Railways, Google - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Neural machine translation technology

Explanation:
Google unveiled a new set of products and features for Indian languages to better serve the needs of Indians who were coming online rapidly.

Google Translate will use a new ‘neural machine translation technology’ to translate between English and nine widely-used Indian languages. These include Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu. Other languages are Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati.

The firm indicated neural translation offered a huge improvement over the old phrase-based system, translating full sentences at a time instead of pieces of a sentence.

This change improves the quality of translation in a single jump than seen in the last ten years combined.

Sharing insights from the joint report “Indian Languages - Defining India’s Internet” - by Google and consulting firm KPMG India, the company stated the country had 234 million Indian language users who were online compared with 175 million English web users.

Google aims for another 300 million Indian language users to come online in the next four years.

The extension of neural machine translation to Chrome browser’s built-in auto-translate functionality to web content would make full-page translations more accurate and easier to read.

The content ranges from song lyrics to cricket discussions.

The new translation capability will also be available to users on Google search and Maps to aid discovery of new places such as cafes and hotels with translations of local reviews on Google Maps, both on mobile and desktop.

Extending support to cover all 22 scheduled Indian languages, Google also rolled out new Gboard, a keyboard for Android unveiled in launched in December 2016.

It has transliteration support for languages.such as Urdu, Tamil, Hindi and Bengali.

With Google Search built right into the keyboard, Gboard will allow users to ‘search’ and use Google Translate right on their keyboard.

For users who often switch back and forth between Hindi and English, they will also be able to use ‘Hinglish’ language option with new text editing tool.

ANSWER: Tez

Explanation:
On 18th Sept 2017, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launched Google’s payment app - ‘Tez’.

Tez by Google is perhaps the simplest form of monetary transactions.

Tez by Google and other ecosystems will make a major change in the digital payments landscape in India.

The tech giant claimed that Tez will enable money transfer directly from the bank accounts of customers, without them having to share their ‘personal information’.

The app will function on both Android and iOS platforms.

Google also said that the app will ‘understand’ eight Indian languages and will work with 55 banks

Tez (which means “Fast” in Hindi is Google’s play to replace cash transactions and become a more central part of how people pay for things, using their mobile to do so.

But it’s also a chance for the company to push out some new technologies - like audio QR (AQR), which lets users transfer money by letting their phones speak to each other with sounds - to see how it can make that process more frictionless, and therefore more attractive to use than cash itself.

Tez will see Google linking up with several major banks in the country by way of UPI (Unified Payments Interface) - a payment standard and system backed by the government in its push to bring more integrated banking services into a very fragmented market.

There will also be phones coming to the market from Lava, Micromax, Nokia and Panasonic with Tez preloaded, the company said.

Google has confirmed to me that payments made and taken using UPI are free for consumers and small merchants

To be clear, Tez is not a mobile “wallet” in the same way as PayTM offers a mobile wallet, where money is stored in the app and needs to be topped up to be used;

It’s more like Apple’s Wallet or other mobile wallets in the west: a place that links up your phone with your bank accounts to let you use your phone as a way to deduct payments from those accounts.

Supported banks include Axis, HDFC Bank, ICICI and State Bank of India and others that support UPI.

Online payment partners include large food chains like Dominos, transport services like RedBus, and Jet Airways

The app has support for English, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.

For money transfers, there is a limit of ₹1,00,000 in one day across all UPI apps, and 20 transfers in one day.

AQR and Tez: Know More

• Google says that AQR - the sound-based format for transferring money securely between devices - is its own proprietary technology.
• This appears to be the first time that Google has used it for payments, although it has used ultrasonic sound for transferring information between devices before
• For example, the tech has been used in Chromecast to connect devices since 2014. Other startups that have used audio-based “codes” to transfer payments and other data before include Lisnr, and Chirp.
• While AQR might seem like a neat technical twist, there are some practical reasons behind why Google might opt for this in Tez.
• For starters, it obviates the need for NFC in the device, and in the payment devices of merchants or whoever else a person is planning to transact with.
• The other thing is that it makes any kind of contactless transaction with the device fairly flexible and easy.
  
• Services like Airdrop on iPhones require Bluetooth and if you’ve used it before isn’t that seamless and foolproof to turn on (even though it works like a charm when it does). QR codes, meanwhile, require you to turn on the camera on your device and physically align it with a code on another screen, a potentially fiddly and difficult process.
• Using audio taps into some of the most basic features on even the most basic phones, a speaker and a microphone.
• Google has also trademarked the name in other Asian countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, so there seems to be a wider strategy to expand this to other regions.
• India, the second-most populated country in Asia after China, is a ripe market for mobile payment services, with a rapidly expanding middle class with more disposable income and a wider population that is very tech-focussed, with an estimated 300 million smartphones in use today.
• Digital payments are expected to reach a volume of $500 billion annually by 2020, according to a report from BCG and Google.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
Google on Sept 12, 2017 unveiled several updates to its Translate App in an effort to bring down language barriers.

It said users in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi can experience offline translations and instant visual translation in their preferred language.

The biggest application is that they are breaking language barriers.

Google Translate has also added support for conversation mode in regional languages including Tamil and Bengali.

This feature lets users have a bilingual conversation with someone, simply by talking to the Google Translate app.

Google Translate: Know More

• India is among the top four countries globally using Google Translate which translates over 140 billion words every day.
• More than 400 million people in India used the Internet.
• But the vast majority of India’s online content is in English, which only 20% of the country’s population speaks.
• The Translate app already lets the user use camera mode to snap a photo of English text and get a translation for it in these languages.
• Now, with Word Lens feature, Google has taken it to the next level, letting users instantly translate text using their camera.
• The company said now it was way easier for speakers of local Indian languages to understand English street signs in the city or decide what to order from a restaurant menu.
• Word Lens is powered by machine learning, using computer vision to distinguish between letters on an image.
• With the company's Google Translate, users can easily turn their phone into a powerful translation tool, whether for studies, business, travel or work.
• Offline support enables Indian language users to translate a word or sentence even when they are not connected to the Internet.

ANSWER: Drive File Stream

Explanation:
Google let fly an announcement that PC and Mac desktop app for Google Drive is going the way of the Dodo bird.

As the new alternative, customers will have two options.

For those using the G Suite service, the solution is called Drive File Stream, an app that will allow for quicker, more streamlined access to their files and also the ability to choose which ones are made available offline.

For non-G Suite users, another app called Backup and Sync will be the way to go.

It will have all the same features as the Google Drive desktop app that most users currently access on a regular basis, but with an added photo capability as well.

This seems to be a move towards making Google more of a one-stop shop for your online cloud storage.

The Backup and Sync app will allow users to store a large amount of photos, provided they're cool with the slight compression that will happen during the upload process.

If not, they'll have to pay extra for more storage.

After the debacle that was Google+, the company is hoping that, with this change, more customers will be housing all of their data in their infrastructure instead of with other providers.

ANSWER: None of the above

Explanation:
Trains falling into rivers and coaches catching fire will be common sights in the country’s first ‘railways disaster management village’ expected to come up on the outskirts of Bengaluru by December 2018.
The “overaged rolling stock” will be used to replicate train accidents so that real time rescue operations could be carried out to improve such efforts.

It will be just like the mock drills carried out by security personnel. It will be as real as it can get.

The railways has earmarked the 3.32 sq km village of Hejjala, with a population of 3,483 people, to develop its Disaster Management Institute and Safety village at a cost of INR 44.42 crore, according to the blueprint accessed by PTI.

For augmenting theoretical class room training with practical hands on exercise, a real environment for training in various conditions and scenarios of train accidents, a concept of safety village was envisaged.

The focus is on imparting state of the art training on rescue, medical relief and rolling stock restoration techniques in a classroom and also using various simulated teaching aids.

However, it is the practical reproduction of accidents on site and the ensuing rescue operations that are being touted as the big ticket venture.

For the practical training as a part of the safety village tunnel, cutting, embankment, other conditions and obstructions like overhead structures and platforms are being created.

For carrying out underwater rescue and relief operations, a water body is also being developed.

Overaged rolling stock such as coaches, wagons and locomotives would be stationed in the safety village along with various tools and equipment for imparting hands-on practical training, the concept note said.

The village, about 25 km from Bengaluru, will also have a virtual reality centre for analysis of railway accidents.

The centre aims at providing training on dealing with various disasters under varied environment and terrain.

Construction work has begun and will be completed by December next year.

ANSWER: Both a and b

Explanation:
Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu launched the following Initiatives:-

1. RAIL CLOUD PROJECT.

2. NIVARAN-Grievance Portal (First IT Application on Rail Cloud).

3. Cashless treatment Scheme in Emergency (CTSE) Scheme and Handing over of 1st CTSE Card.

Salient Features of the Initiatives Launched

RailCloud

Indian Railway has started a strategic IT initiative, christened IR-OneICT, for enterprise wide digital single platform with an aim to improve customer satisfaction, improve revenue and effective, efficient and safe operations.

To achieve the goal of single digital platform for IR a few foundational projects need to be implemented first, establishment of RailCloud is one such project.

Cloud Computing is the emerging technology for faster and on demand commensurate deployment of Server resources which result in reduced cost.

Accordingly, RailCloud Phase-I has been sanctioned at the cost of Rs. 53.55 Cr under PH-17, DF(3) in FY 17-18. Potential benefits to Railways after implementation of RailCloud are:

• Faster and on-demand deployment of application- RailCloud will pave the way for swifter deployment of application (within 24 hrs as compared to conventional time running into weeks and months).
  
  At the same time the cloud hardware and environment will be available for rigorous testing of the new applications.
• Optimum use of Servers and storage- The technology enables maximising the usage of the available server and storage resulting in accommodation of bigger data and more applications within same server space.
• Utilization of existing infrastructure as part of Cloud- The existing resources available with railway will be subsumed in RailCloud thereby ensuring that expenditure is minimized in acquiring new resources.
• Rapid scalability and elasticity- Server and storage space will scale up and down as per the demand. This makes the system suitable to meet the higher demand at peak hours with less expenditure.
• IT Security enhancement and Standardization: The cloud shall be equipped with security features as per the latest GOI guidelines, the security features can be updated in one go for all the applications hosted on the cloud.
  
  This will be resulting in enhanced security and stability with less expenditure and effort.
• Cost reduction: The server and storage infrastructure will be deployed as per the requirement, resulting in substantial savings to railway as expenditure will be incurred as and when required.
  
  This will be instead of upfront shelling out money on procurement of expensive servers.
• Better User Experience: In Cloud, the server resources are constantly scaled up or down as per the no. of users logged on to the system. This ensures a better user experience to the customer.
  
  The Managed Network and Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) services are also being planned, in near future, for providing faster and more efficient work environment to each rail worker.

NIVARAN-Grievance Portal’First IT application on RailCloud

‘NIVARAN-Grievance Portal’ is the first IT application to be launched on the RailCloud.

It is the platform for resolution of service related grievances of serving and former railway employees.

The existing application was hosted on a conventional server; it has been made cloud-ready and being migrated as the first cloud application of Indian Railways.

It will save significant revenue and at the same time user experience will also improve.

Cashless treatment Scheme in Emergency (CTSE)

Railway provides Comprehensive Health Care Facilities to its beneficiaries through in-house health Institutions, supplementing with referrals to recognized hospitals whenever necessary.

The beneficiaries include retired employees and their dependent family members.

Large no. of retired beneficiaries lives in the newly developed suburbs of various cities. These parts of the city are often far away from the established Railway Health Institutions.

In this scenario the RELHS beneficiaries coming to Railway Health Institutions in routine is acceptable, however in emergency situations, precious time (Golden Hour) is lost in travel.

To provide immediate care to its retired employees in ‘Golden Hour’ Railway Board has decided to roll out a “Cashless treatment Scheme in Emergency’ (CTSE), in empanelled hospitals, for retired employees and their dependent family members.

CTSE Scheme: Know More

• Rather than creating a separate time and resource consuming vertical the scheme has used the existing resources by bringing on board the UIDAI and ARPAN database. Railway has not incurred any capital expenditure on the scheme,
• M/s UTIITSL has developed the software in consultation with Railway and shall be paid on per bill processed basis.
• The online processing will ensure swifter disposal of bills in a transparent manner.
• At present the scheme has been rolled out in four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, based on the experience of this pilot the scheme may be extended to the whole of country.

ANSWER: NBCC

Explanation:
Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) has inked MoU with National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) for redevelopment of 10 railway stations across the country on global standards.

The identified stations to be taken up initially by NBCC, a PSU of Urban Development Ministry for redevelopment are Tirupati, Nellore, Puducherry, Sarai Rohilla (Delhi), Madgaon, Lucknow, Gomtinagar, Kota, Thane (New) and Ernakulam.

RLDA is an arm of the Indian Railways for commercial exploitation of rail land.

As per the MoU, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) will be formed at the national level as a Joint Venture (JV) company between RLDA and NBCC on 50:50 shareholding basis.

The SPV in turn will enter into City Support Agreements (CSA) with respective cities for the redevelopment of stations and commercial development on Railway land in alignment with the Smart City Plans of respective cities. RLDA will lease out the land to the SPV for a fixed lease period of up to 45 years at a nominal token cost for development and NBCC as Project Management Consultant will execute the project work on behalf of SPV.

Earnings from the commercial development of land parcels at stations will be utilized to redevelop the stations for creating necessary infrastructure and better passenger amenities.

The surplus earnings will go to RLDA which would in turn would be remitted to Zonal railways.

The entire revenue from lease revenues from built up spaces will be deposited in an SPV’s ESCROW account which is to be managed by a Committee to be formed.

Know More About Indian Railways: World's Largest PSU employer

• The Indian Railways has embarked on an ambitious project to redevelop 403 stations with the participation of private players, public sector and foreign agencies.
• It has taken up this redevelopment programme of stations in a big way by adopting a multi-pronged strategy.
• It has chosen PPP model and is also roping in varied agencies to execute the project namely its own PSUs, other Central government PSUs, foreign countries through government-to-government (G2G) cooperation and state governments.
• Earlier in October 2016, MoU was also signed between the Railway Ministry and Urban Development Ministry for integrated planning for redevelopment of railway stations in the cities included in the Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT schemes.

ANSWER: France

Explanation:
The French Minister of State for Transport, Marine Affairs and Fisheries Alain Vidalies signed an agreement with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

This is for collaboration in areas such as high-speed and semi-high speed rail, modernisation of current operations and infrastructure, station renovation and operations, suburban trains and safety systems, operations and security.

On semi-high-speed, the parties had decided in 2015 to carry out a technical and execution study for upgrading the speed of passengers trains on the current rail corridor between Delhi and Chandigarh (244 km) up to 200 kmph.

Important Facts: France

• France PM is Bernard Cazeneuve
• The capital of France is Paris and its Currency is Euro
• French Minister of State for Transport is Alain Vidalies.

ANSWER: Railway tariffs

Explanation:
The Union Cabinet approved a proposal on April 5, 2017 for setting up an independent regulatory agency for railways which will recommend revision of tariffs.

This is intended to depoliticise the revision of passenger fares.

After merging the railway budget with the Union Budget, the move is seen as another step in reforming the state-run transporter.

It also aims at making the process of revision of both passenger and freight fares transparent.

The regulator will have only recommendatory powers, but it could pave the way towards revising passenger fares, which are at present highly subsidised.

Freight rates are likely to come down as the cost is likely to be balanced against higher passenger fares, officials said. S

The regulator will lay down principles and rules for determining tariff in passenger and freight segments in a transparent manner.

The regulator will also ensure fair play and a level playing field for private or foreign players.

Private investment in the railways has been low be cause of uncertainties and frequent policy changes.

The regulator will also lay down standards for efficiency and performance which will lead to customer satisfaction in both passenger and freight services.

The authority will also be mandated to check deviations, if any , from the laid-down performance standards and suggest remedial measures which will empower customers -both passengers and freight operators.

The authority will also suggest guidelines for determining track access charge which will ensure better utilisation of dedicated freight corridors.

Railway Regulatory Agency: Know More

• The authority, to be set up by August 1 this year, will have a chairman and three members and can engage experts from different areas.
• The government chose the executive order route to ensure setting up of the regulator at the earliest, said an official.
• The independence of the regulator will be ensured through a separate budget and a stringent appointment and removal process for the chairman and members.
• The appointment will be done by the Centre from the panel of names recommended by the search-and-selection committee headed by the cabinet secretary and the rail board chairman, DoPT secretary and chairman of any other regulatory agency nominated by the cabinet secretary as members.
• The chairman and members will have a tenure of five years and can be removed by the Centre on grounds such as insolvency , conviction, misbehaviour, physical and mental incapability.

ANSWER: Bengali

Explanation:
Aimed at helping Bengali speakers discover new information quickly, Google on March 29, 2017 announced the introduction of Knowledge Graph in the Bengali language on Google Search.

What is more, Google said its search will now also support spell correction for Bengali queries, improving the search experience for the millions of Bengali speakers around the world.

The Knowledge Graph enables users to search for things, people or places that Google knows about - landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more.

This will help over 200 million Bengali speakers to search for things they care about,

Google Knowledge Graph is currently available in 41 languages and it is tuned based on what people search for, and what Google finds out on the web, improving results over time.

The feature allows users to get straight to the answer and not trillions of webpages to scroll through.

Knowledge Graph: Know More

• The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base used by Google to enhance its search engine's search results.
• It uses semantic-search information gathered from a wide variety of sources.
• Knowledge Graph display was added to Google's search engine in 2012.
• It was starting in the United States, having been announced on May 16, 2012.