Digital Economy, GST & Economic Survey-2017IntroductionThe digital economy refers to an economy that is based on digital technologies, although we increasingly perceive this as conducting business through markets based on the internet and the World Wide Web.The term ?Digital Economy? was coined in Don Tapscott?s 1995 book The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. It was among the first books to consider how the Internet would change the way we did business.According to Thomas Mesenbourg (2001), three main components of the 'Digital Economy' concept can be identified:·e-business infrastructure (hardware, software, telecoms, networks, human capital, etc.),·e-business (how business is conducted, any process that an organization conducts over computer-mediated networks),·e-commerce (transfer of goods, for example when a book is sold online).·Goods and Service Tax (GST) is a uniform indirect taxation system will be applicable uniformally throughout India. It will replace central and states indirect taxes.Rapid advances in digital technology and applications has stimulated and enabled a dramatic growth in the global user population.The digital economy is not limited to traditional business models. It encompasses every aspect of modern life; entertainment, health, education, business to banking, the ability of the citizen to engage with government and society to stimulate new ideas and help influence political and social change.Modeling the Digital EconomyDigital economic activity results from billions of online connections among people, businesses, devices, data, and processes. The backbone of the digital economy is thus hyper-connectivity which creates interconnectedness of people, organisations, and machines that based on the Internet, mobile technology and the Internet of Things. The internet of things, which is known as the infrastructure of the information society connects physical devices, smart devices, buildings, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors etc. to engage in the exchange of data.As social media, virtual reality and cloud services are expanding the boundary between the traditional economy and digital economy, is getting difficult to be identified. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has included both information and Communication Technologies (ICT) goods and services under more...
FOREIGN TRADE AND INVESTMENT IN INDIAIntroduction·Foreign trade is exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories, which involves the activities of the government and individuals.·In most countries, it represents a significant share of gross domestic product (GDP). Foreign trade in India, includes all imports and exports to and from India. At the level of Central Government it is administered by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.FOREEIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES·Foreign exchange reserves also called Torex reserves or FX reserves are assets held by a central bank or other monetary authority, usually in various reserve currencies and used to back its liabilities e.g. the local currency issued, and the various bank reserves deposited with the central bank by the government or by financial institutions.·The foreign exchange reserves of India comprise of four elements: (i) Gold, (ii) Special Drawing Rights (SDR), (iii) Foreign Currency Assets (FCA). (iv) Reserve Position in the IMF·India?s foreign exchange reserves as on 17th March 2017 is US366-78 billionGold·It accounts for only 5 % of our foreign exchange assets.Special Drawing Rights (SDR)·An international type of monetary reserve currency, created by International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969 which operates as a supplement to the existing reserves of member countries.·It is also known as ?paper gold?. Created in response to concerns about the limitations of gold and dollars as the sole means of settling international accounts, SDRs are designed to augment international liquidity by supplementing the standard reserve currencies.·Its value is based on a basket of five key international currencies and SDRs can be exchanged for freely usable currencies. The basket of five international currencies includes US dollar, euro, Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and British pound.Foreign Currency Assests (FCAs) more...
WELFARE SCHEMES AND PROGRAMMES
Introduction
Economic planning is the making of major economic decisions what and how much is to be produced, how, when and where it is to be produced, and to whom it is to be allocated by the comprehensive survey of the economic system as whole. (H.D. Dickinsom)
BANKING AND INSURANCE
National Pension Scheme
Launched: January 1, 2004Objective: To change the existing pension scheme.Features: The New Pension Scheme works on defined contribution basis and will have two tiers - Tier-I and II.Contribution to Tier-1 is mandatory for all Government servants joining Government service on or after 1-1-2004 (except the armed forces in the first stage), whereas Tier-II will be optional and at the discretion of Government servants.In Tier-I, a Government servant will have to make a contribution of 10% of his basic pay plus DA, which will be deducted from his salary bill every month by the PAO concerned.The Government will make an equal matching contribution.However, there will be no contribution from the Government in respect of individuals who are not Government employees.Tier-I contributions (and the investment returns) will be kept in a non-withdraw able Pension Tier-1 Account. Tier-II contributions will be kept in a separate account that will be withdraw able at the option of the Government servant.Government will not make any contribution to Tier-11 account.The existing provisions of Defined Benefit Pension and GPF would not be available to the new recruits in the central Government service, i.e. to the Government servants joining Government service on or after 1-1-2004.Dhanlakshmi SchemeLaunched: 2008Objective: Cash transfer for the girl child with insurance cover for ensuring the survival of the girl child and assuring a better life.Features: All girls born after 19 November 2008 are eligible for the scheme.The scheme can be claimed on enrolment in school and retention in school till Standard 8.Insurance maturity cover will be given for the girl child born after 19 November 2008 and if the girl child remains unmarried till the age of 18 years, she will get Rs. one lakh.Rashtriya Swasthya Bima YojanaLaunched: April 1, 2008Main Objectives: To provide health insurance coverage to the unrecognized sector workers belonging to the BPL category.Features: Providing cashless insurance for hospitalization in public as well as private hospitals.Central Government contributes 75% of the estimated annual premium i.e. Rs. 565 of total premium amount of Rs. 750 per family per annum and 25% by state government. more...
WORLD ECONOMY
WORLD ORGANISATIONS RELATED TO ECONOMY & BUSINESS
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Headquarters
Geneva, Switzerland
Established
1919 [Head: Guy Ryder]
Members
187 of the 193 member states of the United Nations plus the Cook Islands are members of the ILO.
Functions:
·Creation of international labour standards.
·Formulation of international policies.
·Technical assistance training.
·Education, research and publishing activities.
World Bank (WB)
Headquarters
Washington DC, USA
Established
July 1944
Head
Jim Yong Kirn
Members
189 member states
Functions:
·World Bank provides various technical services to the member countries.
·Reduce poverty.
·Support development.
·Bank grants loans for a particular project duly submitted to the Bank by the member country.
IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
more...
World Geography Physical (Aspect)INTRODUCTIONIn the previous chapters we have discussed the basic elements of Geography which in general deals with nature and scope of Geography, the Universe, the solar system, and its various branches of Geography. In this special branch of Geography we have also discussed development of earth, its lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere in details. Moving on to next important branch of Geography, we are now going to discuss Regional Geography which deals with the studies of the world's regions. In general it is called as World Geography which can be further categorised into three important segments such as physical segment dealing with unique characteristics of earth's relief, their spatial extent, drainage, climate, natural vegetation; social segment that deals with human development, their race and ethnicity and the relationship with their own physical environment; and finally the economic segment which deals with the natural resources, livelihood, transport, communications, etc. Let's start with physical segment.World Geography Physical
On the basis of major physical characteristics the earth can be divided into large continuous land masses known as Continents and the surrounding water bodies known as Ocean.
Major continents of the world are Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Australia.
ASIAExtent
Asia is the world largest continent, 13 times larger than India having an area of 44,444,100 sq km.
It covered 30% of the total land surface of the earth latitude: \[{{10}^{0}}\]11’5 to \[81{}^\circ \]12’N. It covers 8.8% of the Earth's total surface area with the population of 4.4 billion which is 60% of the world's total population. It is a continent of contrast in relief, temperature, vegetation and people also. Asia is to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and
Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean.
Longitude: \[26{}^\circ \]2’E to \[169{}^\circ \]40'W in the east crossing \[180{}^\circ \]longitude
North -South Extent : 6,440 km
East-West Extent : 9,650 km
Size: Largest continent of the world.
The continent of Asia is situated entirely in the northern hemisphere expect some of the island of Indonesia
Physiography and Drainage Pattern of IndiaINTRODUCTION‘Physiography’ of an area is the outcome of structure, process and the stage of development. The land of India is characterized by great diversity in its physical features. It is well-marked off from the rest of Asia by mountains and He Sea, which give the country a distinct geographical unity. The North has a vast expanse of rugged topography consisting of series of mountain ranges with varied peaks, beautiful valleys and deep gorges. The South consists of stable table land with highly dissected plateaus and denuded rocks. In between these two lies the vast North Indian plain.LOCATION - AREA - EXTENT
India lies in the northern and eastern hemispheres of the globe between \[8{}^\circ \] 4’ N and \[37{}^\circ \]6’ N latitudes and \[68{}^\circ \]7’ E and \[97{}^\circ \]25’E longitudes. Thus, its latitudinal and longitudinal extent is about thirty degrees.
The Indian sub-continent justs out from the Eurasian landmars into the Indian ocean in the form of triangular peninsula lies to the south of the tropic of cancer.
The southernmost point extent upto \[6{}^\circ \]45’ N latitude to cover the last island of the Nicobar group of islands. The southern extreme is called Pygmalion Point or Indira Point.
The Arabian sea and the Bay of Bengal are situated on western and eastern side of peninsular India respectively.
The tropic of cancer \[\left( 23\frac{{{1}^{o}}}{2}N\,latitudes \right)\] passes through the middle part of India and crosses the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura and Mizoram (8 states).
It is natural to look upon India as being divided into Northern temperate and Southern tropical lands by the tropic of cancer.
Its total length of land frontier of 15,200 kilometres passes through marshy lands, desert, level plains, rugged mountains, snow covered areas and thick forests.
Besides land there is a maritime boundary of 6,100 kilometres along the main land mass which increases to 7,516 kilometres of the coastlines of Andaman-Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands are added to it.
• India-Afghanistan and Pakistan - Afghanistan international boundary is called the Durand Line, determined as a “militarily strategic border between British India and Afghanistan”.
• The India-China boundary (4,225 km) is a natural boundary running along the Himalayan ranges and is based on various treaties. Its eastern part (1,140 km) is called more...
Soil, Natural Vegetation, Wildlife and Agriculture of IndiaINTRODUCTION
Soil is the mixture of rock debris and organic materials which develop on the earth's surface. Soil forms different layers of particles of different sizes. A vertical section that shows different layers of soil is called a Soil Profile. Each layer is called a Horizon.
Basic Facts
Soil formation process is called pedogenesis and the scientific study of soils is known as
Under the soil layer are gravels of parent rock and concretions formed by the accumulation of leached materials collectively known as sub-soil.
There are two classes of minerals abundant in soils.
Primary minerals and Secondary minerals.
Primary minerals are mostly silicate minerals-compounds of silicon and oxygen, with varying proportions of aluminium, calcium, sodium, iron and magnesium. But they play no important role in sustaining plant or animal life.
Secondary minerals - clay minerals, mineral oxides, etc. are essential for soil development and for soil fertility.
The nature of the clay minerals in a soil determines its base status. If the clay minerals can hold abundant base ions, the soil is of high base status and generally will be
Soil Forming Processes - The transformation of rocks into soil is called soil formation.
The fundamental & specific process of soil formation are as follows -
Weathering - the process that results in the break down and chemical changes of the parent rocks in situ.
Humification - It is the process of transformation of raw organic matter into humus. It helps in formation of surface layer.
Translocation - It refers to the material movement within the solid body. Two process of translocation are eluviation and illuviation.
Eluviation - the downward transport of fine particles, particularly the clays and colloids, from the uppermost part of the soil.
Illuviation - the accumulation of materials that are brought downward, in the underlying zone.
Calcification - occurs in dry regions where due to lack of excessive moisture, the soil accumulates considerable amount of soluble materials of calcium carbonate and magnesium in some part of soil profile.
Decalcification - the leaching of calcium carbonate from the entire soil. It generally happens in moist climates.-
Salinisation or alkalisation takes place in the case of extreme evaporation where soluble salts or sodium salts accumulate on the soil surface as a result of the capillary action of water from a more...
Mineral Resource Industries Population and Multipurpose Projects of IndiaMINERAL RESOURCE OF INDIA
Minerals are the natural resources which are used in many industries as raw materials. Iron ore, manganese, bauxite, copper, etc. are such minerals.
Minerals are of two types: metallic and non-metallic. Iron ore and copper are metallic minerals while limestone and dolomite are non-metallic minerals.
Metallic minerals are further sub-divided into ferrous and non-ferrous minerals. Those metallic minerals which have iron content belong to ferrous group. The metallic minerals belonging to non-ferrous group do not have iron content.
India is rich in iron, mica, manganese, bauxite; self-sufficient in antimony, building materials, cement materials, clay, chromite, lime, dolomite, and gold, but deficient in copper, lead, mercury, zinc, tin, nickel, petroleum products, rock phosphate, sulphur, and tungsten.
Mineral resources like potassium are totally absent and have to be imported. Minerals like crude petroleum (which accounts for about 80 per cent of the total value of Indian imports) diamonds (uncut), sulphur, and rock phosphorus are imported.
The state with the highest mineral output is Jharkhand.
India is rich in ferrrous metals but its reserves of non-ferrous metals are poor.
Mineral
Ore
Found in
Features
Iron
Magnetite-the best quality of iron ore and contains 72% pure iron. Haematite-contains 60 to 70% pure iron. Limonite-contains 40 to 60% pure iron. Siderite-contains many impurities and has just 40 to 50% pure iron.
NATURE AND SCOPEGEOGRAPHY
Geography is that branch of knowledge which links the study of natural world to that of society. It is the frame work of various fields of study which cover origin and development of Vuniverse, land scapes and its natural environment and pressure cteated over them, the global and local changes in the world and how and upto what extent the society is contributing in these changes. In this section we are going to cover all these above mentioned aspects in details.
Greek Scholar Eratosthenes is first man to discuss about Geography. It's the combination of two greek words and Geo means earth and graphy” means write. Thus geography means to write about the Earth or “earth descriptions”.
Various other geographers denned Geography as follows:
In Classical Period(i) Pythagoras, a great Greek philosopher and mathematician, was the first to say that the Earth is spherical and revolves around the sun.(ii) Herodotus Greek historian is known as the "Father of history?. He explained the deposition of silt in the Nile delta.(iii) Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) another Greek philosopher explained the eclipses.(iv) Eratosthenes (276 - 194 B.C) a Greek poet, mathematician observing the angle of the noon day Sun at Syene and at Alexandria.(v) Hipparchus (190 - 120 B.C.) was perhaps the greatest of the Greek astronomers.(vi) Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.). He wrote the book ?Geography' and he described system of latitudes and longitudes. He was a cartographer and he evolved the science of map-making.Modern Geography1.Bernhardus Varenius (1622-1650) first recognised the need for organisation of geographical knowledge. He wrote Geographia Generalis, the most highly regarded treatise on geography for more than a century into two part - general (now called systematic) and special (also called regional) which identified regions according to the interactions between human and environmental processes. more...
UNIVERSE AND OUR PLANET EARTH INTRODUCTIONAstronomy is a science that asks fundamental questions about the very basic of things, the universe. The Universe is all of time and space and its contents. The Universe includes planets, stars galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, the smallest subatomic particles, and all matter and energy. The observable universe is about 28 billion parsecs (91 billion light-years) in diameter at the time. The size of the whole Universe is not known and may be either finite or infinite. Observations and the development of physical theories have led to inferences about the composition and evolution of the universe. UNIVERSE·Everything that exists, from the Galactic Megaclusters to the tiniest subatomic particles, comprises the Universe·As for the age of Universe, scientists agree that it is about 13.82 billion years old.·The universe comprises of a number of galaxies.·Optical and radio telescope studies indicate the existence of between 100-200 billion galaxies in the visible universe·The Big Bang Theory is most accepted for the origin of Universe in comparison to the steady state and the Pulsating GALAXY·Galaxy is a collection of millions or billions of stars and planets that are held together by gravitational pull.·Milky Way is one such galaxy. The earth lies in this galaxy. It is called Milky Way, because it looks like a river of milky light flowing from one corner to another of the sky. more...
Modeling the Digital Economy
Digital economic activity results from billions of online connections among people, businesses, devices, data, and processes. The backbone of the digital economy is thus hyper-connectivity which creates interconnectedness of people, organisations, and machines that based on the Internet, mobile technology and the Internet of Things. The internet of things, which is known as the infrastructure of the information society connects physical devices, smart devices, buildings, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors etc. to engage in the exchange of data.
As social media, virtual reality and cloud services are expanding the boundary between the traditional economy and digital economy, is getting difficult to be identified. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) has included both information and Communication Technologies (ICT) goods and services under more... 
FOREEIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES
· Foreign exchange reserves also called Torex reserves or FX reserves are assets held by a central bank or other monetary authority, usually in various reserve currencies and used to back its liabilities e.g. the local currency issued, and the various bank reserves deposited with the central bank by the government or by financial institutions.
· The foreign exchange reserves of India comprise of four elements:
(i) Gold,
(ii) Special Drawing Rights (SDR),
(iii) Foreign Currency Assets (FCA).
(iv) Reserve Position in the IMF
· India?s foreign exchange reserves as on 17th March 2017 is US
366-78 billion
Gold
· It accounts for only 5 % of our foreign exchange assets.
Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
· An international type of monetary reserve currency, created by International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969 which operates as a supplement to the existing reserves of member countries.
· It is also known as ?paper gold?. Created in response to concerns about the limitations of gold and dollars as the sole means of settling international accounts, SDRs are designed to augment international liquidity by supplementing the standard reserve currencies.
· Its value is based on a basket of five key international currencies and SDRs can be exchanged for freely usable currencies. The basket of five international currencies includes US dollar, euro, Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and
British pound.
Foreign Currency Assests (FCAs)
more... 
World Geography Physical
On the basis of major physical characteristics the earth can be divided into large continuous land masses known as Continents and the surrounding water bodies known as Ocean.
Major continents of the world are Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Australia.
ASIA
Extent
Asia is the world largest continent, 13 times larger than India having an area of 44,444,100 sq km.
LOCATION - AREA - EXTENT
Basic Facts
