In India, how many households have been brought under Social Security Scheme? ?->(Show Answer!)

1. In India, how many households have been brought under Social Security Scheme?

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MCQ-> Read the following passage based on an Interview to answer the given questions based on it. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.A spate of farmer suicides linked to harassment by recovery agents employed by micro finance institutions (MFLs) in Andhra Pradesh spurned the state government to bring in regulation to protect consumer interests. But, while the Bill has brought into sharp focus the need for consumer protection, it tries to micro-manage MFI operations and in the process it could scuttle some of the crucial bene ts that MFIs bring to farmers, says the author of Micro nance India, State Of The Sec-for Report 2010. In an interview he points out that prudent regulation can ensure the original goal of the MFIs - social uplift of the poor. Do you feel the AP Bill to regulate Mils is well thought out? Does it ensure fairness to the borrowers and the long-term health of the sector? The AP Bill has brought into sharp focus the need for customer protection in four critical areas. First is pricing. Second is lender's liability whether the lender can give too much loan without assessing the customer's ability to pay. Third is the structure of loan repayment - whether you can ask money on a weekly basis from people who don't produce weekly incomes. Fourth is the practices that attend to how you deal with defaults. But the Act should have looked at the positive bene ts that institutions could bring in, and where they need to be regulated in the interests of the customers. It should have brought only those features in. Say, you want the recovery practices to be consistent with what the customers can really manage. If the customer is aggrieved and complains that somebody is harassing him, then those complaints should be investigated by the District Rural Development Authority. Instead what the Bill says is that MF1s cannot go to the customer's premises to ask for recovery and that all transactions will be done in the Panchayat of ce. With great dif culty, MFIs brought services to the door of people. It is such a relief for the customers not to be spending time out going to banks or Panchayat of ces, which could be 10 km away in some cases. A facility which has brought some relief to people is being shut. Moreover, you are practically telling the MFI where it should do business and how it should do it. Social responsibilities were inbuilt when the MIrls were rst conceived. If kills go for profit with loose regulations, how are they different from moneylenders? Even among moneylenders there are very good people who take care of the customer's circumstance, and there are really bad ones. A large number of the MF1s are good and there are some who are coercive because of the kind of prices and processes they have adopted. But Moneylenders never got this organised. They did not have such a large footprint. An MFI brought in organisation, it mobilized the equity, it brought in commercial funding. It invested in systems. It appointed a large number of people. But some of them exacted a much higher price than they should have. They wanted to break even very fast and greed did take over in some cases.Are the for-profit 'Ms the only ones harassing people for recoveries? Some not-for-profit out ts have also adopted the same kind of recovery methods. That may be because you have to show that you are very ef cient in your recovery methods and that your portfolio is of a very high quality if you want to get commercial funding from a bank. In fact, among for-profits there are many who have sensible recovery practices. Some have fortnightly recovery, some have monthly recovery. So we have differing practices. We just describe a few dominant ones and assume every for-profit MFI operates like that. How can you introduce regulations to ensure social upliftment in a sector that is moving towards for-profit models? I am not really concerned whether someone wants to make a profit or not The bottom-line for me is customer protection. The rst area is fair practices. Are you telling your customers how the loan is structured ? Are you being transparent about your performance? There should also be a lender's liability attached to what you do. Suppose you lend excessively to a customer without assessing their ability to service the loan, you have to take the hit. Then there's the question of limiting returns. You can say that an MFI cannot have a return on assets more than X, a return on equity of more than Y. Then suppose there is a privately promoted MFI, there should be a regulation to ensure the MFI cannot access equity markets till a certain amount of time. MFIs went to markets perhaps because of the need to grow too big too fast. The government thought they were making profit off the poor, and that's an indirect reason why they decided to clamp down on MF1s. If you say an MFI won't go to capital market, then it will keep political compulsions under rein.Which of the following best explains "structure of loan repayment" in this context of the rst question asked to the author ?....

MCQ-> Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words/phrases have been given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions: In every religion, culture and civilization feeding the poor and hungry is considered one of the most noble deeds. However such large scale feeding will require huge investment both in resources and time. A better alternative is to create conditions by which proper wholesome food is available to all the rural poor at affordable price. Getting this done will be the biggest charity.Our work with the rural poor in villages of Western Maharashtra has shown that most of these people are landless laborers. After working the whole day in the fields in scorching sun they come home in the evening and have to cook for the whole family. The cooking is done on the most primitive chulha (wood stove) which results in tremendous indoor air pollution. Many of them also have no electricity so they use primitive and polluting kerosene lamps. World Health Organization (WHO) data has shown that about 300,000 deaths/ year in India can be directly attributed to indoor air pollution in such -nuts. At the same time this pollution results in many respiratory ailments and these people spend close Rs. 200-400 per month on medical bills. Besides the pollution, rural poor also eat very poor diet. They eat whatever is available daily at Public Distribution System (PDS) shops and most of the times these shops are out of rations. Thus they cook whatever is available. The hard work together with poor eating takes a heavy toll on their health. Besides this malnutrition also affects the physical and mental health of their children and may lead to creation of a whole generation of mentally challenged citizens. So I feel that the best way to provide adequate food for rural poor is by setting up rural restaurants on large scale. These restaurants will be similar to regular ones but for people below poverty line (BPL) they will provide meals at subsidized rates. These citizens will pay only Rs. 10 per meal and the rest, which is expected to be quite small, will come as a part of Government subsidy. With existing open market prices of vegetables and groceries average cost of simple meal for a family of four comes to Rs. 50 per meal or Rs. 12.50 per person per meal. If the PDS prices are taken for the groceries then the average cost will be Rs. 7.50 per person per meal. This makes the subsidy approximately Rs. 2.50 per person per meal only and hence quite small. The buying of meals could be by the use of UID (Aadhar) card by rural poor. The total cost should be Rs. 30 per day for three vegetarian meals of breakfast, lunch and dinner. The rural poor will get better nutrition and tasty food by eating in these restaurants. Besides the time saved can be used for resting and other gainful activities like teaching children. Since the food will not be cooked in huts, this strategy will result in less pollution in rural households. This will be beneficial for their health. Besides, women's chores will be reduced drastically. Another advantage of eating in these restaurants will be increased social interaction of rural poor since this could also become a meeting place. Eating in restaurants will also require fewer utensils in house and hence less expenditure. For other things like hot water for bath, making tea, boiling milk and cooking on holidays some utensils and fuel will be required. Our Institute NARI has developed an extremely efficient and environment-friendly stove which provides simultaneously both light and heat for cooking and hence may provide the necessary functions. Providing reasonably priced wholesome food is the basic aim and program of Government of India (GOI). This is the basis of their much touted food security program.However in 65years they have not been able to do so. Thus I feel a public private partnership can help in this. To help the restaurant owners the GOI or state Governments should provide them with soft loans and other line of credit for setting up such facilities. Corporate world can take this up as a part of their corporate social responsibility activity. Their participation will help ensure good quality restaurants and services. Besides the charitable work, this will also make good business sense. McDonald's-type restaurant systems for rural areas can be a good model to be set up for quality control both in terms of hygiene and in terms of quality of food material. However focus will be on availability of wholesome simple vegetarian food in these restaurants.More clientele (volumes) will make these restaurants economical. Existing models of dhabas, udipi type restaurants etc. can be used in this scheme. These restaurants may also be able to provide midday meals in rural schools. At present the midday meal program is faltering due to various reasons. Food coupons in western countries provide cheap food for poor. However quite a number of fast food restaurants in US do not accept them. Besides these coupons are most of the times used for non-food items, it will be mandatory for rural restaurants to accept payment via UID cards for BPL citizens. Existing soup kitchens, lagers and temple food are based on charity. For large scale rural use it should be based on good social enterprise business model. Cooking food in these restaurants will also result in much more efficient use of energy since energy/ kg of food cooked in households is greater than that in restaurants. The main thing however will be to reduce drastically the food wastage In these restaurants. Rural restaurants can also be forced to use clean fuels like LPG or locally produced biomass-based liquid fuels. This strategy is very difficult to enforce for individual households. Large scale employment generation in rural areas may result because of this activity. With an average norm of 30 people employed/ 100-chair restaurant, this program has the potential of generating about 20 million jobs permanently in rural areas. Besides the infrastructure development in setting up restaurants and establishing the food chain etc will help the local farmers and will create huge wealth generation in these areas. In the long run this strategy may provide better food security for rural poor than the existing one which is based on cheap food availability in PDS - a system which is prone to corruption and leakage.In accordance with the view expressed by the writer of this article, what is the biggest charity ?
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MCQ-> Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on it. Some words have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.Notwithstanding the fact that the share of household savings to GDS is showing decline, still this segment is the significant contributor to GDS with 70% share. Indian households are among the most frugal in the world However, commensurate capital formation has not been taking place as a lion's share of household savings are being parked in physical assets compared to financial assets. The pattern of disposition of saving is an important factor in determining how the saved amount is utilized for productive purposes. The proportion of household saving in financial assets determines the channelisation of saving for investment in other sectors of the economy. However, the volume of investment of saving in physical assets determines the productivity and generation of income in that sector itself. Post-Independence era has witnessed a significant shift in deployment of household savings especially the share of financial assets increased from 26.39% in 1950 to 54.05% in 1990 may be on account of increased bank branch network across the country coupled with improved awareness of investors on various financial / banking products. However, contrast to common expectations, the share of financial assets in total household savings has come down from 54.05% to 50.21% especially in post reform period i.e. 1990 to 2010 despite providing easy access and availability of banking facilities compared to earlier years. The increased share of physical assets over financial assets (around 4%) during the last two decades is a cause of concern requires focused attention to arrest the trend. Traditionally, the Indians are risk-averse and prefer to invest surplus funds in physical assets such as Gold, Silver and lands. Nevertheless, considerable share of savings also owing to financial assets, which includes, Currency, Bank Deposits, Claims on Government, Contractual Savings, Equities The composition of household financial savings shows that the bank deposits (44%) continue to remain the major contributor along with the rise in the Contractual Savings, Claims on Government and Currency. Though there was gradual decline in currency holdings by the households i.e. 13.79% in 1970s to 9.30% in 2007, still the present currency holding level with households appears to be on high side compared to other countries. The primary reasons for higher currency holdings could be absence of banking facilities in majority villages (5.70 lakh villages)as well as hoarding of unaccounted money in the form of cash to circumvent tax laws. Though, cash is treated as financial asset, in reality, a major portion of currency is blocked and become unproductive. Bank deposits seemed to be the preferred choice mainly on account of its inbuilt features such as Safety, Security and Liquidity. Traditionally, the Household sector has been playing a leading role in the landscape of bank deposits followed by the Government sector. However, the last two decades has witnessed significant shift in ownership of Bank deposits. While there was improvement in Corporate and Government sectors' share by 8.30% and 7.20% respectively during the period 1999 to 2009, household sector lost a share of 13.30% in the post reform period. In the post independence era, Indian financial system was characterized by poor infrastructure and low level of financial deepening. Savings in physical assets constituted the largest portion of the savings compared to the financial assets in the initial years of the planning periods. While rural households were keen on acquiring farm assets, the portfolio of urban households constituted consumer durables, gold, jewellery and house property.Despite the fact that the household savings have been gradually moving from physical assets to financial assets over the years, still 49.79% of household savings are wrapped in unproductive physical assets, which is a cause of concern as the share of physical assets to total savings are very high in the recent years compared to emerging economies. This trend needs to be arrested as scarce funds are being diverted into unproductive segments. Of course, investment in Real estate sector can be treated as productive provided construction activity is commenced within reasonable time, but it is regrettably note that many investors just buy and hold it for speculation leading to unproductive investments. India has probably the largest fascination with gold than any other country in the world with a share of 9.50% of the world's total gold holdings. The World Gold Council believes that they are over 18000 tonnes of gold holding in the country. More impressive is the fact that current demand from India alone consumes 25% of the world's annual gold output. Large amount of capital is blocked in gold which resides in bank lockers and remain unproductive. Indian economy would grow faster if the capital markets could attract more of the nation's savings and channel them into more productive areas, especially infrastructure. If the Indian market can develop and evolve into a more mature financial system, which persuades the middle class to put more of its money into equities, the potential is mind-boggling.Which of the following statement (s) is/are correct in the context of the given passage? I. The GDS percentage to GDP has shown considerable improvement from 10% in 1950 to 33.7% in 2010, which is one of the highest globally. II. The saving rate however shows an increasing trend, marginal decline is observed under tic use hold sector. III. The share of financial assets in total household savings have come down from 54.05% to 21% especially in post reform era.....

MCQ-> Social life is an outflow and meeting of personality, which means that its end is the meeting of character, temperament, and sensibility, in which our thoughts and feelings, and sense perceptions are brought into play at their lightest and yet keenest.This aspect, to my thinking, is realized as much in large parties composed of casual acquaintances or even strangers, as in intimate meetings of old friends. I am not one of those superior persons who hold cocktail parties in contempt, looking upon them as barren or at best as very tryingly kaleidoscopic places for gathering, because of the strangers one has to meet in them; which is no argument, for even our most intimate friends must at one time have been strangers to us. These large gatherings will be only what we make of them if not anything better, they can be as good places to collect new friends from as the slavemarkets of Istanbul were for beautiful slaves or New Market for race horses.But they do offer more immediate enjoyment. For one thing, in them one can see the external expression of social life in appearance and behaviour at its widest and most varied where one can admire beauty of body or air, hear voices remarkable either for sweetness of refinement, look on elegance of clothes or deportment. What is more, these parties are schools for training in sociability, for in them we have to treat strangers as friends. So, in them we see social sympathy in widest commonalty spread, or at least should. We show an atrophy of the natural human instinct of getting pleasure and happiness out of other human beings if we cannot treat strangers as friends for the moment. And I would go further and paraphrase Pater to say that not to be able to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, even when we meet them casually, is on this short day of frost and sun which out life is, to sleep before evening.So, it will be seen that my conception of social life is modest, for it makes no demands on what we have, though it does make some on what we are. Interest, wonder, sympathy, and love, the first two leading to the last two, are the psychological prerequisites for social life; and the need for the first two must not be underrated. We cannot make the most even of our intimate social life unless we are able to make strangers of our oldest friends everyday by discovering unknown areas in their personality, and transform them into new friends. In sum, social life is a function of vitality.It is tragic, however, to observe that it is these very natural springs of social life which are drying up among us. It is becoming more and more difficult to come across fellow-feeling for human beings as such in our society and in all its strata. In the poor middle class, in the course of all my life. I have hardly seen any social life properly so-called. Not only has the grinding routine of making a living killed all desire for it in them, it has also generated a standing mood of peevish hostility to other human beings. Increasing economic distress in recent years has infinitely worsened this state of affairs, and has also brought a sinister addition class hatred. This has become the greatest collective emotional enjoyment of the poor middle class, and indeed they feel most social when they form a pack, and snarl or howl at people who are better off than they.Their most innocent exhibition of sociability is seen when they spill out from their intolerable homes into the streets and bazaars. I was astonished to see the milling crowds in the poor suburbs of Calcutta. But even there a group of flippant young loafers would put on a conspiratorial look if they saw a man in good clothes passing by them either on foot or in a car. I had borrowed a car from a relative to visit a friend in one of these suburbs, and he became very anxious when I had not returned before dusk. Acid and bombs, he said, were thrown at card almost every evening in that area. I was amazed. But I also know as a fact that my brother was blackmailed to pay five rupees on a trumped up charge when passing in a car through one such locality.The situation is differently inhuman, but not a whit more human, among the well-to-do. Kindliness for fellow human beings has been smothered in them, taken as a class, by the arrogance of worldly position, which among the Bengalis who show this snobbery is often only a third-class position.The word ‘they’ in the first sentence of the third paragraph refers to
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MCQ-> I think that it would be wrong to ask whether 50 years of India's Independence are an achievement or a failure. It would be better to see things as evolving. It's not an either-or question. My idea of the history of India is slightly contrary to the Indian idea.India is a country that, in the north, outside Rajasthan, was ravaged and intellectually destroyed to a large extent by the invasions that began in about AD 1000 by forces and religions that India had no means of understanding.The invasions are in all the schoolbooks. But I don't think that people understand that every invasion, every war, every campaign, was accompanied by slaughter, a slaughter always of the most talented people in the country. So these wars, apart from everything else led to a tremendous intellectual depletion of the country.I think that in the British period, and in the 50 years after the British period, there has been a kind of regrouping or recovery, a very slow revival of energy and intellect. This isn't an idea that goes with the vision of the grandeur of old India and all that sort of rubbish. That idea is a great simplification and it occurs because it is intellectually, philosophically easier for Indians to manage.What they cannot manage, and what they have not yet come to terms with, is that ravaging of all the north of India by various conquerors. That was ruined not by the act of nature, but by the hand of man. It is so painful that few Indians have begun to deal with it. It is much easier to deal with British imperialism. That is a familiar topic, in India and Britain. What is much less familiar is the ravaging of India before the British.What happened from AD 1000 onwards, really, is such a wound that it is almost impossible to face. Certain wounds are so bad that they can't be written about. You deal with that kind of pain by hiding from it. You retreat from reality. I do not think, for example, that the Incas of Peru or the native people of Mexico have ever got over their defeat by the Spaniards. In both places the head was cut off. I think the pre-British ravaging of India was as bad as that.In the place of knowledge of history, you have various fantasies about the village republic and the Old Glory. There is one big fantasy that Indians have always found solace in: about India having the capacity for absorbing its conquerors. This is not so. India was laid low by its conquerors.I feel the past 150 years have been years of every kind of growth. I see the British period and what has continued after that as one period. In that time, there has been a very slow intellectual recruitment. I think every Indian should make the pilgrimage to the site of the capital of the Vijayanagar empire, just to see what the invasion of India led to. They will see a totally destroyed town. Religious wars are like that. People who see that might understand what the centuries of slaughter and plunder meant. War isn't a game. When you lost that kind of war, your town was destroyed, the people who built the towns were destroyed. You are left with a headless population.That's where modern India starts from. The Vijayanagar capital was destroyed in 1565. It is only now that the surrounding region has begun to revive. A great chance has been given to India to start up again, and I feel it has started up again. The questions about whether 50 years of India since Independence have been a failure or an achievement are not the questions to ask. In fact, I think India is developing quite marvelously, people thought — even Mr Nehru thought — that development and new institutions in a place like Bihar, for instance, would immediately lead to beauty. But it doesn't happen like that. When a country as ravaged as India, with all its layers of cruelty, begins to extend justice to people lower down, it's a very messy business. It's not beautiful, it's extremely messy. And that's what you have now, all these small politicians with small reputations and small parties. But this is part of growth, this is part of development. You must remember that these people, and the people they represent, have never had rights before.When the oppressed have the power to assert themselves, they will behave badly. It will need a couple of generations of security, and knowledge of institutions, and the knowledge that you can trust institutions — it will take at least a couple of generations before people in that situation begin to behave well. People in India have known only tyranny. The very idea of liberty is a new idea. The rulers were tyrants. The tyrants were foreigners. And they were proud of being foreign. There's a story that anybody could run and pull a bell and the emperor would appear at his window and give justice. This is a child's idea of history — the slave's idea of the ruler's mercy. When the people at the bottom discover that they hold justice in their own hands, the earth moves a little. You have to expect these earth movements in India. It will be like this for a hundred years. But it is the only way. It's painful and messy and primitive and petty, but it’s better that it should begin. It has to begin. If we were to rule people according to what we think fit, that takes us back to the past when people had no voices. With self-awareness all else follows. People begin to make new demands on their leaders, their fellows, on themselves.They ask for more in everything. They have a higher idea of human possibilities. They are not content with what they did before or what their fathers did before. They want to move. That is marvellous. That is as it should be. I think that within every kind of disorder now in India there is a larger positive movement. But the future will be fairly chaotic. Politics will have to be at the level of the people now. People like Nehru were colonial — style politicians. They were to a large extent created and protected by the colonial order. They did not begin with the people. Politicians now have to begin with the people. They cannot be too far above the level of the people. They are very much part of the people. It is important that self-criticism does not stop. The mind has to work, the mind has to be active, there has to be an exercise of the mind. I think it's almost a definition of a living country that it looks at itself, analyses itself at all times. Only countries that have ceased to live can say it's all wonderful.The central thrust of the passage is that
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