Daily GK Potion – 16th January 2015
- Hari Shankar Brahma is new Chief Election Commissioner
- Censor Board chief Leela Samson decides to quit
- Citing “interference, coercion and corruption of panel members and officers” appointed in the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) by the Union Information & Broadcasting Ministry, Bharatnatyam danseuse Leela Samson has quit as Censor Board chief.
- Baba Ramdev made Haryana’s brand ambassador
- The BJP government in Haryana has appointed yoga guru Ramdev its brand ambassador.
- Haryana’s minister of sports and health Anil Vij said a herbal forest would be developed over thousands of acres of land in the state where plants of 25 thousand species of ayurvedic herbs would be grown under the supervision of the yoga guru and his close aide Balkrishna.
- RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal is now a ‘Giraffe Hero’
- Noted RTI activist Subhash Chandra Agrawal has been conferred the honour of ‘Giraffe Hero’ by a US-based voluntary association.
- The Giraffe Heroes Project is a non-profit group which honours the “risk-takers, people who are largely unknown, people who have the courage to stick their necks out for the common good”, in the US and around the world.
- Reserve Bank of India permits banks to act as insurance brokers
- Seeking to increase insurance penetration in the country, the Reserve Bank today allowed banks to act as brokers for insurers, set up their own subsidiaries and also undertake referral services for multiple companies.
- “Banks may undertake insurance agency or broking business departmentally and/or through subsidiary,…,” RBI said in the guidelines for entry of banks into insurance business.
- Under existing bancassurance guidelines, a bank can act as a corporate agent and sell policy of only one life insurer and one non-life insurance company. The new guidelines allow banks to act as brokers permitting them to sell insurance policies of different insurance companies.
- J&K gets National Award for e-Governance
- Jammu and Kashmir has bagged the National Award for e-Governance for the best district-level initiative in the country.
- The award will be shared by Deputy Commissioner Kathua, Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, and Assistant Commissioner Development Reasi, Joginder Singh Rai, for the project e-Panchayat, launched in 2013-14, for strengthening 147 panchayats in the state.
- Under the project, a decentralized regime of panchayats has been established in the state with service delivery shifted from block level to panchayat level.
- PM to launch ‘Beti Bachao’ with a bang on January 22
- The scheme will be launched by PM Narendra Modi on January 22 and will focus on a multi-sectoral approach to tackling the problem of the vanishing girl child.
- A toilet in every girl’s school in 100 vulnerable districts, an innovation fund at the state level to encourage best practices in improving child sex ratio and gender inequities, district level awards to schools strengthening girl child education are some of the targets that the scheme hopes to accomplish by 2017.
- The Rs 100-crore scheme is expected to be monitored by the ministry of women and child development (WCD) headed by Maneka Gandhi in coordination with the ministries of health and HRD.