DAILY CURRENT
AFFAIRS: 21 DEC 2017
(DAILY NEWS INDIA)
SHARED BY: WWW.DAILYGK.IN
1.
CABINET APPROVES ESTABLISHING INDIA'S 1ST NATIONAL RAIL AND
TRANSPORTATION UNIVERSITY
i. The Union Cabinet chaired by PM
Narendra Modi has approved the Ministry of Railways' transformative initiative
to set up India's first ever National Rail and Transport University in
Vadodara, Gujarat to skill its human resources and build capability.
ii. Government is planning to launch the
first academic program in July 2018. The funding of the new
University/Institute is to entirely come from Ministry of Railways.
2.
DARPAN PROJECT LAUNCHED FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION OF RURAL
POPULATION
i. The Minister of Communications Manoj
Sinha launched DARPAN- “Digital Advancement of Rural Post Office for A New
India” Project to improve the quality of service, add value to services and
achieve 'financial inclusion' of the unbanked rural population.
ii. The goal of the IT modernization
project with an outlay of Rs. 1400 Cr is to provide a low power technology
solution to each Branch Postmaster (BPM) which will enable each of
approximately 1.29 Lakhs Branch Post Offices to improve the level of services
being offered to rural customers across all the states.
3.
CABINET APPROVES "SCHEME FOR CAPACITY BUILDING IN TEXTILES
SECTOR"
i. The Cabinet Committee on Economic
Affairs has given its approval for a new skill development scheme covering the
entire value chain of the textile sector excluding Spinning & Weaving in
organized Sector, titled "Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector"
from 2017-18 to 2019-20 with an outlay of Rs. 1300 cr.
ii. The scheme will have National Skill
Qualification Framework compliant training courses. The objectives of the
scheme are to provide demand-driven, placement oriented skilling program to
incentivize the efforts of the industry in creating jobs in the organized
textile and related sectors.
4.
UK TOPS FORBES' LIST OF BEST COUNTRIES FOR BUSINESS IN 2018
i. The United Kingdom has topped Forbes'
rankings of best countries in the world for business in 2018 for the 1st time,
up from fifth last year. The list ranks 153 countries on 15 factors including
property rights, innovation, taxes and red tape.
ii. The UK is followed by New Zealand
and the Netherlands, while India was ranked 62nd on the list. The
UK's $2.6 trillion economy is the fifth largest in the world. The world’s 2nd (China) and third (Japan)
biggest economies rank 66th and 21st, respectively. Chad
ranks last for the third straight year.