Nasheman News : The government on Friday announced a budget of Rs 38,572 crore for its National Education Mission which comprises the Centrally sponsored schemes for education under which it allocates funds to the states and union territories.

The budget amount is an increase from last year’s Rs 32,334 crore. 

Most part of this entire amount — Rs 36,472.40 crore — is for school education for students from pre-primary to class 12. 

This amount is meant to be allocated for schemes which include Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan — formed with the merger of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan last year — and teacher training. 

A part of this budget component, that is, Rs 2,100 crore, is meant for higher education, which will go towards the Ministry of Human Resource Development’s Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan or RUSA. 

Nasheman News :Addressing the distress in the agrarian sector, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday announced a scheme to provide direct income support of Rs 6,000 to farmers with a land holding up to two hectares, which would benefit about 12 crore people.

He also announced expansion of the interest subvention for loans taken under Kisan Credit Card to farmers involved in animal husbandry and fishing. 

Presenting the Interim Budget for 2019-20 in the Lok Sabha, he said the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) will be effective from December 1, 2018. 

“Under this scheme, direct income support of Rs 6,000 every year will be given to farmers who have a land holding of up to two hectares,” he said.

“This income support will be transferred directly into the bank accounts of the farmers in three equal instalments of Rs 2,000 each.” The scheme will be funded 100 per cent by the central government, he added.

Goyal said farm returns have reduced due to the declining prices of agriculture commodities in the international markets and a fall in food inflation in India in the last two years relative to the non-food sector.

“Small and fragmented land holdings on account of repeated division has also contributed in the decline in the income of the farmer families. Hence, there is need to provide structured income support to poor farmer families in the country for procuring inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, equipment, labour and to meet other needs,” he said.

Goyal said the scheme will be effective from December 2018 and the first instalment for the period up to March 31 this year will be disbursed soon. 

The government will incur an annual expenditure of Rs 75,000 crore in 2019-20 while it has allocated Rs 20,000 crore in the revised estimates of the current year.

He also reiterated the government’s “historic” decision to provide Minimum Support Price (MSP) for 22 crops with 50 per cent profit over the input cost in order to double farm income. Agriculture continues to be the main driver of the rural economy, he said.

Saying an increase in farm loans to Rs 11.68 lakh crore in 2018-19, the minister said the allocation for interest subvention on farm loans has been doubled in order to provide farmers with affordable loans.

Moreover, the benefit of two per cent interest subvention will be provided to the farmers pursuing activities of animal husbandry and fishery who avail of a loan through the Kisan Credit Card (KCC), the minister said. 

“Further, in case of timely repayment of loan, they will get three per cent additional interest subvention,” he said.

He also said that the government has decided to provide benefit of three per cent interest subvention for disaster affected farmers for the entire period of reschedulement — from the earlier period of one year– besides interest subvention of 2 per cent.

Goyal said Rs 1.7 lakh crore has been allocated in order to bring food at affordable rates to families belonging to the poor and middle class.

“We ensured that everyone gets food and nobody goes to sleep without food,” he said. 

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has been provided Rs 60,000 crore in 2019-20 and more funds will be poured in if required, he said.

Saying the government seeks to break the urban-rural divide in the country, Rs 19,000 crore has been allocated to the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana as against Rs 15,500 crore in the previous budget, Goyal said.

Out of the total 17.84 lakh habitations in the country, 15.80 lakh were provided with pucca roads and the remaining work will be done soon, he said.

Goyal also announced a ‘Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog’ to upscale sustainable genetic upgradation of cow resources and to enhance production and productivity of cows. 

“The Aayog will look after effective implementation of laws and welfare schemes for cows. The government will not hesitate in allocating funds for the respect of “Gomata”.

Goyal also announced a separate Department for Fisheries.

Nasheman News : Various schemes to the tune of Rs 150 crore to benefit the diaspora community of the state were announced in the Kerala Budget 2019-20 here on Thursday.

Presenting the budget in the Assembly Finance Minister Thomas Isaac said the biggest allocation of Rs 81 crore was for the various programmes of the Loka Kerala Sabha (LKS) .

He said that starting in the new fiscal, the bodies of Keralites who die in various Middle East countries will be brought free to their homes.

The LKS was formed in 2018 by the Pinarayi Vijayan government when 351 members, including 141 legislators, parliament members from the state and some 130 selected representatives of Kerala-based organisations from within and outside the country, got under one roof to discuss the issues of the Kerala diaspora.

“Rs 25 crore has been set aside for the Santhwanam Scheme wherein the returned diaspora member who earn less than a lakh annually will be given assistance in case of emergencies. 

“Rs 15 crore has been set aside to provide for interest and capital subsidies to be given to those returned diaspora members who begin independent ventures. 

“Rs 5 crore has been set aside to meet the expenses of various diaspora festivals to be held outside India,” said Isaac in his speech.

The Minister announced a ‘Pravasi Dividend Pension Scheme’ that will provide a regular monthly pension of Rs 2,000 to all Non-Resident Keralites (NRK) on a onetime payment of Rs 5 lakh.

The monthly pension payment will begin after five years of joining the scheme and those who wish to avail a higher pension could pay in multiples of Rs five lakhs.

Issac also set aside Rs 15 crore for rehabilitation programmes of returned diaspora and another Rs 9 crore for the NRK Welfare Fund.

According to a study there are 2.1 million migrants from Kerala across the world whose estimated total annual remittances to the state have been found to be Rs 85,092 crore.

Of these close to 90 per cent are in various Middle East countries.

It has also been estimated that there are around one million NRK who have returned to the state.

A data security scandal has hit India’s largest public sector bank after a media report claimed that State Bank of India left a server with banking data (bank balances, recent transactions) of its customers unprotected for two months. SBI has now secured the server. 

According to a report by Techcrunch, the server which is hosted in a regional Mumbai-based data centre, stored two months of data from SBI Quick meant for users to request basic info about their bank accounts via a text message or on a call. 

The report goes on to point how the bank’s server was not password-protected, allowing anyone with the technical know-how to access the data of millions of customers’ information. According to Google Playstore, there have been 10-million-plus installs of the SBI Quick app.

Techcrunch claimed the passwordless database allowed them “to see all of the text messages going to customers in real time, including their phone numbers, bank balances and recent transactions”.

TechCrunch verified the authenticity of the server by asking an India-based security researcher to use SBI Quick and within seconds, his number, as well as the bank’s response, were available on the compromised server. 

The report says the server revealed that the bank sent over three million text messages to its consumers on a single day – Monday – itself. 

SBI Quick offers an easy way to its consumers to get basic information about like their account balance, mini statement, cheque book, and more with the bank. 

India’s largest public sector bank with a $47.5 billion revenue stood 216th in the last Fortune 500 list of the world’s biggest corporations.

Nasheman News :  The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Thursday that it has launched a Human Space Flight Centre here.

“Human Space Flight Centre is operational now… The facility is next to ISRO headquarters,” the city-based space agency tweeted.

The Centre is dedicated to developing critical technologies for human space missions.

The facility, unveiled by former ISRO chairman K. Kasturirangan and current chairman K. Sivan, will be headed by S. Unnikrishnan Nair as the Director.

The ISRO aims to send humans to space by December 2021 through its Gaganyaan mission.

A full-scale Gaganyaan crew module model was also unveiled at the Centre, the agency said.

R. Hutton, who was the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) Director, will be heading the Gaganyaan project.

Nasheman News :  Global software major Infosys’ philanthropic arm on Thursday said that it will restore the Panchakalyani lake in Karnataka’s Mandya district.

“The Foundation will restore the lake by cleaning the tank, removing silt and waste deposit, ensuring structural and chemical conservation of Panchakalyani and a nearby tank called Ganeshan Honda, reconnecting the existing canals and building a compound wall,” the city-based Infosys Foundation said in a statement here.

Panchakalyani, about 140 km from here, is said to be one of the largest ancient lakes of Melukote town, which has several water bodies situated on a hill top through which rain water has been harvested for consumption and irrigation for decades.

“The restoration project is important to improve the water quality of the lake and bring back the balance in the natural ecosystem of Melukote,” Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murty said in the statement.

By preserving the lakes of Melukote, a town patronized by the empires of Hoysala, Vijayanagara and the Wodeyars of erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore, the heritage structures and legacy are also protected, Murty said.

[Nasheman news] New Delhi The overall global smartphone market declined for the first time in 2018, registering 4 per cent drop from 1,558.8 million unit shipments in 2017 to 1,498.3 million units 2018, Counterpoint Research said on Thursday.

The fourth quarter smartphone shipments for 2018 recorded a decline of 7 per cent, marking it the fifth consecutive quarter of smartphone decline.

Samsung had 19 per cent share, followed by Apple and Huawei, both at 14 per cent, globally. Xiaomi with 8 per cent market share was fourth.

“The decline in smartphone shipments can be attributed to lengthening replacement cycles in developed markets like US, China and Western Europe,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research.

Smartphone original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) tried to push sales by adding features such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), multiple camera assemblies, full-screen displays and in-screen fingerprint scanners, etc.

“But consumers held on to their devices longer due to the absence of ground-breaking innovations and higher prices of devices being offered by the OEMs,” Pathak added.

Huawei, OPPO and Vivo continue to dominate with strong performances in China, India, Asia and parts of Europe.

Samsung and Apple saw tough times as demand for their flagship phones waned due to competition from affordable yet premium phones from Chinese brands such as Huawei and OnePlus, the report said.

“The collective smartphone shipment growth of emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Russia and others was not enough to offset the decline in China, which was responsible for almost one-third of global smartphone shipments in 2018,” said Research Analyst Shobhit Srivastava.

Xiaomi reached a record fourth position for the full year after two years of setbacks thanks to immense growth in India.

It has surpassed OPPO globally to take back the fourth position.

“BBK Group (which owns OPPO, Realme, Vivo and OnePlus brands) is collectively the world’s third largest manufacturer, even bigger than Huawei in terms of volume,” said the report.

Huawei continued to have its sights on Apple and should surpass Apple as the second largest brand globally in 2019 if it does not face any sanctions from the US the way ZTE was cut-off from American suppliers, noted the report.

Nasheman News :  The Sensex on Wednesday opened over 200 points higher while the Nifty reclaimed the 10,700 mark owing to strong gains in banking stocks.

The BSE Banking index gained over 1 per cent.

However, investors would be cautious ahead of the third quarter results of key companies — Bajaj Auto, ICICI Bank, LIC Housing Finance, NTPC — to be announced later in the day.

Also, investors across the globe will take cues from the key US-China trade talks to begin later in the day.

The S&P BSE Sensex opened over 200 points higher at 35,819.67 from its previous close of 35,592.50.

At 9.16 a.m., the Sensex traded 155.67 points or 0.44 per cent higher at 35,748.17.

The broader Nifty also opened higher at 10,702.25 from its Tuesday’s close of 10,652.20. It traded 51.75 points or 0.49 per cent up at 10,703.95.

Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) stocks continued to witness heavy selling pressure.

Shares of the housing finance institution, fell over 6 per cent to Rs 159.70 per shares in the morning trade session.

The shares of DHFL tanked on Tuesday after Cobrapost, a news website claimed that primary promoters of DHFL siphoned off over Rs 31,000 crore of public money.

[Nasheman news] San Francisco After iOS and Android, Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is now rolling out “Picture in Picture (PiP) mode” for web users that will allow them to view videos within a chat window, without opening third party pages or apps.

The feature comes as part of the 0.3.2041 update along with new improvements and security fixes, WABetaInfo, a fan website that tracks WhatsApp, reported on Sunday.

In the previous web version, the messaging app released the PiP feature to watch shared videos.

Now WhatsApp has finally submitted a new update for the web platform, giving the possibility to use the PiP feature for videos hosted on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Streamable, the report added. 

To force the update, WhatsApp web users need to clear their browser cache and re-launch the browser. 

The PiP feature was rolled out in January 2018 and December 2018 for iOS and Android users respectively. 

The Facebook-owned company has over 200 million monthly active users in India and is one of the most popular mobile apps worldwide.

Nasheman News : Will there be an interim budget or a vote-on-account on February 1. While the suspense on who will present it has ended with Piyush Goyal again being given additional charge of the Finance Ministry, with general elections round the corner, intense speculation continues about the final shape of the document he will unveil.

This speculation is about the nature of the upcoming budget — on whether it would be a simple vote-on-account to be passed by Parliament to permit government expenditure in the transition period or whether Goyal will go beyond that by presenting full estimates of both revenue and expenditure as well as policy measures.

While an incoming government has the freedom to change the estimates in the interim budget when it presents the final budget after taking office, outgoing governments in India have generally followed the convention of avoiding major policy announcements or taxation proposals in the interim budget.

Going by recent history, however, interim budgets have been passed thrice since 2000, and according to a market research firm, the upcoming one might be the last opportunity for the BJP-led NDA government to “woo a larger section of the society” by altering both taxes and outlays on schemes.

“After the failed budget promise of enhanced procurement of crops through a revised Minimum Support Price (MSP) formula in 2018-19, announcements made on February 1, 2019 will be the last opportunity for the government to woo a larger section of society through an interim budget, as against a vote-on-account, by altering both taxes and outlays on schemes,” said a report last week by JM Financial Institutional Securities.

With the general elections due in April-May, the government is looking at making available cheap loans and free accidental insurance to small businesses, a segment that bore the brunt of the demonetisation of November 2016, an official source here said, requesting anonymity.

The GST Council doubled the exemption threshold for small businesses from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 40 lakh. Besides, the threshold limit for eligibility under the GST Composition Scheme, which has been raised to Rs 1.5 crore from Rs 1 crore, is due to apply from the 2019-20 fiscal beginning April 1.

Such sops would follow major relief measures taken earlier this month to benefit the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, currently plagued by liquidity and other issues.

According to former Jawaharlal Nehru University economics professor Arun Kumar, though it would be unethical to present an interim budget with major policy proposals, there is also the matter of the Presidential address to the Budget Session whereby the government makes its vision statement.

“If the budget proposes populist schemes, it will become difficult for the new government if it is led by another political party to withdraw these,” he explained.

According to noted economist Ashok Desai, who was Chief Consultant to the Finance Ministry (1991-93), the outgoing government cannot make any tax proposals or policy changes.

“With the elections around the corner, what the government can do is make incremental outlays for existing schemes, but cannot announce new schemes,” Desai said.

“In this situation, it is the states which have more liberty in announcing populist schemes through their state budgets,” he added.

Economist Nagesh Kumar felt there is a likelihood of higher outlays being proposed on schemes for the rural sector and small businesses, which “is not necessarily a bad thing” because it would boost consumption demand, especially at a time of slowdown in private investment.