Now, passport application in post offices

Now, passport application in post offices

TRICHY: Passport applicants have more reason to cheer now. Henceforth, applications for passport-related matters can be filed online at the kiosks set up at select post offices in the central region of Tamil Nadu. The step is to prevent private agents from exploiting the public who collect exorbitant charges. The facility, said to be the first-of-its-kind in the country would start from February 10.

The regional passport office (RPO), Trichy region entered into an agreement with post master general, central region to open a kiosk at head post offices in the region. A postal staff at the kiosk will process the online application for passport-related matters. "With a view to ensure hassle-free process to the passport applicants, the new system of applying for passport at post offices is going to be started in the central region with the help of the postal department. It will surely help make the online application perfect so that it cannot be rejected at the time of procession in the passport seva kendras," K Balamurugan, RPO, Trichy told TOI.

Balamurugan also said the people who do not have access to the internet in rural areas can make use of the facility.

The head post offices in Trichy, Lalgudi, Srirangam, Thuraiyur, Perambalur, Ariyalur, Karur, Kulithalai, Kumbakonam, Melakaveri, Mayiladuthurai, Sirkazhi, Nagapattinam, Tiruvarur, Pattukottai, Thiruthuraipoondi, Pudukkottai, Thanjavur, Papanasam, Mannargudi, Vriddhachalam, Koviloor, Kallakurichi, Cuddalore and Chidambaram would have the facility.

In Trichy, the facility will be available at the sub-post offices in Golden Rock, Teppakulam and Fort. People can make use of the facility from 9am to 3pm in head post offices and from 10 am to 3pm in sub-post offices on all working days.

The applicant has to pay Rs 100 per application in the post offices except in Trichy district. The postal department has agreed to render the service for Rs 70 per application in the post offices in Trichy. However, some of the unauthorised online passport application centres are allegedly charging Rs 200 to Rs 300 per application. On the other hand, the applications filled in at those centres had a lot of mistakes which led to their rejection at the PSKs.

The passport office provided training to the 35 postal staff who will be handing the application filing process. The rest of the process after filing the application will be carried out in the PSK as usual. 

 

Times of India

Raise age of retirement to 65: House panel

A parliamentary panel has urged the Centre to raise the retirement age to 65 years.

A parliamentary panel has urged the Centre to raise the retirement age to 65 years, noting that growing lifespan was adding to the need for "productive ageing". 

The recommendation for increase in retirement age comes with a reminder that senior citizens would form 12.4% of the total population in 2026 from 7.5% in 2001.

"The committee feels that with the increase in life expectancy and relatively better state of health of people, the government needs to look at continuity of employment up to 65 years," said the report of standing committee of Parliament on social justice and empowerment tabled on Friday.

It also recommended that government look at greater post-retirement opportunities for senior citizens and create greater financial support for the elderly by hiking the old age pension to Rs 1,000 per month from the present Rs 200 for those above 60 years and Rs 500 for those above 80 years.

While suggesting immediate redressal for the ageing population, the panel sought to train the government's focus on the 60-plus group by pointing out that its growing numbers would be a serious challenge in health and social care.

Specifically, it underlined that as per population projections, the 80-plus bloc, the most-vulnerable group, would see a sharper rise in numbers.

The urgency of parliamentarians towards senior citizens comes amid growing global realization that increasing lifespan is creating a new demographic bloc requiring state intervention.

Seeking government attention, the committee noted that senior citizens comprised 7.5% of the total population in 2001 but their share is likely to increase to 12.4% in 2026. Importantly, UN projections say while India's population will rise by 55% by 2050, that of 60-plus would increase by 326% and that of 80-plus would go up by 700%.

Given the rising challenge, the panel headed by Hemanand Biswal found the government response inadequate, noting that "issue of rapid population ageing in the country has not received due attention of the government and the community at large".

The panel said special focus should be on the octogenarian bloc. "This age group is the most vulnerable and runs the risk of getting dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson disease, depression in their older years," it said, and asked the Centre to constitute an expert group of relevant government departments to devise specialized healthcare programme for them.

Source:TOI

48-hour bank strike from Monday

About one lakh employees and officers of nationalised, private and foreign banks will take part in the all India two-day bank strike that would commence from 6 a.m. on Monday.

The strike call is given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) representing nine unions. As a result commercial transactions, foreign exchange operations and clearing of cheques will take a big hit. There are possibilities of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) going dry in some of the commercial spots.

According to the All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), Joint Secretary, R. Vijayakumar, the State has 11,232 branches and 7,652 ATMs, of which Chennai housed 1,400 branches and 500 ATMs.

The employees and officers have been demanding immediate revision in their wages since November 2012.

While the employees unions have been seeking an increase of nearly 30 per cent of their wages, the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) was willing to offer an increase of 10 per cent. In the last few months, several rounds of conciliation meeting took place between IBA and UFBU, but the talks remained inconclusive.

In an effort to avert the strike, the Chief Labour Commissioner B.K. Sanwaria called for a conciliatory meeting in his office in New Delhi on February 6. As there was stalemate, UFBU decided to go head with the strike call.

AIBEA general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam said that the unions were holding two-day strike on wage revision issue after a gap of five years. However, it was literally a three-day strike since some of the banks branches were closed on Sunday also. ATMs would have been filled with cash on Saturday evening and there were possibilities of it going dry by Monday evening and hence it would affect the customers to a large extent.

However, senior manager of a nationalised bank said that the customers might not feel the pinch like in the previous decades as the usage of debit and credit cards in retail transactions had gone up in the recent times. It might affect cash withdrawal in some places.

The next round of talks between IBA and UFBU will take place in Mumbai on Thursday.

Source : http://www.thehindu.com/

List Of New Office Bearers of All India IP/ASP Association CHQ

38th All India Biennial Conference held at Ahmedabad on 7th and 8th February 2014 and following office bearers unanimously elected for the term 2014-2016

S.No.	Name	Designation	Circle	Mobile No.
1	President	Shri Amrendra Kumar	Bihar	09934416779
2	Vice President -I	Shri Nirmalya Mitra	WB	09433395342
3	Vice President-II	Shri Krishnaswamy T.M.	Kerala	09447429133
4	General Secretary	Shri Vilas Ingale	MAH	09869417961
5	AGS-I	Shri P. Ajit Kumar	Dte	09582425999
6	AGS-II	Shri Sukhtej Singh	Punjab	09463004921
7	AGS-III	Shri Vinod R. Shah	Gujarat	09426572244
8	AGS-IV	Shri Bibhudata Behera	Odisha	09437194138
9	OGS-I	Shri Atma Ram	Rajasthan	09414775300
10	OGS-II	Shri Manjunatha Hubbslli	Karnataka	09449849271
11	OGS-III	Shri Y. Venkateswarlu	A.P.	09951087148
12	OGS-IV	Shri Sanjay Gupta	U.P.	09415880651
13	OGS-V	Shri Hira Lal	Haryana	09416915460
14	Treasurer	Shri Yadagiri G. Nyahpelli	MAH	09869143819
15	Treasurer-I	Shri T. Padmanabhan	T.N.	09443048028
16	Auditor	Shri Milan Shukla	Gujarat	09429190416
17	Asst. Auditor-I	Ms Kerlin Kharshandi	NE	08014239537
18	Asst. Auditor-II	Shri Hardev Sharma	H.P.	09459744096
19	Asst. Auditor-III	Shri N. K. Soni	M.P.	09406914019

Introduction of revised Operating and Accounting procedure for revenue generated in connection with Direct Recruitment Examinations and meeting of Expenditure

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Daily Current Affairs Updates: 08 February 2014

1) Automatic SMS after confirmation of waitlisted train tickets: Waitlisted passengers will soon get status messages in their mobile phones if their tickets get confirmed before journey. A senior Railway Ministry official said the waitlisted passenger will get an SMS about the status of the ticket on the mobile phone number given at the time of ticket booking before the journey. Currently, one has to either dial the enquiry number 139 or use the Internet to know the waitlisted ticket status. CRIS, the technological arm of Railways, is making the software for the SMS-based service.

2) N. Srinivasan to become first chairman of ICC board: N. Srinivasan, President, Board ofControl for Cricket in India (BCCI), will be the first chairman of the revamped International Cricket Council (ICC) board. He will take over in July. The ICC board, which will continue to be the primary decision-making body, at a meeting in Singapore approved a comprehensive resolution relating to governance, competition and financial models of the ICC. A new executive committee will be formed to report to the board. The initial chair of this will be Wally Edwards from Cricket Australia (CA) while the chair of the Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee will continue to be Giles Clarke from England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Two of the full members – Pakistan Cricket Board and Sri Lanka Cricket - abstained in the vote as they felt they needed more time to discuss the amended resolution with their respective boards

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3) World Test Championship axed, Champions Trophy returns:  The Champions Trophy one-day tournament will continue in 2017 and 2021, replacing plans for a World Test Championship. The decision was taken at the International Cricket Council (ICC) meeting on Saturday.

4) RK Tewari tipped to be new CBDT Chairman: Senior IRS officer RK Tewari is tipped to be the new chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the apex authority of the Income-Tax Department. Sources said the final approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has been received and the Finance Ministry will soon issue orders in this regard.

5) General Motors CEO Mary Barra tops the Fortune global list of 50 most powerful women in business.  She, the first woman to run a global automaker, is followed in the list by IBM's Ginni Rometty at 2nd and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi at the 3rd rank. ICICI Bank Managing Director 'Chanda Kochhar' (18th) is the only Indian, apart from Nooyi, to feature in this coveted list.

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6) Finance ministry has extended Upendra Kumar Sinha’s tenure as SEBI head for another two years on 7th February. He has been doing a phenomenal job and this extension will give more time to continue pursuing reforms aimed at bringing more transparency to stock markets.

7) India’s largest paramilitary force CRPF has appointed five-time world boxing champion and Olympic bronze medalist M C Mary Kom as its brand ambassador.

8) Sachin set to lead MCC against Warne's Rest of World: Retired batting icon Sachin Tendulkar will be seen in cricketing gears once again when he leads the MCC team against Shane Warne-led Rest of the World side at the Lord's in a one-day game on July 5 to mark the bicentenary celebrations of the historic club.

Source : http://www.currentaffairs4examz.com/

Cadre restructuring Committee Meeting - Proposals arrived

The cadre restructuring committee meetings were held on 04-02-14 and 05-02-14 and Department mooted the following final proposals.

1.The C& B class offices will be placed in the in the LSG with Grade Pay of Rs 2800

2.The offices in Tripple hand and LSG will be placed in the grade pay of Rs 4200

3.The HSG-II Postmasters and Sub postmasters will be placed in the Grade pay of Rs 4600

4.After carving out the proposal the HSG-II will be placed in the Grade pay of Rs 4800 after 4 years 

 based on the percentage in the postal side the same ratio and percentage will be maintained in RMS/Admn./SBCO etc.

The demand of the postal class -III General Secretaries is that the APM and APM Accountant posts are to be upgraded and the percentage should be arrived. Staff side will submit revised proposals on it. Final agreement is yet to be arrived on these proposals.