UPSC Quiz – 2021 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 20th August 2021

Solution (c)

Financial Inclusion Index:

• India’s first composite Financial Inclusion Index (FI-Index) unveiled by the Reserve Bank of India.
• It seeks to capture extent of financial inclusion across the country.
• The index has been conceptualised as a comprehensive index incorporating details of banking, investments, insurance, postal as well as the pension sector in consultation with the government and respective sectoral regulators.
• It has been constructed without any ‘base year’ and as such it reflects cumulative efforts of all stakeholders over the years towards financial inclusion.
• It captures information on various aspects of financial inclusion in a single value ranging between 0 and 100, where 0 represents complete financial exclusion and 100 indicates full financial inclusion.
• It comprises three broad parameters (weights indicated in brackets) viz., Access (35%), Usage (45%), and Quality (20%) with each of these consisting of various dimensions, which are computed based on a number of indicators.
• The index is responsive to ease of access, availability and usage of services, and quality of services for all 97 indicators.

Article Link: Financial inclusion at little over halfway mark: New RBI index

Solution (b)

Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) Scheme:

• It is a scheme of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• The scheme aims to reimburse the taxes and duties incurred by exporters such as local taxes, coal cess, mandi tax etc. which are not getting exempted of refunded under any other existing scheme. Thus it ensures zero rating of exports i.e. taxes and duties should not be exported.
• RoDTEP sheme replaces the erlier Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS) as MEIS violated the provisions of WTO by giving export susidies for a wide range of goods.
• Scheme is to be implemented by Customs through a simplified IT System. Rebate will be issued in the form of a transferable duty credit/ electronic scrip (e-scrip) which will be maintained in an electronic ledger by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC).

Article Link: Too little, too late: RoDTEP rates leave exporters disappointed, hope for a rate

Solution (c)

Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS):

• The scheme was launched in 2020 and would run for the duration of five years.
• It envisages setting up of 6-8 Greenfield Defence Testing Infrastructure facilities that are required for defence and aerospace related production.
• The objective of the scheme is to promote indigenous defence production, with special focus on participation of the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and Start Ups by bridging gaps in defence testing infrastructure in the country.
• The scheme has an outlay of Rs 400 crore for creating state-of-the-art testing infrastructure in partnership with the private industry.
• The projects under the scheme will be provided with up to 75 per cent Government funding in the form of ‘Grant-in-Aid’. The remaining 25 per cent of the project cost will have to be borne by the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) constituents of which will be the Indian private entities and state governments.

Article Link: Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme

Solution (d)

Cattle Island is located in one of the extreme points of Hirakud Reservoir. 

Completely inhabited by wild animals, it is without any trace of humans. 

The island is a submerged hill, and before the construction of Hirakud Dam it was a developed village. 

During the resettlement period, villagers left some of their cattle behind; when the dam construction was over, the cattle settled on the hilltop. 

With the passage of time the nearby area filled up with the reservoir water, turning the hilltop into an island. 

Being away from mankind, the cattle are now wild, very swift and not easily caught. 

Living on a hilltop with dense forest, they are larger than tame cattle, and almost all are white in color. 

Though descended from tame cattle, these animals provide a contrasting picture of this breed of animal returning to life in the wild.

Article Link: Odisha plans ‘odyssey’ to wild cattle island

Solution (a)

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is establishing a Platform for Regulated Entities for Integrated Surveillance and Monitoring (PRISM), a web-based end-to-end workflow automation system, to strengthen compliance by supervised entities (SEs).

This comes in the context of ongoing engagement and increasing reviews of risk profiles and supervisory assessments for supervisors, including banks and non-bank financial corporations.

With the growing intensity and scope of the Reserve Bank’s supervisory function, the focus of its new approach to ‘continuous supervision’ is on early identification of risks and implementation of supervisory actions.

PRISM will have various functionalities (inspection; compliance; cybersecurity incident functionality; complaints; and recovery functions), with built-in resolution workflows, time tracking, notifications and alerts, management information system (MIS) reports, and dashboards.

Article Link: RBI to put in place a PRISM to strengthen compliance by lenders