DigiDhan , MeitY - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Justice BN Srikrishna

Explanation:
The government has accorded importance to data protection and keeping personal data of citizens secure and protected.

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India has, on 31st July 2017, constituted a Committee of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice B N Srikrishna, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India.

The committee is also comprising of members from Government, Academia and Industry to study and identify key data protection issues and recommend methods for addressing them.

The committee will also suggest a draft Data Protection Bill. Protection of Data is expected to provide big boost to Digital economy of the country.

ANSWER: Digidhan

Explanation:
Promotion of Digidhan and cashless transactions are part of the mission to bring digital transactions to the fore.

Keeping this in mind, a Digidhan Fair was held in Motihari, Bihar.

The fair involved banks, Common Service Centres (CSC), private digital payment service providers etc. informing the consumers as well as traders about the new technology.

Government has taken several initiatives to promote cashless transactions. Keeping cashless transaction and increasing population of educated youth under consideration, the government has launched Bheem App, which is quite popular.

So far 1.25 crore people have been linked to the App and a transaction of Rs. 361 crore has been made.

More than 100 crore phones are there in India and out of them 30-40 crore is smartphones.

There are about 50 crore internet users.

If used properly, credit cards won’t be required.

Banks have devised UPI cards under which if the mobile app is downloaded, people can do the transaction through any bank on the basis of their phone numbers.

2.15 crore railway tickets are booked out of which 1.30 crore tickets are booked online. He informed that there is 144 crore bank accounts by and large, out of them 117 are the savings account.

A total number of Jandhan account is 28.02 crore.

So far 40 crore bank accounts are linked to Aadhaar Cards.

Total number of Aadhaar cards is 113 crore and there is 20.13 crore POS machines in the country and by the end of this month 10 lakh new machines will be added.

Apart from this, there is 5.7 crore e-wallet users and 110.6 crore credit/debit cards.

So far 21.9 crore consumers have got Rupay cards and its usage has increased up to 40% in the recent time.

Steps to Curb Black Money: Know More

• Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted.
• A law was made to tackle undeclared foreign assets and deposits.
• India revised the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) with Mauritius and Cyprus
• A treaty was signed with Switzerland to obtain information about the bank accounts of Indians in HSBC bank.
• Cashless and digital payments have to be promoted
• Benami Transaction act will be modified.
• Income declaration scheme 2016

ANSWER: Both a and b

Explanation:
Union Government has awarded INR 60.9 crore as prize money to 3.81 lakh consumers and 21,000 merchants under Lucky Grahak Yojana and Digi-Dhan Vyapar Yojana.

Winners include mostly 21-30 year old housewives, small farmers, labourers and anganwadi workers.

Maharashtra, TN, AP, UP and Karnataka are the top 5 states with maximum winners.

Both these schemes were announced in Dec 2016 to boost digital payments post demonetisation.

Aimed at incentivising the consumers and merchants to promote digital payments, they will remain open till April, 2017.

Lucky Grahak Yojana & Digi Dhan Vyapar Yojana: Know More

• NITI Aayog announces the launch of the schemes Lucky Grahak Yojana and the Digi-धन Vyapar Yojana.
• The plans aim to give cash awards to consumers and merchants who utilize digital payment instruments.
• The plan is for personal consumption expenditures.
• The scheme specially focuses on bringing the poor, lower middle class and small businesses into the digital payment fold.
• National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI)is the implementing agency for this scheme.
• The primary aim of these schemes is to incentivize digital transactions.
• It seeks to ensure electronic payments are adopted by all sections of the society, especially the poor and the middle class.
• The schemes will comprise of two major components, one for the Consumers and the other for the Merchants.
• They will remain open till April 14, 2017.