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The Rural Development in India is one of the most important factors for the growth of the Indian economy. India is primarily an agriculture-based country. Agriculture contributes nearly one-fifth of the gross domestic product in India. In order to increase the growth of agriculture, the Government has planned several programs pertaining to Rural Development in India. The Ministry of Rural Development in India is the apex body for formulating policies, regulations and acts pertaining to the development of the rural sector. Agriculture, handicrafts, fisheries, poultry, and dairy are the primary contributors to the rural business and economy. The introduction of Bharat Nirman, a project set about by the Government of India in collaboration with the State Governments and the Panchayat Raj Institutions is a major step towards the improvement of the rural sector. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 was introduced by the Ministry of Rural Development, for improving the living conditions and its sustenance in the rural sector of India.
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There is much to be said for the enlightened and systematic despotism of the utilitarian bureaucrats who built the British raj in this period. They brought peace, much development of public services, administrative efficiency, reliable law, and incorrupt government at the higher levels. But economically they failed in the most sensational manner. Of all the territories under the administration of European governments or governments of the European type, even including Tsarist Russia, India continued to be haunted by the most gigantic and murderous famines; perhaps—though statistics are lacking for the earlier period—increasingly so as the century wore on.
The only other large colonial (or ex-colonial) area where attempts to apply liberal land law were made, was Latin America. Here the old feudal colonization of the Spaniards had never shown any prejudice against the fundamental collective and communal land-tenures of the Indians, so long as the white colonists got what land they wanted. The independent governments, however, proceeded to liberalize in the spirit of the French Revolutionary and Benthamite doctrines which inspired them. Thus Bolivar decreed the individualization of community land in Peru (1824) and most of the new republics abolished entails in the manner of the Spanish liberals. The liberation of noble lands may have led to some reshuffling and dispersion of estates, though the vast hacienda {estancia, finca, fundo) remained the dominant unit of landownership in most of the republics. The attack on communal property remained quite ineffective. Indeed, it was not really pressed seriously until after 1850. In fact, the liberalization of its political economy remained as artificial as the liberalization of its political system. In substance, parliaments, elections, land laws, etc., notwithstanding, the continent went on very much as before.
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Foreign exchange market is described as an OTC (Over the counter) market as there is no physical place where the participants meet to execute their deals. It is more of an informal arrangement among the banks and brokers operating in a financing centre purchasing and selling currencies, connected to each other by telecommunications like telex, telephone and a satellite communication network, SWIFT. The term 'foreign exchange market' is used to refer to the segment of the market, where the dealings take place among the banks. The retail segment refers to the dealings that take place between banks and their customers. It is situated in a large number of places. They can be considered not as foreign exchange markets, but as the counters of such markets. The leading foreign exchange market in India is Mumbai. Calcutta, Chennai and Delhi are other centres accounting for the bulk of the exchange dealings in India. The policy of the Reserve Bank has been to decentralise exchanges operations and develop broader-based exchange markets. As a result of the efforts of the Reserve Bank, Cochin, Bangalore, Ahmadabad and Goa have emerged as the new centres of the foreign exchange market.
The Foreign Exchange market is the largest financial market with a daily turnover of over USD 2 trillion. Foreign exchange markets were primarily developed to facilitate settlement of debts arising out of international trade. But these markets have developed on their own so much so that a turnover of about 3 days in the foreign exchange market is equivalent to the magnitude of world trade in goods and services. The largest foreign exchange market is in London followed by New York, Tokyo, Zurich and Frankfurt.
The business in foreign exchange markets in India has shown a steady increase as a consequence of the increase in the volume of foreign trade of the country, improvement in the communications systems and greater access to the international exchange markets. Still, the volume of transactions in these markets amounting to about USD 2 billion per day does not compete favourably with any well developed foreign exchange market of international repute. The reasons are not far to seek. The rupee is not an internationally traded currency and is not in great demand. Much of the external trade of the country is designated in leading currencies of the world, viz., US dollar, pound sterling, Euro, Japanese yen and Swiss franc. Incidentally, these are the currencies that are traded actively in the foreign exchange market in India.
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Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, known for his negative attitude towards crypto-currencies, has been targeted in a bitcoin advocacy campaign lead by one of the largest cloud mining companies. Genesis Mining has recently posted billboards in front of Buffett’s office reminding him that he was wrong about Google and Amazon, and telling him that he may very well be wrong about bitcoin, as well.
The initiative has received a lot of support from the crypto community on social media. Genesis co-founder Marco Krohn posted on Twitter photos of the message to the investment guru with a short note saying: “Some new billboards outside of Warren Buffett’s office!”
Earlier this month, the American business magnate issued another warning in regards to bitcoin and the like. “Cryptocurrencies will come to a bad ending,” he said during the annual Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder meeting, but he didn’t stop there. “If I could buy a five-year put on every one of the cryptocurrencies, I’d be glad to do it but I would never short a dime’s worth,” he said, concluding that bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared.” Needless to say, Buffett’s comments provoked reactions and even inspired new business ideas. A tokenized marketplace called Ecoinmerce has announced the “Rat Poison Squared clothing line.” ΠΆ-shirts and hats are already offered online, but one can also order a mug with the winged phrase.
Square CEO Jack Dorsey has recently reiterated his views about bitcoin. “The internet is going to have a native currency, so let’s not wait for it to happen, let’s help it happen,” he said during a blockchain conference, adding: “I don’t know if it will be bitcoin but I hope it will be.” Dorsey, who is also the chief executive of social media giant Twitter, wants his payment processing company to be at the forefront of the efforts to achieve adoption of cryptocurrencies as a global means of payment. In an interview in March, he predicted that there will be a single world currency in the next ten years. The billionaire believes that will be bitcoin, although he admits the cryptocurrency is still slow and costly.
Circle co-founder and President Sean Neville, however, has a different vision of what’s to come for the digital space and the digital currencies. “Very excited about the idea of reimagining what global finance can be,” he says that a dollar token is the future of the Internet of money. “One of the things that’s interesting for us is how we take fiat money and put in on blockchains, how do we get the benefits of a public blockchain infrastructure, which might underpin something like HTTPS of money,” he told Bloomberg. Neville thinks there is a problem with using existing crypto assets for payments and settlements – they are very volatile. “So, it makes sense to have something like the US dollar represented as a token that can transfer anywhere in the world, to any digital wallet and any exchange that can support it,” he explained. Sean Neville, whose company raised $110Mn USD in a fundraising round led by Chinese giant Bitmain. He also predicted that eventually everything of value will be tokenized in a “hybrid world” of centralized and decentralized services. Boston based Circle has announced plans to issue a dollar-backed cryptocurrency called USD-C.
By attracting some serious investments, Circle has actually joined the club of the most well-funded cryptocurrency companies. Another of its members, Coinbase, seems tempted to expand its financial business to include banking services. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, representatives of the crypto brokerage have met with US regulators to talk about the possibility to apply for a banking license.
A source quoted by the WSJ has revealed, that the company, which operates the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, has contacted officials from the US Office of the Comptroller of Currency earlier this year to discuss the matter. Besides the opportunity to broaden the types of products it offers, a banking license would allow Coinbase to operate without the need to partner with banks.
Which of the following can be said about the tone of the passage regarding cryptocurrencies?
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Domestic crude oil production fell for the fourth straight year in 2015-16, even as oil consumption rocketed 11%, pushing up India's import dependence. A collapse in oil prices coupled with a rapid economic growth has helped push up oil consumption at home. More vehicle purchases, increased use of diesel for irrigation due to weak monsoon and rising air traffic chiefly drove up consumption to 183.5 million metric tonne (mmt), compared to 165.5 mmt in the previous year. In comparison, India produced just 36.9 mmt of crude oil in 2015-16, lower than 37.5 mmt in the previous year. The country's largest oil producer, state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation BSE -0.35 % (ONGC), witnessed an output decline to 18.5 mmt from 18.6 mmt in the previous year. Oil producers have been struggling with ageing fields where outputs have been falling. Their inability to fresh big reserves into production lately has kept production stagnant. "The bigger problem is that the exploration activity didn't pick up in the last decade," said Gaurav Moda, consultant at KPMG, underlining the need to enhance exploration activity in the country to be able to accelerate output in the future. Without which, Moda says, India's dependence on overseas oil will only grow in future. The government has unveiled new exploration policies for its oil and gas blocks lately, aiming to plug loopholes in its previous policies that encouraged only limited participation of resource-rich foreign oil companies and couldn't dramatically boost the domestic output. India imported 202 mmt of crude oil in 2015-16, nearly 7% higher in volume, but paid just $64 billion, 43% lower due to the global oil collapse.
What is the probable tone of the passage?