(The PNB fraud must be speedily investigated to restore faith in the banking system)
• Punjab National Bank = ₹11,500-crore fraud.
• Perhaps the largest such scam in India, it was perpetrated by a maverick diamond merchant in collusion with bank officials at a single branch in South Mumbai.
• The government, just last month unveiled a plan to infuse about ₹1 lakh crore into 21 capital-starved public sector banks this fiscal. Of this, ₹5,473 crore is to be injected into PNB.
• 10 officials suspended. The Central Bureau of Investigation has booked one retired and one serving PNB employee so far.
• It appears that the bank employees who assisted in the fraud routed large transactions for the borrowers by circumventing the core banking solution. This flies in the face of the government’s push for a digital payment economy.
Title: A deepening crisis
• (Our national aspirations will remain unmet at long as we fail to prioritise education)
• 1966 - Kothari Commission - India should aim at spending 6% of its GDP on education. (difficult period- Famines, wars and political uncertainty)
• More than half a century later, we are spending less than 3% of our GDP on education. (India is more prosperous today and people’s aspirations are higher)
• Union Budget indicates that it is not a high priority although it is loudly announced to be so. This year’s Budget is no different.
• In his Budget speech, the Finance Minister referred to the importance of teacher education.
• The Finance Minister made a special mention of the four-year integrated B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) programme as a way forward for achieving quality in teacher training.
• That question is whether the government is aware of its responsibility towards higher education.
The reasons why the degraded state of undergraduate education limits the potential impact of training on a schoolteacher’s academic capacity are :
• Teachers for all levels are directly or indirectly affected by institutions of higher education.
• A nursery teacher needs to benefit from current knowledge in child psychology.
• The secondary teacher is directly affected by conditions in undergraduate colleges. If they have no science labs and adequate faculty, the graduates who opt for school teaching as a career can hardly do justice to the adolescents who choose to study science.
Final Words
• The damage our institutional apparatus has suffered over the last three decades has begun to hurt our long-term national economic interests and social goals. We need to recognize that growing inequality and dissonance among youth are a consequence of malnourished institutional experience.
Jharkhand
• State Flower = Butea monosperma (पलाश)
• Rivers =Damodar, Ganga, Son, Subarnarekha
• State Bird = Asian Koel
• State Animal = Indian Elephant
• When did it formed = 2000
• Bordered states = Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the west, Bihar in the North, Odisha in the south and West Bengal in the east.
State: Bihar
• Rivers = ??
• State symbols = ??
• Bordered states = ??
• Historical Importance of Bihar.
Title: Gem of a scam & A deepening crisis
Vocabulary words:
- Perpetrate (verb) = Carry out or commit a harmful action (पाप करना)
- Maverick (noun) = Individualist (घुमक्कड)
- Collusion (noun) = Conspiracy (मिलीभगत)
- Astounding (adj) = Amazing, astonishing (अद्भुत)
- Ostensibly (adv) = Apparently (जाहिरा तौर पर)
- Crony (noun) = A close friend or companion (घनिष्ठ मित्र)
- Infuse (verb) = Fill, pervade (उड़ेलना)
- Brass (noun) = People in authority or of high military rank
- Orchestrate (verb) = Arrange or organise (व्यवस्थित करना)
- Probe (verb) = Examine (जांच)
- Meteoric (adj) = Rapid, quick (तेजोमय)
- Circumvent (verb) = Avoid, deceive (धोखा देना)
- Diligence (noun) = Careful and persistent work or effort (लगन)
- Set off (phrasal verb) = Begin a journey (शुरू करना)
- Unmet (adj) = Not achieved or fulfilled (निरर्थक)
- Voluminous (adj) = Very lengthy and detailed (विशाल-काय)
- Famine (noun) = Extreme scarcity, shortage-food (अकाल)
- Sluggish (adj) = Lacking energy or alertness (सुस्त)
- Contingent (adj) = Dependent, conditional (आकस्मिक)
- Exchequer (noun) = A royal or national treasury (सरकारी खजाना)
- Dissonance (noun) = Lack of agreement (मतभेद)
- Nexus (noun) = A series of connections linking two or more things (कड़ी)
