NEWS 19-06-2017. News for 20-Jun (Tuesday) 1. Switzerland has ratified automatic exchange of financial account information with India and other countries. According to the Swiss Federal Council, the top governing body of the Switzerland, the implementation of the exchange sharing agreement has been planned for 2018.The first set of data is likely to be exchanged in 2019. This will facilitate Switzerland to share information about suspected black money with India and other 40 nations. 2. The government has made Aadhaar mandatory for opening bank accounts as well as for carrying out financial transactions above of Rs 50,000. The government has also asked all the existing account holders to link Aadhaar numbers to their bank accounts latest by December 31, 2017. Failure to comply with this guideline will make the account invalid. Necessary notificationsin this regard have been issued amending the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005. 3. The Union cabinet has approved the Interest Subvention Scheme (ISS) for farmers for the year 2017-18. The Government has allocated Rs. 20,339 crores for this scheme. The objective of the scheme is to make available agricultural credit for Short Term crop loans at an affordable rate. The scheme is expected to boost agricultural productivity and production in the country. Under this scheme, farmers will be given a short-term crop loan up to Rs. 3 lakh payable within one year at an interest rate of 4% per annum. The scheme will be continued for 1 year and will be implemented by NABARD and RBI. 4. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully test fired anti-tank ‘Nag’ missile in Rajasthan. The anti-tank Nag missile is one of the five missile systems developed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) under the integrated guided missile development programme (IGMDP). The four other missiles developed under this programme include Agni, Akash, Trishul and Prithvi. The Nag missile is a third-generation anti-tank guided missile which works on “fire and forget” principle. The anti-tank Nag missile has been equipped with the highly advanced Imaging Infrared Radar (IRR) seeker along with integrated avionics. Nag can be launched from land and air-based platforms 5. The Ministry of Law and Justice has launched the ‘Tele-Law’ initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to provide legal aid services to the marginalized communities and citizens living in rural areas. The legal aid services will be provided through the Common Service Centres (CSC) at the panchayat level, spread across the country. ‘Tele Law initiative would help people to seek legal advice from lawyers with the help of video conferencing facility available at the Common Service Centres (CSC). Apart from the lawyers, law school clinics, District Legal Service Authorities, voluntary service providers and Non-Government Organisations working on legal aid and empowerment can also be connected through the CSCs. < < Back