NITI

NITI National Institution for Transforming India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 1 January 2015 announced replacing the Planning
Commission with the NITI Aayog or the Policy Commission. The term NITI, which
means policy in Hindi, was taken from the new body NITI (National Institution for
Transforming India), will act more like a think tank or forum in contrast with the
Commission which imposed five-year-plans and allocated resources to hit set
economic targets.
PRAGATI
PRAGATI Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation
PRAGATI is the name given to the ambitious multi-purpose and multi-modal platform
to address public grievances that was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
25 March 2015. The PRAGATI platform integrates three latest technologies digital
data management, video-conferencing and geo-spatial technology. It also offers a
unique combination in the direction of cooperative federalism since it brings on one
stage the Secretaries of Government of India and the Chief Secretaries of the
States. It will be interactive as well as integrative. From now on the fourth
Wednesday of every month will be known as PRAGATI Day and it will feature the
Prime Minister interacting with the Government of India Secretaries, and Chief
Secretaries through Video-conferencing enabled by the PRAGATI platform. The
PRAGATI platform has been designed in-house by the PMO team with the help of
National Informatics Center (NIC).
PaHaL
PaHaL Pratyaksha Hastaantarit Laabh
The acronym PaHaL stands for the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme for LPG Subsidy.
Under PaHaL, LPG cylinders are sold at market rates and entitled consumers get the
subsidy directly into their bank accounts. This is done either through an Aadhaar
linkage or a bank account linkage. PaHaL aims to reduce diversion and eliminate
duplicate or bogus LPG connections. It is perhaps the worlds largest cash transfer
program as compared to similar programs in other countries, such as China, Mexico
and Brazil. As on 31 January 2015 around 9.75 crore LPG consumers have joined
the scheme. This is 66% of the total consumer base of 15 crore.
HRIDAY

HRIDAY Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana

HRIDAY is the name of a new plan launched by the Union Urban Development
Ministry on 21 January 2015 that seeks to preserve and rejuvenate the rich cultural
heritage of the country. It seeks to promote an integrated, inclusive and sustainable
development of heritage sites, focusing not just on maintenance of monuments but
on advancement of the entire ecosystem including its citizens, tourists and local
businesses. Under HRIDAY Rs.500 crore would be provided to the 12 cities selected
in the first phase and the Central Government will meet the entire expenditure under
the scheme. These 12 cities include Varanasi, Amritsar, Warangal, Ajmer, Gaya,
Mathura, Kanchipuram, Vellankini, Amaravati, Badami, Dwarka and Puri.
EEU
EEU Eurasian Economic Union
EEU is a political and economic union between Russia, Belarus, Armenia,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that came into effect on 1 January 2015. A treaty aiming
for the establishment of the EEU was signed on 29 May 2014.
NSM
NSM National Supercomputing Mission
National Supercomputing Mission is the name of the mission established during
March 2015 with the objective of putting India in the league of world class computing
power nations. NSM would be implemented and steered jointly by the Department of
Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Electronics and Information
Technology (DeitY) at an estimated cost of Rs.4500 crore over a period of seven
years. Currently, in the top Supercomputing machines in the world, a major share is
taken from advanced countries such as the US, Japan, China and the European
Union (EU). The mission envisages India to be in the select league of such nations.
The NSM envisages empowering countrys academic and R&D institutions by
installing a vast supercomputing grid comprising of more than 70 high-performance
computing facilities. These supercomputers will also be networked on the National
Supercomputing grid over the National Knowledge Network (NKN). The NKN is
another programme of the government which connects academic institutions and
R&D labs over a high speed network.
AMRUT
AMRUT Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation

Union Govt. has decided to rename the second phase of JNNURM, the scheme to
rejuvenate Indias 500 cities and towns, after Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This scheme will
be known as Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was a massive citymodernisation scheme launched by the Government of India under Ministry of Urban
Development. It was launched on 3 December 2005 to improve the quality of life and
infrastructure in the cities. It had seven-year time frame and its first phase ended in
March 2012. Though UPA-II had done preparatory work to approve second phase of
JNNURM, it could not clear the scheme. Now the Modi government has decided to
rename the second phase after the first BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
AMRUT will be a 10-year programme with total investment of about Rs 2 lakh crore.
MRT
MRT Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy
MRT is a ground-breaking technique that uses genetic material from three different
people to prevent certain inherited and untreatable, genetic diseases from passing
from the mother to her offspring. This therapy came to news after it was approved to
be adopted in Britain by British Parliaments lower house, the House of Commons,
on 3 February 2015. The technique involves an IVF procedure in which the eggs
defective mitochondrial DNA is replaced with healthy DNA from a female donor. This
technique was developed at the University of Newcastle by a team led by Professor
Doug Turnbull.
BOSS
BOSS Bharat Operating System Solutions
Bharat Operating System Solutions (BOSS) is a free and open source Linux
distribution for usage in Indian government departments developed by the National
Resource Centre for Free/Open Source Software (NRCFOSS) of India. BOSS
GNU/Linux is also known by the acronym BOSS. The Union Govt. during January
2015 asked states to deploy the open source Linux-based operating system BOSS
meant to run official computers. BOSS is being proposed as a homegrown
alternative to the Microsoft Windows operating system, which is the predominant OS
in use across Central and state government computer systems, alongside other
Linux variants such as Redhat and Ubuntu, as well as Android and Unix systems.
NMET
NMET National Mineral Exploration Trust

NMET is the name given to a new seed trust floated by the Union Govt. during
January 2015, which has primarily been established to promote more exploration of
non-coal minerals and meet the growing needs of the domestic steel, aluminium,
copper and other utilities. This seed trust has been established with an initial corpus
of Rs. 500 crore. The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation)
(Amendment) Ordinance, 2015 was promulgated to establish NMET. As per the
ordinance, holders of mining leases or prospecting-cum-mining leases would pay to
the NMET a sum equivalent to 2% of the royalty they pay to the government. The
trust would utilise the money for fresh exploration. In effect, it would function similarly
to the state-run Geological Survey of India (GSI) or its junior counterpart Mineral
Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL). The mines ministrys efforts to strengthen
its exploration firms gathered momentum following the steel ministrys December
2014 presentation to the PMO wherein it had said that the total thermal coal
requirement for steel, cement and aluminium sectors is approximately 200 million
tonne, of which 40 million tonne is imported at a revenue outgo of Rs. 500 crore
each year.
UPI
UPI Unified Payment Interface
UPI is the name given to a unified platform launched by National Payments
Corporation of India (NPCI) on 18 February 2015 for providing a single payment
interface across all systems. Under UPI, anyone who has an account, should be able
to send and receive money from their mobile phone with just an identifier without
having any other bank/account details. It is designed to enable all account holders to
send and receive money from their smartphones with a single identifier Aadhaar
number, mobile number, virtual payments address without entering any bank
account information. UPI will make payments possible only by providing an address
with others without having ever provided account details or credentials on 3 rd party
applications or websites.
TLCs
TLCs Tech Learning Centres
Tech Learning Centres (TLCs) is a new massive initiative launched by State Bank of
India (SBI) recently to empower its customers through technology and awareness.
Under this initiative special SBI centers across the length and breadth of the country
have started holding interactive learning sessions and demos of the banks techchannels. This initiative has been on since December 2014. Under this 385 State
Bank TLCs across the length and breadth of the country have started holding

interactive learning sessions and demos of the banks tech-channels for over ten
thousand customers every month. A large number of customers are having an initial
fear and hesitation to use technology for their banking needs. But through this
initiative SBI seeks to remove such hesitation among them. After launching in
December, 2014, more than 30,000 customers were trained in these TLCs. TLCs will
spread awareness of the Banks various tech channels including Cash Deposit
Machines, Mobile Banking apps, Net Banking and Green Remit Cards, in addition to
providing guidance on how to use these channels safely and in a secure manner.
JAM
JAM Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile
JAM is an abbreviation used for Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and Mobile number. The
government is pinning its hopes on these three modes of identification to deliver
direct benefits to Indias poor. The use of JAM gained momentum after it was
mentioned in the Union Budget of 2015-15 delivered by Union Finance Minister on
28 February 2015.
PSF
PSF Price Stabilization Fund
Price Stabilization Fund (PSF) is the fund that was launched by the Union Govt.
during March 2015 with an objective of keeping prices of perishable farm
commodities under control through suitable market interventions. It will be used to
advance interest free loans to state governments and central agencies to support
their working capital and other expenses on procurement and distribution
interventions for such commodities. It has initially been proposed for onion and
potato. The fund has been set up as a follow-up of a budget announcement made by
finance minister Arun Jaitley on 28 February 2015.
POTUS
POTUS President of the United States
POTUS stands for President of The United States. This term has been used for
decades now to denote the U.S. President. The use of the term POTUS was
probably started by the security team of the President to call him in short. The term
was, however, used by the Indian media in a wide-spread manner for the first time
on the occasion of President Barack Obamas historic visit to India from 25 to 27
January 2015. One reason POTUS was used so extensively this time was that in the

times of prevalence of social media and Internet use of slang words and acronyms
have gained huge popularity.
Ind AS
Ind AS Indian Accounting Standards
Ind AS is the converged Indian version of International Financial Reporting
Standards (IFRS) that will come into effect for the first time in 2016-17. The Central
Government will notify adoption of the proposed Indian Accounting Standards (Ind
AS) in March 2015. By pushing Ind AS into Indian corporate balance sheets, India
will join the growing band of nations in terms aligning accounting standards for crossborder acceptability and facilitation of two-way capital flow. Adoption of Ind AS was
proposed by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech in July 2014.
According to the roll-out roadmap, stock exchange listed companies with net worth of
over Rs. 500 crore are obligated to follow Ind AS in the first year. In the second year,
the Ind AS will be applicable to all listed companies and unlisted companies having
net worth of over Rs. 500 crore. The third year will see unlisted companies having
net worth of over Rs. 250 crore will have to follow the new accounting standards.
AVAM
AVAM AAP Volunteer Action Manch
AVAM is the name of the break-away volunteer group of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that
came to news during February 2015 after it claimed that AAP have received cheques
from these dubious companies in lieu of cash and tried to convert black money into
white money. Karan Singh and Gopal Goel of AVAM alleged that four donations
worth Rs 50 lakh each were remitted to the account of AAP from four different
dubious companies. However, these charges were categorically rejected by AAP
and the party demanded an SIT probe into matter.
NERPAP
NERPAP National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme
NERPAP is the name of the programme launched by the Election Commission of
India (ECI) from 3 March 2015 with the prime objective of bringing a totally error free
and authenticated electoral roll. During the programme, EPIC data of electors will be
linked with Aadhar data of UIDAI for the purpose of authentication. NERPAP will
focus on improving image quality of electors along with sorting issues like corrections
of errors etc. Electors have been provided the facility to feed their respective Aadhar
number through sms, email, mobile application and National Voters Service Portal

(NVSP) using web services through election commission website. The programme
will end on 15 August 2015. According to operational details of the fund, the states
will set up a revolving fund for adequate market interventions. The Centre and state
will contribute equally (50:50) for the revolving fund. The ratio of Centre-state
contribution to the state level corpus in respect of north-east states will be 75:25.
Apart from this an eight-member price stabilization fund management committee has
been set up under the chairmanship of additional secretary in agriculture ministry to
manage the fund at the Centre and monitor revolving funds in each state.
IRNSS
IRNSS Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System
IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide
position information in the Indian region and 1500 km around the Indian mainland.
ISRO has proposed to place 7 satellites under the IRNSS series and on 28 March
2015 the fourth satellite of this series the IRNSS-1D, was successfully launched
the IRNSS-1D navigation satellite through PSLV-C27.