Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Centre to expand PDS cover


In a move that will have a major long-term implication, the Centre plans to expand the coverage of Below Poverty Line (BPL) population under the public distribution system (PDS) to 8.07 crore from the current 6.52 crore based on the acceptance of the Tendulkar Committee's poverty projections for 2011 by the Planning Commission. There will be no revision of quota per family or of the central issue prices.
This will entail an outgo of about 34 million tones of food grains annually and a food subsidy of about Rs. 54,000 crore annually on BPL account alone. The poor would continue to get 35 kg of wheat at the subsidised rate of Rs. 4.15 a kg or rice at Rs 5.65 a kg. The 2.5 crore poorest of the poor (Antyodaya Anna Yojna) beneficiaries will also continue get their entitlement of wheat at Rs. 2 a kg or rice at Rs. 3 a kg.
The Union Food Ministry will seek the approval of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) for this at its next meeting and if it got the green signal it will begin distribution from Gandhi Jayanti on October 2.
A hint about this was given last month by Union Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar during the meeting on PDS Reforms with State governments where Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that the number of poor was estimated to be 8.07 crore on 2011 population projections.
The National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi has also taken this as the basis while recommending that PDS be universalised in the 150 poorest districts in the country.
The move to provide more food grains to the poor has assumed urgency after the Supreme Court's observation last week that the government distributes grains to the poor rather than allow them to get damaged for lack of adequate storage. The apex court had questioned the necessity of providing subsidised grains to the non-poor (Above Poverty Line) populations.
Last month government enhanced the entitlement for the APL to 15 kg per family per month at the rate of Rs. 6.10 a kg for wheat and Rs. 8.30 a kg for rice. The additional outgo on this score would be about 2.7 million tons. The total grain stocks with the government on July 1 were 57.8 million tonnes, of which 31.9 million tonnes is the buffer requirement. In this rabi season, the wheat procured so far is 22.5 million tonnes, which is lower than last year but almost the same as in 2008.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS PREPARATION PLAN

“Current Affairs” and “General Knowledge” cover many topics like from economy to sports or education to politics, or even technology to automobiles. In every second some issues are happening around the world in these sectors, and to accumulate the excerpt of some highlighted news, and memorize it is a good plan to prepare current affairs and GK.

Some Important Tips to Follow:

Read Newspapers regularly

We all know that “Old is Gold”, same thing applies here too. We need to make a habit of reading newspapers regularly. I’ll suggest you to read more than one newspaper. It will be better if you read one newspaper of your mother language, and other of English. Some useful newspapers are “The Times of India”, “The Hindu”, “The Telegraph” etc. You need to start this habit at least 6 months before the actual exam that will help you to get access to all the important events of that period of time.

You need to keep an eye on what’s happening around you in your country and world as well. Trust me guys, you will surely find it interesting after several days. We all know that staying updated is always a good idea, as it will stand you apart from the rest.

Read Magazines thoroughly

This is another great option to prepare the subject we are talking about. There are many leading magazines that focus on current affairs and General Knowledge. You need to buy it from your local magazine seller, and start reading it thoroughly. These magazines beautifully categorize the articles with its genres to make it interesting to read on. Some of the useful magazines are Pratiyogita Darpan andManorma.

Try to read some business magazines and sports magazines too along with a general magazine. This will increase your chances of cracking the competitive exams with ease. Some useful business magazines areBusiness Today, Business Line etc.

Follow News Channels

You will need to follow news channels at least once a day. Now most of the leading news channels are active for 24*7. You need to pick up a suitable time for yourself to watch any favorite news channel of yours. You can watch ABP News, NDTV, Times Now, ET Now, Zee News etc. Try to go through all the breaking and highlighted news, and make it a habit.

I know that watching news channels for long will bore you, so I’ll suggest you to allocate only 30 minutes for it in a whole day. All the leading ones shows the glimpses of all important events of the day quite frequently, so 30 minutes will be enough for you to boost up your current affairs and GK knowledge.

Maintain a Diary

My teacher used to tell me that whenever you learn something try to write it down in your diary, as it will help you to memorize it in a better manner. He is so right, as this method helped me a lot to score good marks in every exam that I appeared for. As I already mentioned before that a lot of events are occurring in the country and around the world, so it is easily understandable that it is not easy to remember everything. It’s always a superb idea to maintain a diary of current events.

You need to update this diary on a daily basis with all the events that you consider as important ones. This diary will become quite useful for the revision part, as it will provide you information about all the important events at a place. You should keep revising the diary frequently, as it will help you to memorize important names, dates, awards etc.

Channelize your Preparation Accordingly

All the competitive exams are not same, as all of them have different pattern, even when it comes to the same topic as ‘Current Affairs’ or ‘GK’. For example for civil services exam, you need to give importance on events of National value. On the other scenario, in matter of bank job exam, the focus should be on the news on banking sectors, and economic and business news.

Thus I’ll suggest you to prepare as per the exams you are appearing for, as channelizing your preparation according to the pattern of the exam will accelerate your chance of getting selected.

Use Internet Resources

Google, YouTube and Wikipedia are my favorite teachers’; one of my friends told me this once. This is quite true indeed, so you should use all the available online resources to study current affairs and GK for exams. For example this blog is all about “Current Affairs”, so you can check this blog regularly by subscribing to us (check the sidebar for subscription options). You can actively take part some forums that are focusing on current events. The good part is you can follow the websites of all leadingnewspapers online if you don’t have enough time to read newspapers.

Use Social Networking Sites for Good

Believe me or not you can surely use social networking sites to your benefits. Especially to prepare current affairs and General knowledge Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and StumbleUpon may help you a lot. You can join some Facebook pages, or follow some twitter accounts that are related to current affairs. You can join our Facebook Page too for this matter, or connect with me at LinkedIn or circle me in Google Plus for all the information on recent happenings to boost up your General Knowledgeability.

Give Priority to your Strength

We usually find difficulties when we try to learn everything at once. In that process basically we study a lot, but remember a little. We need to first select our strength areas for our preparation. Try to givepriority to your strength areas. It may be Sports, economy, Government Affairs or technology. Suppose you are applying for Bank exams, then you should prepare industry related news. Along with that you may pick any 2-3 areas of your strength like sports or technology. You need to prepare these sections to the utmost level. I can assure you that these strategies will help you to score much better in Current Affairs section.

Participate in Online Quizzes

You should participate in some free quizzes that are available online to evaluate yourself. For this matter you can easily access our “Quiz Section”. This will give you proper idea whether you are ready for the big exam day or not. As an added factor it will also provide you confidence i.e. very much essential. You can download Monthly-wise current affairs questions from Here.