1. ICICI Prudential launches ICICI Pru Smart Life
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has launched ICICI Pru Smart Life.
The savings product is designed to provide financial protection and enable building a corpus over long-term, the company said in a release today.
Smart Benefit
The product offers a dual protection feature through the Smart Benefit. It pays lumpsum of the sum assured to the nominee in the case of death of the policyholder. Additionally, this feature enables the family of the policyholder to achieve their financial goals, as the company allocates units equal to the premium instalment. On completion of the policy term, the nominee receives the fund value.
Fund options
ICICI Pru Smart Life has eight underlying fund options which customers can choose from, including a new fund, Maximise India Fund, which will be benchmarked against the NIFTY 50 and NIFTY Junior indices. Puneet Nanda, Executive Director, said “ICICI Pru Smart Life addresses the anxiety in the minds of customers about the well-being of their loved ones in their absence and the concern of financial goals being compromised. We believe, this product empowers customers and provides them the assurance of the fruition of their financial goals.”
Loyalty additions, wealth boosters
ICICI Pru Smart Life rewards customers over long-term by way of loyalty additions and wealth boosters. This helps in building a corpus in a cost-effective manner that can be used to achieve a financial goal for e.g. fund a child’s education, buy a home or plan a comfortable life after retirement.
Customers have the option to receive the entire maturity benefit by way of a lumpsum amount or in the form of structured payouts which can substitute regular income.
2. ICICI Bank offers unique remittance service to Bahrain NRIs
ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank, has tied up with SADAD Electronic Payments WLL to offer remittance service for NRIs based in Bahrain, enabling them to transfer money instantly to India from the latter’s kiosks spread across the Kingdom of Bahrain. ‘Touch n Remit’, is a 24X7 remittance service in Bahrain and is available to all NRIs, even if they don’t have an account with ICICI Bank. Funds can be transferred by anyone, including non-customers of ICICI Bank, to over 100 banks in India, round-the-clock, 365 days a year.
To avail this service, the remitters have to carry out a one-time registration for themselves and beneficiary by visiting the ICICI Bank Bahrain branch. Subsequent to the registration, they can visit designated SADAD kiosks with cash and initiate money transfer to over 100 banks in India including ICICI Bank, .ICICI Bank beneficiaries shall receive money instantly in their account, while other bank’s beneficiaries will receive funds in their accounts between two and 24 working hours.
3. 46th Raising Day of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) observed on 10 March
"On 46th Raising Day of CISF, I salute the CISF personnel for their bravery and sense of duty with which they have served our nation for years," Modi tweeted. "Providing security cover to several key units and establishments across India, CISF's contribution to our nation's progress is vital," he said in another tweet. The Central Industrial Security Force came into existence in 1969 to provide Integrated security cover to public sector undertakings and at present has a strength of around 1.4 lakh personnel. The force is responsible for securing critical infrastructure installations like nuclear installations, space establishments, airports as well as the Delhi Metro.
4. Maharashtra aims to be drought-freeby 2019, launches new programme
Maharashtra could become a drought-free State by 2019 with the Government kick-starting a new programme called ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan’.
“This Abhiyan aims at initiating permanent measures to make the state drought-free by 2019 and to harvest rainwater within the village boundaries, thereby increasing ground water levels,” Governor C Vidyasagar Rao said while addressing a joint session of Maharashtra legislature at Vidhan Bhavan.
“Micro-irrigation systems would be promoted for efficient use of water, thereby increasing the irrigated area. An ambitious target has been set to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity every year,” the Governor added.The Maharashtra government also plans to install a tracking system in private taxis and reserve front seats in share taxis for women to ensure their safety.
GPRS system for cabs
“It is proposed that a GPRS-based system will be installed in Meru and other private taxis and the front seats reserved in share taxis in Mumbai for women,” Governor Rao said.“As part of a major initiative to have CCTV-based surveillance system for better security environment in major cities of the state, the government has started setting up of the system for Mumbai. This is expected to be completed within 90 weeks. The project has been already implemented in Pune,” he said.
Wells, toilets
The Governor also said the government will construct 1.41 million toilets in rural areas in the current fiscal under the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’. Another 800,000 toilets will be provided to households in urban areas of the state.
“Under the MGNREG scheme, construction of 44,000 wells will be completed within two years and more work related to roads will be undertaken through the employment guarantee scheme,” Rao said.
“The government is also committed to expediting the work on the Navi Mumbai International Airport project. Due to comprehensive rehabilitation policy of the government, consent letters from the project affected persons for land acquisitions have been received by CIDCO (the implementing agency).
“Majority of the clearances required for the project have been received. The government has decided to build a new city called NAINA in an area of 600 sq km, around the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport,” he said.
5. Tata AIA launches endowment assurance plan
Tata AIA Life today announced the launch of its new life insurance solution Tata AIA Life Insurance Smart Growth Plus, a non-linked participating endowment assurance plan that allows customers to plan for life's opportunities as well as uncertainties.
The plan is designed to offer 3-2-1 benefits — three times joy through triple enhancements with one guaranteed addition and two bonuses; two times protection cover through inbuilt Accidental Death Benefit (ADB) option; and the advantage of all-encompassing benefits under one plan, said the company in a release issued today.
To augment savings, Smart Growth Plus offers a guaranteed addition of 5.5 per cent of the sum assured per annum during the first five years of the policy term. The plan grows the corpus further through a compound reversionary bonus (CRB), which is accumulated every year from the sixth policy anniversary, and a Terminal Bonus, which is a percentage of the accrued CRB.
The customer has the choice of opting for accidental death benefit option that pays an additional amount equal to the basic sum assured in case of unfortunate death due to accident.
6. Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died
Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died following a brief illness. He was 83. He was from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and became member of the 15th Lok Sabha from Kolhapur constituency.
He also was a member of the 12th Lok Sabha, 13th Lok Sabha and 14th Lok Sabha.
He also was the member of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during 1985, 1990 and 1995 and had represented the Kagal constituency.
In 1993, Mandlik served as the Minister for Education and Irrigation in the Maharashtra government.
7. Veerappa Moily selected for Saraswati Samman 2014
Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily 5 was selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for 2014 for his Kannada poem Ramayana Mahanveshanam. Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. The selection for the award was made by a 13-member panel of scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti.About poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam
In the poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam, Moily tried to explore the Ramarajya or the true principle of the ideal State from a secular and modern point of view in his collection of poems.
About Marpadi Veerappa Moily
• He is a senior Congress leader from Karnataka
• He served Karnataka as its Chief Minister between 1992 and 1994
• Moily handled many ministries in the previous UPA regime like Petroleum and Natural Gas, Corporate Affairs, Law and Justice
8. Union Government released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education
Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education, a web-based tool for advancing girls education. It was unveiled by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
About Digital Gender Atlas
(i). This web based tool was developed with the support of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
(ii). The tool will help identify low performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities.
(iii). The Atlas will help identify and ensure equitable education with a focus on vulnerable girls, including girls with disabilities.
(iv). To ensure this is feasible, the Gender Atlas was developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met.
(v). The Atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point in time has worked or not.
(vi). It is developed on an open source platform with an inbuilt scope of updating data by authorized persons to retain its dynamic character.
(vii). It enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls’ education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.
Components of the Digital Gender Atlas
Composite Gender Ranking: A composite gender index was developed using the formulae that are used for calculating the EDI in DISE. Accordingly, the selected gender indicators have been grouped into four categories- Access, Infrastructure, Teachers and Outcomes.
Trend Analysis for Gender Related Indicators: The Atlas enables a trend analysis and tracking of performance of individual gender related indicators across a period of three years.
Spatial Display of Pockets with Multiple Disadvantages Related to Education: Spatial identification of pockets in states or blocks in districts where juxtaposition of key relevant gender indicators reveal maximum disadvantages.
Vulnerabilities: This component of the Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on a composite index of three broad indicators rural female literacy, percentage girls/boys married below the legal age of marriage and working children.
Children with Disabilities: This part of the Atlas visualizes the performance status of a single indicator related to children with disabilities, particularly girls, based on quartile ranking across three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14.
Girl Education in India
India has achieved high enrolment rates for girls at primary and upper primary levels of schooling. However, at the secondary level, girls’ enrolment remains lower. While in upper primary the representation of girls in the total enrolment is 48.66 percent, the percentage in secondary is 47.29 percent. Girls comprise half the population of school age children, and therefore, it is important to understand the multiple vulnerabilities they face in different areas in order to plan and prioritise inclusive interventions.
9. Prime Minister launched India’s first indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine Rotavac
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the first indigenously developed Rotavirus vaccine named Rotavac. This is the third such vaccine, besides GSK Rotarix and Merck’s RotaTeq available globally against Rotavirus. The vaccine will boost India’s efforts to combat infant mortality due to diarrhea. The vaccine will be available at a price of 1 US dollar per dose making it the cheapest vaccine available for rotavirus globally.
Rotavac vaccine was developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model that involved Union Ministry of Science and Technology, US’s National Institute of Health (NIH), NGOs in India supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL).
Union Government along with NIH of the US funded the basic research while the Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL) and the Gates Foundation contributed towards vaccine development and testing.
The vaccine was the result of an extraordinary effort spread over the last 25 years. The BBIL that was involved in the development and production of the vaccine was selected in 1997-1998 by the India-U.S. Vaccine Action Programme to develop the vaccine.
About Rotavirus
(i). It is a most common causative agent of moderate-to-severe diarrhoea (MSD) among infants below 11 months age group in India.
(ii). It spreads from person to person due to bacterial agents that are primarily transmitted through contaminated food or water.
(iii). In India, diarrhoea caused by rotavirus kills nearly 80 thousand children under the age of 5 years and lead to 10 lakh hospitalizations every year.
(iv). India accounts for 22 percent of the global deaths that occurs due to diarrhoea-causing rotavirus.
(v). Rotavirus vaccines are administered orally to infants in three dose course at ages of six, ten and fourteen weeks and are part of Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
10. Hero MotoCorp appoints Ashok Bhasin as head of sales
The country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp appointed Ashok Bhasin as Head of Sales, Marketing and Customer Care function. Bhasin will report directly to Pawan Munjal, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and will be part of the Leadership Team, the apex decision making body at Hero MotoCorp, the company said.
He replaces Anil Dua (Senior Vice President - Sales & Marketing) who had quit the company in June to pursue his career in the Gulf. Bhasin has experience of leading large business teams across countries and cultures in leadership roles across Sales, Marketing and M&A integrations. He has worked and lived across Asia, Africa, and the US where he accomplished significant transformation and turnarounds in consumer goods and retail sectors, Hero MotoCorp said.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has launched ICICI Pru Smart Life.
The savings product is designed to provide financial protection and enable building a corpus over long-term, the company said in a release today.Smart Benefit
The product offers a dual protection feature through the Smart Benefit. It pays lumpsum of the sum assured to the nominee in the case of death of the policyholder. Additionally, this feature enables the family of the policyholder to achieve their financial goals, as the company allocates units equal to the premium instalment. On completion of the policy term, the nominee receives the fund value.
Fund options
ICICI Pru Smart Life has eight underlying fund options which customers can choose from, including a new fund, Maximise India Fund, which will be benchmarked against the NIFTY 50 and NIFTY Junior indices. Puneet Nanda, Executive Director, said “ICICI Pru Smart Life addresses the anxiety in the minds of customers about the well-being of their loved ones in their absence and the concern of financial goals being compromised. We believe, this product empowers customers and provides them the assurance of the fruition of their financial goals.”
Loyalty additions, wealth boosters
ICICI Pru Smart Life rewards customers over long-term by way of loyalty additions and wealth boosters. This helps in building a corpus in a cost-effective manner that can be used to achieve a financial goal for e.g. fund a child’s education, buy a home or plan a comfortable life after retirement.
Customers have the option to receive the entire maturity benefit by way of a lumpsum amount or in the form of structured payouts which can substitute regular income.
2. ICICI Bank offers unique remittance service to Bahrain NRIs
ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank, has tied up with SADAD Electronic Payments WLL to offer remittance service for NRIs based in Bahrain, enabling them to transfer money instantly to India from the latter’s kiosks spread across the Kingdom of Bahrain. ‘Touch n Remit’, is a 24X7 remittance service in Bahrain and is available to all NRIs, even if they don’t have an account with ICICI Bank. Funds can be transferred by anyone, including non-customers of ICICI Bank, to over 100 banks in India, round-the-clock, 365 days a year.
To avail this service, the remitters have to carry out a one-time registration for themselves and beneficiary by visiting the ICICI Bank Bahrain branch. Subsequent to the registration, they can visit designated SADAD kiosks with cash and initiate money transfer to over 100 banks in India including ICICI Bank, .ICICI Bank beneficiaries shall receive money instantly in their account, while other bank’s beneficiaries will receive funds in their accounts between two and 24 working hours.
3. 46th Raising Day of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) observed on 10 March
"On 46th Raising Day of CISF, I salute the CISF personnel for their bravery and sense of duty with which they have served our nation for years," Modi tweeted. "Providing security cover to several key units and establishments across India, CISF's contribution to our nation's progress is vital," he said in another tweet. The Central Industrial Security Force came into existence in 1969 to provide Integrated security cover to public sector undertakings and at present has a strength of around 1.4 lakh personnel. The force is responsible for securing critical infrastructure installations like nuclear installations, space establishments, airports as well as the Delhi Metro.
4. Maharashtra aims to be drought-freeby 2019, launches new programme
Maharashtra could become a drought-free State by 2019 with the Government kick-starting a new programme called ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan’.
“This Abhiyan aims at initiating permanent measures to make the state drought-free by 2019 and to harvest rainwater within the village boundaries, thereby increasing ground water levels,” Governor C Vidyasagar Rao said while addressing a joint session of Maharashtra legislature at Vidhan Bhavan.
“Micro-irrigation systems would be promoted for efficient use of water, thereby increasing the irrigated area. An ambitious target has been set to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity every year,” the Governor added.The Maharashtra government also plans to install a tracking system in private taxis and reserve front seats in share taxis for women to ensure their safety.
GPRS system for cabs
“It is proposed that a GPRS-based system will be installed in Meru and other private taxis and the front seats reserved in share taxis in Mumbai for women,” Governor Rao said.“As part of a major initiative to have CCTV-based surveillance system for better security environment in major cities of the state, the government has started setting up of the system for Mumbai. This is expected to be completed within 90 weeks. The project has been already implemented in Pune,” he said.
Wells, toilets
The Governor also said the government will construct 1.41 million toilets in rural areas in the current fiscal under the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’. Another 800,000 toilets will be provided to households in urban areas of the state.
“Under the MGNREG scheme, construction of 44,000 wells will be completed within two years and more work related to roads will be undertaken through the employment guarantee scheme,” Rao said.
“The government is also committed to expediting the work on the Navi Mumbai International Airport project. Due to comprehensive rehabilitation policy of the government, consent letters from the project affected persons for land acquisitions have been received by CIDCO (the implementing agency).
“Majority of the clearances required for the project have been received. The government has decided to build a new city called NAINA in an area of 600 sq km, around the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport,” he said.
5. Tata AIA launches endowment assurance plan
Tata AIA Life today announced the launch of its new life insurance solution Tata AIA Life Insurance Smart Growth Plus, a non-linked participating endowment assurance plan that allows customers to plan for life's opportunities as well as uncertainties.
The plan is designed to offer 3-2-1 benefits — three times joy through triple enhancements with one guaranteed addition and two bonuses; two times protection cover through inbuilt Accidental Death Benefit (ADB) option; and the advantage of all-encompassing benefits under one plan, said the company in a release issued today.
To augment savings, Smart Growth Plus offers a guaranteed addition of 5.5 per cent of the sum assured per annum during the first five years of the policy term. The plan grows the corpus further through a compound reversionary bonus (CRB), which is accumulated every year from the sixth policy anniversary, and a Terminal Bonus, which is a percentage of the accrued CRB.
The customer has the choice of opting for accidental death benefit option that pays an additional amount equal to the basic sum assured in case of unfortunate death due to accident.
6. Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died
Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died following a brief illness. He was 83. He was from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and became member of the 15th Lok Sabha from Kolhapur constituency.
He also was a member of the 12th Lok Sabha, 13th Lok Sabha and 14th Lok Sabha.
He also was the member of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during 1985, 1990 and 1995 and had represented the Kagal constituency.
In 1993, Mandlik served as the Minister for Education and Irrigation in the Maharashtra government.
Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily 5 was selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for 2014 for his Kannada poem Ramayana Mahanveshanam. Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. The selection for the award was made by a 13-member panel of scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti.About poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam
In the poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam, Moily tried to explore the Ramarajya or the true principle of the ideal State from a secular and modern point of view in his collection of poems.
About Marpadi Veerappa Moily
• He is a senior Congress leader from Karnataka
• He served Karnataka as its Chief Minister between 1992 and 1994
• Moily handled many ministries in the previous UPA regime like Petroleum and Natural Gas, Corporate Affairs, Law and Justice
8. Union Government released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education
Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education, a web-based tool for advancing girls education. It was unveiled by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
About Digital Gender Atlas
(i). This web based tool was developed with the support of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
(ii). The tool will help identify low performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities.
(iii). The Atlas will help identify and ensure equitable education with a focus on vulnerable girls, including girls with disabilities.
(iv). To ensure this is feasible, the Gender Atlas was developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met.
(v). The Atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point in time has worked or not.
(vi). It is developed on an open source platform with an inbuilt scope of updating data by authorized persons to retain its dynamic character.
(vii). It enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls’ education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.
Components of the Digital Gender Atlas
Composite Gender Ranking: A composite gender index was developed using the formulae that are used for calculating the EDI in DISE. Accordingly, the selected gender indicators have been grouped into four categories- Access, Infrastructure, Teachers and Outcomes.
Trend Analysis for Gender Related Indicators: The Atlas enables a trend analysis and tracking of performance of individual gender related indicators across a period of three years.
Spatial Display of Pockets with Multiple Disadvantages Related to Education: Spatial identification of pockets in states or blocks in districts where juxtaposition of key relevant gender indicators reveal maximum disadvantages.
Vulnerabilities: This component of the Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on a composite index of three broad indicators rural female literacy, percentage girls/boys married below the legal age of marriage and working children.
Children with Disabilities: This part of the Atlas visualizes the performance status of a single indicator related to children with disabilities, particularly girls, based on quartile ranking across three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14.
Girl Education in India
India has achieved high enrolment rates for girls at primary and upper primary levels of schooling. However, at the secondary level, girls’ enrolment remains lower. While in upper primary the representation of girls in the total enrolment is 48.66 percent, the percentage in secondary is 47.29 percent. Girls comprise half the population of school age children, and therefore, it is important to understand the multiple vulnerabilities they face in different areas in order to plan and prioritise inclusive interventions.
9. Prime Minister launched India’s first indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine Rotavac
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the first indigenously developed Rotavirus vaccine named Rotavac. This is the third such vaccine, besides GSK Rotarix and Merck’s RotaTeq available globally against Rotavirus. The vaccine will boost India’s efforts to combat infant mortality due to diarrhea. The vaccine will be available at a price of 1 US dollar per dose making it the cheapest vaccine available for rotavirus globally.
Rotavac vaccine was developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model that involved Union Ministry of Science and Technology, US’s National Institute of Health (NIH), NGOs in India supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL).
Union Government along with NIH of the US funded the basic research while the Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL) and the Gates Foundation contributed towards vaccine development and testing.
The vaccine was the result of an extraordinary effort spread over the last 25 years. The BBIL that was involved in the development and production of the vaccine was selected in 1997-1998 by the India-U.S. Vaccine Action Programme to develop the vaccine.
About Rotavirus
(i). It is a most common causative agent of moderate-to-severe diarrhoea (MSD) among infants below 11 months age group in India.
(ii). It spreads from person to person due to bacterial agents that are primarily transmitted through contaminated food or water.
(iii). In India, diarrhoea caused by rotavirus kills nearly 80 thousand children under the age of 5 years and lead to 10 lakh hospitalizations every year.
(iv). India accounts for 22 percent of the global deaths that occurs due to diarrhoea-causing rotavirus.
(v). Rotavirus vaccines are administered orally to infants in three dose course at ages of six, ten and fourteen weeks and are part of Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
10. Hero MotoCorp appoints Ashok Bhasin as head of sales
The country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp appointed Ashok Bhasin as Head of Sales, Marketing and Customer Care function. Bhasin will report directly to Pawan Munjal, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and will be part of the Leadership Team, the apex decision making body at Hero MotoCorp, the company said.
He replaces Anil Dua (Senior Vice President - Sales & Marketing) who had quit the company in June to pursue his career in the Gulf. Bhasin has experience of leading large business teams across countries and cultures in leadership roles across Sales, Marketing and M&A integrations. He has worked and lived across Asia, Africa, and the US where he accomplished significant transformation and turnarounds in consumer goods and retail sectors, Hero MotoCorp said.
1. ICICI Prudential launches ICICI Pru Smart Life
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has launched ICICI Pru Smart Life.
The savings product is designed to provide financial protection and enable building a corpus over long-term, the company said in a release today.
Smart Benefit
The product offers a dual protection feature through the Smart Benefit. It pays lumpsum of the sum assured to the nominee in the case of death of the policyholder. Additionally, this feature enables the family of the policyholder to achieve their financial goals, as the company allocates units equal to the premium instalment. On completion of the policy term, the nominee receives the fund value.
Fund options
ICICI Pru Smart Life has eight underlying fund options which customers can choose from, including a new fund, Maximise India Fund, which will be benchmarked against the NIFTY 50 and NIFTY Junior indices. Puneet Nanda, Executive Director, said “ICICI Pru Smart Life addresses the anxiety in the minds of customers about the well-being of their loved ones in their absence and the concern of financial goals being compromised. We believe, this product empowers customers and provides them the assurance of the fruition of their financial goals.”
Loyalty additions, wealth boosters
ICICI Pru Smart Life rewards customers over long-term by way of loyalty additions and wealth boosters. This helps in building a corpus in a cost-effective manner that can be used to achieve a financial goal for e.g. fund a child’s education, buy a home or plan a comfortable life after retirement.
Customers have the option to receive the entire maturity benefit by way of a lumpsum amount or in the form of structured payouts which can substitute regular income.
2. ICICI Bank offers unique remittance service to Bahrain NRIs
ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank, has tied up with SADAD Electronic Payments WLL to offer remittance service for NRIs based in Bahrain, enabling them to transfer money instantly to India from the latter’s kiosks spread across the Kingdom of Bahrain. ‘Touch n Remit’, is a 24X7 remittance service in Bahrain and is available to all NRIs, even if they don’t have an account with ICICI Bank. Funds can be transferred by anyone, including non-customers of ICICI Bank, to over 100 banks in India, round-the-clock, 365 days a year.
To avail this service, the remitters have to carry out a one-time registration for themselves and beneficiary by visiting the ICICI Bank Bahrain branch. Subsequent to the registration, they can visit designated SADAD kiosks with cash and initiate money transfer to over 100 banks in India including ICICI Bank, .ICICI Bank beneficiaries shall receive money instantly in their account, while other bank’s beneficiaries will receive funds in their accounts between two and 24 working hours.
3. 46th Raising Day of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) observed on 10 March
"On 46th Raising Day of CISF, I salute the CISF personnel for their bravery and sense of duty with which they have served our nation for years," Modi tweeted. "Providing security cover to several key units and establishments across India, CISF's contribution to our nation's progress is vital," he said in another tweet. The Central Industrial Security Force came into existence in 1969 to provide Integrated security cover to public sector undertakings and at present has a strength of around 1.4 lakh personnel. The force is responsible for securing critical infrastructure installations like nuclear installations, space establishments, airports as well as the Delhi Metro.
4. Maharashtra aims to be drought-freeby 2019, launches new programme
Maharashtra could become a drought-free State by 2019 with the Government kick-starting a new programme called ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan’.
“This Abhiyan aims at initiating permanent measures to make the state drought-free by 2019 and to harvest rainwater within the village boundaries, thereby increasing ground water levels,” Governor C Vidyasagar Rao said while addressing a joint session of Maharashtra legislature at Vidhan Bhavan.
“Micro-irrigation systems would be promoted for efficient use of water, thereby increasing the irrigated area. An ambitious target has been set to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity every year,” the Governor added.The Maharashtra government also plans to install a tracking system in private taxis and reserve front seats in share taxis for women to ensure their safety.
GPRS system for cabs
“It is proposed that a GPRS-based system will be installed in Meru and other private taxis and the front seats reserved in share taxis in Mumbai for women,” Governor Rao said.“As part of a major initiative to have CCTV-based surveillance system for better security environment in major cities of the state, the government has started setting up of the system for Mumbai. This is expected to be completed within 90 weeks. The project has been already implemented in Pune,” he said.
Wells, toilets
The Governor also said the government will construct 1.41 million toilets in rural areas in the current fiscal under the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’. Another 800,000 toilets will be provided to households in urban areas of the state.
“Under the MGNREG scheme, construction of 44,000 wells will be completed within two years and more work related to roads will be undertaken through the employment guarantee scheme,” Rao said.
“The government is also committed to expediting the work on the Navi Mumbai International Airport project. Due to comprehensive rehabilitation policy of the government, consent letters from the project affected persons for land acquisitions have been received by CIDCO (the implementing agency).
“Majority of the clearances required for the project have been received. The government has decided to build a new city called NAINA in an area of 600 sq km, around the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport,” he said.
5. Tata AIA launches endowment assurance plan
Tata AIA Life today announced the launch of its new life insurance solution Tata AIA Life Insurance Smart Growth Plus, a non-linked participating endowment assurance plan that allows customers to plan for life's opportunities as well as uncertainties.
The plan is designed to offer 3-2-1 benefits — three times joy through triple enhancements with one guaranteed addition and two bonuses; two times protection cover through inbuilt Accidental Death Benefit (ADB) option; and the advantage of all-encompassing benefits under one plan, said the company in a release issued today.
To augment savings, Smart Growth Plus offers a guaranteed addition of 5.5 per cent of the sum assured per annum during the first five years of the policy term. The plan grows the corpus further through a compound reversionary bonus (CRB), which is accumulated every year from the sixth policy anniversary, and a Terminal Bonus, which is a percentage of the accrued CRB.
The customer has the choice of opting for accidental death benefit option that pays an additional amount equal to the basic sum assured in case of unfortunate death due to accident.
6. Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died
Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died following a brief illness. He was 83. He was from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and became member of the 15th Lok Sabha from Kolhapur constituency.
He also was a member of the 12th Lok Sabha, 13th Lok Sabha and 14th Lok Sabha.
He also was the member of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during 1985, 1990 and 1995 and had represented the Kagal constituency.
In 1993, Mandlik served as the Minister for Education and Irrigation in the Maharashtra government.
7. Veerappa Moily selected for Saraswati Samman 2014
Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily 5 was selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for 2014 for his Kannada poem Ramayana Mahanveshanam. Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. The selection for the award was made by a 13-member panel of scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti.About poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam
In the poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam, Moily tried to explore the Ramarajya or the true principle of the ideal State from a secular and modern point of view in his collection of poems.
About Marpadi Veerappa Moily
• He is a senior Congress leader from Karnataka
• He served Karnataka as its Chief Minister between 1992 and 1994
• Moily handled many ministries in the previous UPA regime like Petroleum and Natural Gas, Corporate Affairs, Law and Justice
8. Union Government released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education
Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education, a web-based tool for advancing girls education. It was unveiled by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
About Digital Gender Atlas
(i). This web based tool was developed with the support of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
(ii). The tool will help identify low performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities.
(iii). The Atlas will help identify and ensure equitable education with a focus on vulnerable girls, including girls with disabilities.
(iv). To ensure this is feasible, the Gender Atlas was developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met.
(v). The Atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point in time has worked or not.
(vi). It is developed on an open source platform with an inbuilt scope of updating data by authorized persons to retain its dynamic character.
(vii). It enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls’ education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.
Components of the Digital Gender Atlas
Composite Gender Ranking: A composite gender index was developed using the formulae that are used for calculating the EDI in DISE. Accordingly, the selected gender indicators have been grouped into four categories- Access, Infrastructure, Teachers and Outcomes.
Trend Analysis for Gender Related Indicators: The Atlas enables a trend analysis and tracking of performance of individual gender related indicators across a period of three years.
Spatial Display of Pockets with Multiple Disadvantages Related to Education: Spatial identification of pockets in states or blocks in districts where juxtaposition of key relevant gender indicators reveal maximum disadvantages.
Vulnerabilities: This component of the Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on a composite index of three broad indicators rural female literacy, percentage girls/boys married below the legal age of marriage and working children.
Children with Disabilities: This part of the Atlas visualizes the performance status of a single indicator related to children with disabilities, particularly girls, based on quartile ranking across three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14.
Girl Education in India
India has achieved high enrolment rates for girls at primary and upper primary levels of schooling. However, at the secondary level, girls’ enrolment remains lower. While in upper primary the representation of girls in the total enrolment is 48.66 percent, the percentage in secondary is 47.29 percent. Girls comprise half the population of school age children, and therefore, it is important to understand the multiple vulnerabilities they face in different areas in order to plan and prioritise inclusive interventions.
9. Prime Minister launched India’s first indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine Rotavac
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the first indigenously developed Rotavirus vaccine named Rotavac. This is the third such vaccine, besides GSK Rotarix and Merck’s RotaTeq available globally against Rotavirus. The vaccine will boost India’s efforts to combat infant mortality due to diarrhea. The vaccine will be available at a price of 1 US dollar per dose making it the cheapest vaccine available for rotavirus globally.
Rotavac vaccine was developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model that involved Union Ministry of Science and Technology, US’s National Institute of Health (NIH), NGOs in India supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL).
Union Government along with NIH of the US funded the basic research while the Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL) and the Gates Foundation contributed towards vaccine development and testing.
The vaccine was the result of an extraordinary effort spread over the last 25 years. The BBIL that was involved in the development and production of the vaccine was selected in 1997-1998 by the India-U.S. Vaccine Action Programme to develop the vaccine.
About Rotavirus
(i). It is a most common causative agent of moderate-to-severe diarrhoea (MSD) among infants below 11 months age group in India.
(ii). It spreads from person to person due to bacterial agents that are primarily transmitted through contaminated food or water.
(iii). In India, diarrhoea caused by rotavirus kills nearly 80 thousand children under the age of 5 years and lead to 10 lakh hospitalizations every year.
(iv). India accounts for 22 percent of the global deaths that occurs due to diarrhoea-causing rotavirus.
(v). Rotavirus vaccines are administered orally to infants in three dose course at ages of six, ten and fourteen weeks and are part of Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
10. Hero MotoCorp appoints Ashok Bhasin as head of sales
The country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp appointed Ashok Bhasin as Head of Sales, Marketing and Customer Care function. Bhasin will report directly to Pawan Munjal, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and will be part of the Leadership Team, the apex decision making body at Hero MotoCorp, the company said.
He replaces Anil Dua (Senior Vice President - Sales & Marketing) who had quit the company in June to pursue his career in the Gulf. Bhasin has experience of leading large business teams across countries and cultures in leadership roles across Sales, Marketing and M&A integrations. He has worked and lived across Asia, Africa, and the US where he accomplished significant transformation and turnarounds in consumer goods and retail sectors, Hero MotoCorp said.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has launched ICICI Pru Smart Life.
The savings product is designed to provide financial protection and enable building a corpus over long-term, the company said in a release today.Smart Benefit
The product offers a dual protection feature through the Smart Benefit. It pays lumpsum of the sum assured to the nominee in the case of death of the policyholder. Additionally, this feature enables the family of the policyholder to achieve their financial goals, as the company allocates units equal to the premium instalment. On completion of the policy term, the nominee receives the fund value.
Fund options
ICICI Pru Smart Life has eight underlying fund options which customers can choose from, including a new fund, Maximise India Fund, which will be benchmarked against the NIFTY 50 and NIFTY Junior indices. Puneet Nanda, Executive Director, said “ICICI Pru Smart Life addresses the anxiety in the minds of customers about the well-being of their loved ones in their absence and the concern of financial goals being compromised. We believe, this product empowers customers and provides them the assurance of the fruition of their financial goals.”
Loyalty additions, wealth boosters
ICICI Pru Smart Life rewards customers over long-term by way of loyalty additions and wealth boosters. This helps in building a corpus in a cost-effective manner that can be used to achieve a financial goal for e.g. fund a child’s education, buy a home or plan a comfortable life after retirement.
Customers have the option to receive the entire maturity benefit by way of a lumpsum amount or in the form of structured payouts which can substitute regular income.
2. ICICI Bank offers unique remittance service to Bahrain NRIs
ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank, has tied up with SADAD Electronic Payments WLL to offer remittance service for NRIs based in Bahrain, enabling them to transfer money instantly to India from the latter’s kiosks spread across the Kingdom of Bahrain. ‘Touch n Remit’, is a 24X7 remittance service in Bahrain and is available to all NRIs, even if they don’t have an account with ICICI Bank. Funds can be transferred by anyone, including non-customers of ICICI Bank, to over 100 banks in India, round-the-clock, 365 days a year.
To avail this service, the remitters have to carry out a one-time registration for themselves and beneficiary by visiting the ICICI Bank Bahrain branch. Subsequent to the registration, they can visit designated SADAD kiosks with cash and initiate money transfer to over 100 banks in India including ICICI Bank, .ICICI Bank beneficiaries shall receive money instantly in their account, while other bank’s beneficiaries will receive funds in their accounts between two and 24 working hours.
3. 46th Raising Day of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) observed on 10 March
"On 46th Raising Day of CISF, I salute the CISF personnel for their bravery and sense of duty with which they have served our nation for years," Modi tweeted. "Providing security cover to several key units and establishments across India, CISF's contribution to our nation's progress is vital," he said in another tweet. The Central Industrial Security Force came into existence in 1969 to provide Integrated security cover to public sector undertakings and at present has a strength of around 1.4 lakh personnel. The force is responsible for securing critical infrastructure installations like nuclear installations, space establishments, airports as well as the Delhi Metro.
4. Maharashtra aims to be drought-freeby 2019, launches new programme
Maharashtra could become a drought-free State by 2019 with the Government kick-starting a new programme called ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan’.
“This Abhiyan aims at initiating permanent measures to make the state drought-free by 2019 and to harvest rainwater within the village boundaries, thereby increasing ground water levels,” Governor C Vidyasagar Rao said while addressing a joint session of Maharashtra legislature at Vidhan Bhavan.
“Micro-irrigation systems would be promoted for efficient use of water, thereby increasing the irrigated area. An ambitious target has been set to make 5,000 villages free of water scarcity every year,” the Governor added.The Maharashtra government also plans to install a tracking system in private taxis and reserve front seats in share taxis for women to ensure their safety.
GPRS system for cabs
“It is proposed that a GPRS-based system will be installed in Meru and other private taxis and the front seats reserved in share taxis in Mumbai for women,” Governor Rao said.“As part of a major initiative to have CCTV-based surveillance system for better security environment in major cities of the state, the government has started setting up of the system for Mumbai. This is expected to be completed within 90 weeks. The project has been already implemented in Pune,” he said.
Wells, toilets
The Governor also said the government will construct 1.41 million toilets in rural areas in the current fiscal under the ‘Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan’. Another 800,000 toilets will be provided to households in urban areas of the state.
“Under the MGNREG scheme, construction of 44,000 wells will be completed within two years and more work related to roads will be undertaken through the employment guarantee scheme,” Rao said.
“The government is also committed to expediting the work on the Navi Mumbai International Airport project. Due to comprehensive rehabilitation policy of the government, consent letters from the project affected persons for land acquisitions have been received by CIDCO (the implementing agency).
“Majority of the clearances required for the project have been received. The government has decided to build a new city called NAINA in an area of 600 sq km, around the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport,” he said.
5. Tata AIA launches endowment assurance plan
Tata AIA Life today announced the launch of its new life insurance solution Tata AIA Life Insurance Smart Growth Plus, a non-linked participating endowment assurance plan that allows customers to plan for life's opportunities as well as uncertainties.
The plan is designed to offer 3-2-1 benefits — three times joy through triple enhancements with one guaranteed addition and two bonuses; two times protection cover through inbuilt Accidental Death Benefit (ADB) option; and the advantage of all-encompassing benefits under one plan, said the company in a release issued today.
To augment savings, Smart Growth Plus offers a guaranteed addition of 5.5 per cent of the sum assured per annum during the first five years of the policy term. The plan grows the corpus further through a compound reversionary bonus (CRB), which is accumulated every year from the sixth policy anniversary, and a Terminal Bonus, which is a percentage of the accrued CRB.
The customer has the choice of opting for accidental death benefit option that pays an additional amount equal to the basic sum assured in case of unfortunate death due to accident.
6. Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died
Former Lok Sabha member Sadashivrao Dadoba Mandlik died following a brief illness. He was 83. He was from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and became member of the 15th Lok Sabha from Kolhapur constituency.
He also was a member of the 12th Lok Sabha, 13th Lok Sabha and 14th Lok Sabha.
He also was the member of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly during 1985, 1990 and 1995 and had represented the Kagal constituency.
In 1993, Mandlik served as the Minister for Education and Irrigation in the Maharashtra government.
Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily 5 was selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for 2014 for his Kannada poem Ramayana Mahanveshanam. Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. The selection for the award was made by a 13-member panel of scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti.About poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam
In the poem Ramayana Mahaveshanam, Moily tried to explore the Ramarajya or the true principle of the ideal State from a secular and modern point of view in his collection of poems.
About Marpadi Veerappa Moily
• He is a senior Congress leader from Karnataka
• He served Karnataka as its Chief Minister between 1992 and 1994
• Moily handled many ministries in the previous UPA regime like Petroleum and Natural Gas, Corporate Affairs, Law and Justice
8. Union Government released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education
Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD) released Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girls Education, a web-based tool for advancing girls education. It was unveiled by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
About Digital Gender Atlas
(i). This web based tool was developed with the support of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
(ii). The tool will help identify low performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups such as scheduled castes, schedule tribes and Muslim minorities.
(iii). The Atlas will help identify and ensure equitable education with a focus on vulnerable girls, including girls with disabilities.
(iv). To ensure this is feasible, the Gender Atlas was developed as a hands-on management tool to enable critical decisions and actions in pockets where gaps are to be met.
(v). The Atlas provides comparative analysis of individual gender related indicators over three years and that enables a visual assessment of the change and an understanding of whether some intervention introduced in a geography at a particular point in time has worked or not.
(vi). It is developed on an open source platform with an inbuilt scope of updating data by authorized persons to retain its dynamic character.
(vii). It enables the user to navigate between geographical representation and numeric data at state, district and block levels and gives information on key indicators for girls’ education at primary, upper primary and secondary level.
Components of the Digital Gender Atlas
Composite Gender Ranking: A composite gender index was developed using the formulae that are used for calculating the EDI in DISE. Accordingly, the selected gender indicators have been grouped into four categories- Access, Infrastructure, Teachers and Outcomes.
Trend Analysis for Gender Related Indicators: The Atlas enables a trend analysis and tracking of performance of individual gender related indicators across a period of three years.
Spatial Display of Pockets with Multiple Disadvantages Related to Education: Spatial identification of pockets in states or blocks in districts where juxtaposition of key relevant gender indicators reveal maximum disadvantages.
Vulnerabilities: This component of the Atlas visualizes the vulnerability status of an area based on a composite index of three broad indicators rural female literacy, percentage girls/boys married below the legal age of marriage and working children.
Children with Disabilities: This part of the Atlas visualizes the performance status of a single indicator related to children with disabilities, particularly girls, based on quartile ranking across three years i.e. 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14.
Girl Education in India
India has achieved high enrolment rates for girls at primary and upper primary levels of schooling. However, at the secondary level, girls’ enrolment remains lower. While in upper primary the representation of girls in the total enrolment is 48.66 percent, the percentage in secondary is 47.29 percent. Girls comprise half the population of school age children, and therefore, it is important to understand the multiple vulnerabilities they face in different areas in order to plan and prioritise inclusive interventions.
9. Prime Minister launched India’s first indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine Rotavac
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the first indigenously developed Rotavirus vaccine named Rotavac. This is the third such vaccine, besides GSK Rotarix and Merck’s RotaTeq available globally against Rotavirus. The vaccine will boost India’s efforts to combat infant mortality due to diarrhea. The vaccine will be available at a price of 1 US dollar per dose making it the cheapest vaccine available for rotavirus globally.
Rotavac vaccine was developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model that involved Union Ministry of Science and Technology, US’s National Institute of Health (NIH), NGOs in India supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL).
Union Government along with NIH of the US funded the basic research while the Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL) and the Gates Foundation contributed towards vaccine development and testing.
The vaccine was the result of an extraordinary effort spread over the last 25 years. The BBIL that was involved in the development and production of the vaccine was selected in 1997-1998 by the India-U.S. Vaccine Action Programme to develop the vaccine.
About Rotavirus
(i). It is a most common causative agent of moderate-to-severe diarrhoea (MSD) among infants below 11 months age group in India.
(ii). It spreads from person to person due to bacterial agents that are primarily transmitted through contaminated food or water.
(iii). In India, diarrhoea caused by rotavirus kills nearly 80 thousand children under the age of 5 years and lead to 10 lakh hospitalizations every year.
(iv). India accounts for 22 percent of the global deaths that occurs due to diarrhoea-causing rotavirus.
(v). Rotavirus vaccines are administered orally to infants in three dose course at ages of six, ten and fourteen weeks and are part of Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
10. Hero MotoCorp appoints Ashok Bhasin as head of sales
The country’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp appointed Ashok Bhasin as Head of Sales, Marketing and Customer Care function. Bhasin will report directly to Pawan Munjal, Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and will be part of the Leadership Team, the apex decision making body at Hero MotoCorp, the company said.
He replaces Anil Dua (Senior Vice President - Sales & Marketing) who had quit the company in June to pursue his career in the Gulf. Bhasin has experience of leading large business teams across countries and cultures in leadership roles across Sales, Marketing and M&A integrations. He has worked and lived across Asia, Africa, and the US where he accomplished significant transformation and turnarounds in consumer goods and retail sectors, Hero MotoCorp said.
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