Alternatively, we will also try to come up with short anecdotal pieces wrt our evolution with our neighbours and the world.

    Once you are comfortable with that, look out for latest conflicts and controversies which shape our negotiations with various bilateral, regional and global groupings. UPSC is going to pick up one of these and grill you on that!

    Other useful resources:

    1. Ministry of external affairs for bilateral relations – The holy grail of all official communications
    2. Distinguished lecture series (MEA)
    3. C. Raja Mohan @Indian Express – He often comments on our bilateral developments and many of the pieces are wonderful to read
    4. India’s world @RSTV
    5. Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) – engages in advanced research in international relations, especially strategic and security issues
    6. Ask and expect @IDSA – aimed at promoting awareness and discussion on contemporary security issues. A very active forum on IR
    7. Latitude @Time Now – It’s not all about Arnab!

    [Remember the facts] Important institutions, International groupings: Find out why they exist and you will be comfortable with them

    The problem with these venerated organisations and groupings is that there are so many of them and they are ever so evolving! Don’t believe us? Here’s an example –

    • 1975: Group of 6 – FMs and central bank governors from France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States
    • 1976: Group of 7 – G6 + Canada
    • 1997: Group of 8 – G7 + Russia (in 1997) + European Union (considered an implicit part)
    • 2014: Group of 7 – Russia suspended after Crimean crisis

    There is a Group 20 (G20) as well but we will come to that. Point being that to understand this jugglery well, you need to know each organisation and its evolution in full and then connect the dots as they intersect with each other.

    This part of the IR makes up for a lot of prelims related questions – Remember a question on Mekong Ganga Cooperation in Pre 2015?

    We plan to cover each of these organisations, starting ASIA first so that you get a sense of their origins, members, evolution and conflicts and most of all, their reason of existence!

    #4. Tackle the low hanging fruits first!

    All pumped up? Let’s get you familiar with some of the questions from IR @Mains (2013 – 2015) in the next post.

    Post that, we will be tackling the journey of important regional and international organisations which affect India’s interest in some way or the other. These are important both wrt prelims and mains. UPSC has an uncanny habit of asking for member countries or important reports and you have got to prepare well for that!

    More in this series – 

  • What does the gdp value in percentage mean??

    ESurvey mentioned GDP to be 7.5%. It is 7.5% of what?? Of last year? Base Year?

  • iOS App

    please make an iOS application for such a great site.
    “request”
    _/\_

  • a kind request to a boon for readers

    please it is a humble request, make this website very precise; the only reason is that the website “civilsdaily” is full of knowledge and the readers get lost themselves in one another topics, finally creating ‘triveni sangam’ of knowledge!

  • What is economic integration and what are the different types of trade agreements?

    This is an oft confused sphere of economics and often impedes with your understanding of the world affairs. We often read terms like FTA, PTA, Economic Union in articles related to WTO, bilateral talks etc etc. and breeze past them with a rough understanding or what they might mean.

    • FTA (Free Trade Agreement) – Free mein trade? Possibly no money to be paid for trade barriers etc etc.
    • PTA (Preferential)? Some kind of preference, maybe
    • CEPA, CECA – God knows what!

    This rough understanding may not be always correct. To give you an example – PTA is almost similar to FTA (every PTA eventually becomes an FTA), CECA and CEPA are quite similar.

    What is economic integration & why go for it?

    Economic integration refers to trade unification between different states by the partial or full abolishing of customs tariffs on trade taking place within the borders of each state.

    1. The objective of this integration is to increase the combined economic productivity of the countries – easier access of goods and services
    2. Other by-product of integration is competitiveness. If 4-5 countries come together to form a closely knit family (of sorts), they would create barriers to entry of an external (possibly much larger player) to disrupt the region with cheaper goods

    What is a trade agreement?

    A trade agreement is a contract/agreement/pact between two or more nations that outlines how they will work together to ensure mutual benefit in the field of trade and investment.

    This can be bilateral (2 countries) or multilateral (2+ countries). 

    Once a trade agreement is finalised, we get to read about these Trade Blocs – a type of intergovernmental agreement, where regional barriers to trade, (tariffs and non-tariff barriers) are reduced or eliminated among the participating states.

     

    All the gyan about FTA, PTA, CECA/PA, EU!

    #1. PTA – Preferential trade agreement

    A preferential trade agreement, is a trading bloc that gives preferential access to certain products from the participating countries.

    This is done by reducing tariffs but not by abolishing them completely. A PTA can be established through a trade pact. It is the first stage of economic integration. 

    Some examples:

    • Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA): formerly known as the Bangkok Agreement, was signed on 31st of July 1975 as an initiative of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). ESCAP is the regional development arm of the United Nations for the Asia-Pacific region.
    • India-Mercosur Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA): Mercosur is a sub-regional blogs with its member countries – full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.

    #2. FTA – Free trade agreement

    A free-trade area is a trade bloc whose member countries have signed a free-trade agreement (FTA), which eliminates tariffs, import quotas, and preferences on most (if not all) goods and services traded between them.

    Please note that you cannot distinct PTA and FTA by just saying that the former has fewer barriers and later has no barriers at all. FTA does not mean everything is free! PTA closely follows FTA.

    • Evolution of SAPTA to SAFTA (South Asian PTA to FTA)
    • ASEAN FTA (Trade agreement within the Southeast asian nations)

    What would happen if countries want to move more closer (beyond material trade)?

    When the countries go beyond FTA and agree for a greater degree of economic integration which includes improving the attractiveness to capital and human resources, and to expand trade and investment, it would result in CECA or CEPA.

    • CEPA = Comprehensive Economic partnership Agreement
    • CECA = Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement

    CECA and CEPA have very minor differences, if you will. While CECA comes first with elimination of tariffs, CEPA comes later including trade in services and investments. CEPA has a bit wider scope than CECA.

    #3. Customs Union

    An agreement among countries to have free trade among themselves and to adopt common external barriers against any other country interested in exporting to these countries.

    Some examples:

    • Southern Common Market – Mercosur (Argentina; Bolivia; Brazil; Paraguay; Uruguay; and Venezuela)
    • Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Its member states are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates
    • East African Community (EAC) – composed of 5 countries in the African Great Lakes region in eastern Africa: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda

    #4. Common Market

    A type of custom union where there are common policies on product regulation, and free movement of goods and services, capital and labour.

     

    #5. Economic Union

    An economic union is a type of trade bloc which is composed of a common market with a customs union. The participant countries have both common policies on product regulation, freedom of movement of goods, services and the factors of production (capital and labour) and a common external trade policy.

    #6. Economic and monetary union

    When an economic union involves unifying currency it becomes a economic and monetary union. Eg – Euro!

  • How to go ahead with agriculture optional for IAS Mains prep?

    Hey aspirants,

    This post is aimed to help you in forming your strategy for Agriculture optional for Civil Services and Forest Services Exam, considering its various aspects.

    #1. Who should opt for Agriculture?

    Anyone who has academic background in Agriculture, Life Sciences, Botany, Biomedical Sciences, Biotechnology, Zoology, Dairy and other related fields.

    Any aspirant with no prior knowledge of Biology should not opt it. She may score good in Paper I which is like general studies but Paper II becomes the eliminating factor if it is not covered exhaustively.

    #2. Why should one not opt for ‘Botany’ instead?

    If you have Botany as your graduation or master’s subject then surely you should go with botany, but just in case if you don’t have interest in remembering all families characteristic features among others, then Agriculture is best optional for you.

    Secondly, Paper II of Botany and Agriculture is quite similar if you see the syllabus but if you analyse last year question papers, if you will see that questions in Agriculture are easy in comparison to ‘Botany Paper II’.

    #3. Can I change my optional from Botany to Agriculture?

    Yes, surely you can switch if you are struggling with Botany. In fact, you will be having an edge against Agriculture fresher aspirant as your Paper II of Agriculture is already completed (almost) if you have covered Botany syllabus exhaustively.

    #4. Is it scoring?

    Of course it is. If you have similar background as mentioned above, you must go for it.

    There is a myth that Agriculture is more scoring than Botany. Please don’t keep this in mind while preparing. Both are science subjects so if you know your concepts you can score equally in both.

    Both subjects has equal percentage of topics that aspirant has to mug up (literally). Think of families (Cryptogams, Phanerogams) in Botany, and Horticulture and Pathology (Diseases and Measures) in Agriculture.

    Agriculture got popular among Botany/ life sciences students after CSE 2013 in which Botany Paper was bit difficult and Agriculture was very easy. But in CSE 2015, both of these optionals were on equal footing. So, please do not hold opinions of one optional being easier than other, any optional demands right strategy and interest to excel.

    #5. How much time it takes to prepare?

    4-5 months, if you study Agriculture 12-15 hours per week. This should be enough. Also, it depends on how much can you recall your graduation concepts.

    Plant Breeding is the most conceptual, time taking and scoring part of the syllabus, while horticulture and pathology needs your notes making and revising skill to retain the topic.

    Recommended books for Agriculture:

    1. Plant Breeding Principles and Methods- B.D. Singh
    2. Fundamentals of Genetics- B.D. Singh
    3. Plant Physiology- V.K. Jain
    4. Introductory Soil Science- D.K. Das
    5. Economics of Farm Production and Management- Raju and Rao
    6. Principles of Agronomy-T.Y. Reddy and G.H.S. Reddi
    7. Plant pathology- P.D. Sharma
    8. Introduction to Horticulture- N Kumar

    Let us know if you find any problem in getting these books. Submit your comments below.

    These books covers whole syllabus. Also, one need not to study each and every chapter, instead cover topics syllabus wise. Syllabus is designed in a chronological way which will help in building concepts if you go according to it.

    No need to look out for other books. ICAR Handbook is not recommended at all instead cover relevant chapters of Economic Survey and Year Book related to Agriculture, it will help for both optional and GS.

    Few topics like Food Production and Consumption trends, Extension Schemes, Protein Energy Malnutrition can be googled. Ecology part can be covered from any standard book which you study for GS.

     

    Also, Quora helps in answering various general and specific questions related to the subject. Many senior scientists and academicians of Agriculture are there. You can follow Agriculture India topic there.

    Problems in Agriculture Sector in India

    Farmers and Climate Change

    Few websites helps in keeping abreast with current happenings and govt. initiatives.

    Dept. of Agriculture website

    Agriculturetoday

    Hope this may helps!

     

    Published with inputs from Vimal

  • The First Firangis series (Modern India) compiled here

    Compiling the series here (6 parts) for everyone’s benefit:

    part 1 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-warren-hastings-and-his-time-as-gov-general-of-india/

    part 2 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-hey-pitt-whats-your-act/

    part 3 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-lord-cornwallis-his-permanent-settlement/

    part 3 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-lord-cornwallis-his-permanent-settlement/

    part 4 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-extracting-land-revenue/

    part 5 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-the-marquess-of-wellesley-his-subsidiary-alliance/

    part 6 – https://www.civilsdaily.com/the-first-firangis-chapter-6-the-anglo-mysore-wars/