Bank of Hindustan (1770) was the first bank to be established in India (Alexander and Co.) at Calcutta under European management. Other banks set-up were Bank of Bengal (1806), Bank of Bombay (1840), and the Bank of Madras (1843) – these were called Presidency Banks.

First bank with limited liability managed by the Indian board was Oudh Commercial Bank, founded in 1881. The first purely Indian bank was the Punjab National Bank (1894).

Reserve Bank of India

Reserve Bank of India is the Central Bank of the country.

It was established on April, 1935 with a capital of Rs. 5 crore. This capital of Rs. 5 crore was divided into 5 lakh equity shares of Rs. 100 each. In the beginning, the ownership of almost all the share capital was with the non-government share holders.

It was nationalized on Jan 1, 1949 as government acquired the private share holdings.

Administration: 14 directors in Central Board of Directors besides the Governor, 4 Deputy Governors and one Government Official. The Governor is the Chairman of the board and Chief  Executive of the Bank.

Governors: First Governor was Sir Smith (1935 – 37) and First Indian Governor was C.D.Deshmukh (1948-49)

Functions of RBI

Issue of Notes: Regulates issue of bank notes above 1 rupee. It acts as the only source of legal tender money because the one rupee notes issued by Ministry of Finance and are also circulated through it. The Reserve Bank has adopted the Minimum Reserve System for note issue. Since 1957, it maintains gold and foreign exchange reserves of Rs. 200 crore, of which at least 115 crore should be in gold.

Banker to the Government: Acts as the banker, agent and advisor to the Government of India. It also manages the public debt for the Government.

Banker’s Bank: The Reserve Bank performs the same function for other banks as the other banks ordinarily perform for their customers.

Controller of Credit: The Reserve Bank undertakes the responsibility of controlling credits created by the commercial banks. To achieve this objective, it makes extensive use of quantitative and qualitative techniques to control and regulate the credit effectively in the country.

Custodian of Foreign Reserves: For the purpose of keeping the foreign exchange rates stable, the reserve Banks buys and sells the foreign currencies and also protects the country’s foreign exchange funds.

It formulates and administers the monetary policy.

Acts as the agent of the Government of India in respect to India’s membership of the IMF and the World Bank.

No personal accounts are maintained and operated in RBI.

Imperial Bank of India

It was created in Jan, 1921 by amalgamation of 3 presidency banks – Bank of Bengal, Bank of Bombay and Bank of Madras.

After nationalization in 1955, its name was changed to State Bank of India.

State Bank of India

It is the biggest commercial bank in the public sector of India.

It has the largest no of branches (more than 13,000) in the world.

State SBI has 5 subsidiaries. These are:

1. State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur
2. State Bank of Hyderabad
3. State Bank of Mysore
4. State Bank of Patiala
5. State Bank of Travancore

Note: State Bank of Saurashtra and State Bank of Indore have been merged with SBI in 2008 and 2010 respectively.

Nationalization of Banks in India

In order to have more control over the banks , 14 large commercial banks whose reserves were more than 50 crore each, were nationalized on July 19, 1969. The banks were:

1. The Central Bank of India
2. Bank of India
3. Punjab National Bank
4. Canara Bank
5. United Commercial Bank
6. Syndicate Bank
7. Bank of Baroda
8. United Bank of India
9. Union Bank of India
10. Dena Bank
11. Allahabad bank
12. Indian Bank
13. Indian Overseas Bank
14. Bank of Maharashtra

On April 15, 1980, those 6 private sector banks whose reserves were more than Rs. 200 crore each were nationalized. These banks were:

1. Andhra Bank
2. Punjab and Sindh Bank
3. New Bank of India
4. Vijaya Bank
5. Corporation Bank
6. Oriental Bank of Commerce

In September, 1993, the New Bank of India was merged with Punjab National Bank.

These nationalized banks, together with Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), come under the category of Public Sector Commercial banks. The other kind of commercial Banks are Private Sector Commercial Banks.

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Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO)is an international development charity with a vision for a ‘world without poverty‘ and a mission to ‘bring people together to fight poverty’. Voluntary Service Overseas recruits professionals to work as volunteers, living and working alongside local populations in developing countries. Founded in 1958, Voluntary Service Overseas has sent over 50,000 volunteers to over 140 developing countries. As of 2014 Voluntary Service Overseas currently works in 35 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is a company limited by guarantee.

Voluntary Service Overseas currently works in the following areas: Education, Health and HIV & AIDs, Participation and governance, and Secure livelihoods.

Voluntary Service Overseas has three wholly owned subsidiaries:

• VSO Trading Limited (England and Wales),
• British Executive Service Overseas (England and Wales) and
• Beijing VSO Consulting Company Limited, a Chinese-registered, wholly foreign-owned enterprise.

VSO’s governing body is the International Board, currently comprising 10 trustees. The day-to-day management of Voluntary Service Overseas is carried out by the Global Leadership Team. The Global Leadership Team has operational oversight of VSO’s global work. Each Global Leadership Team member is responsible for an area of VSO’s global operations, including finance, human resources and organisational development, and geographical management of Africa Group and Asia and Pacific Group.

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Voluntary Service Overseas is part of the Voluntary Service Overseas Federation – an international network of organisations that share VSO’s vision of a world without poverty, in which people work together to fulfil their potential. The Voluntary Service Overseas Federation comprises VSO (operating as both VSO International and VSO UK), VSO Ireland, VSO Jitolee (Kenya), VSO Netherlands and VSO Bahaginan (Philippines). Each VSO federation member is a self-governing, not-for-profit legal entity. Each federation member (and VSO UK) has nominated a representative to the VSO Federation Council, an advisory body created to advise the International Board on matters relevant to the VSO Federation.

VSO established partner agencies in Canada, the Netherlands, Kenya/Uganda (VSO Jitolee), and the Philippines (VSO Bahaginan). In 2004, VSO launched a partnership called iVolunteer Overseas (iVO) in India with iVolunteer, an existing volunteering program of MITRA, an Indian NGO. VSO’s structure evolved to become an international federation which now includes Ireland, China, and India as well as the above-named countries. International volunteers are recruited through all of these bases, and they can be placed in any one of VSO’s programmes.

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In 2011 VSO, in partnership with Lattitude Global Volunteering, Restless Development, Skill share International, Progressio, International Service and Tropical Health Education Trust (THET) launched International Citizen Service ICS to provide volunteer placements for 18-25 year-olds. The group, funded by the Department for International Development DFID, now includes Raleigh International and Tearfund and will work with 3,000 volunteers annually across 60 countries.

Voluntary Service Overseas recruits and trains experienced, professional volunteers aged between 18-75 to live and work in the heart of local communities. International volunteers can be from any country and are recruited through by recruitment partners in: China, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Kenya, the Netherlands, the Philippines, southern Africa and the UK.

Supports more than 100 national volunteering programmes over 20 countries. Acts as a ‘knowledge broker’, bringing local grassroots organisations together to share learning and best practice, for example through the Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa, with a network of partners in seven southern African countries.

Partnerships Voluntary Service Overseas works with local partners in the communities they work with, placing volunteers with these partners to help increase their impact and effectiveness. Voluntary Service Overseas also works with corporate partners, such as Accenture, Randstad, Kraft Foods (Cadbury), Ben and Jerry’s, to provide them with ways to contribute to VSO’s development goals in a way that provides benefits to both parties.

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Signing NPT not a prerequisite for Nuclear Suppliers Group

Nuclear power is the fourth-largest source of electricity in India after thermal, hydroelectric and renewable sources of electricity.

India’s first research nuclear reactor and its first nuclear power plant were built with assistance from Canada. The 40 MW research reactor agreement was signed in 1956, and CIRUS achieved first criticality in 1960. This reactor was supplied to India on the assurance that it would not be used for military purposes, but without effective safeguards against such use. The agreement for India’s first nuclear power plant at Rajasthan, RAPP-1, was signed in 1963, followed by RAPP-2 in 1966. These reactors contained rigid safeguards to ensure they would not be used for
a military Programme.

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India drew up “an ambitious plan to reach a nuclear power capacity of 63,000 MW in 2032” but, after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, “populations around proposed Indian NPP sites have launched protests. A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has also been filed against the government’s civil nuclear programme at the Supreme Court.

India has been making advances in the field of thorium-based fuels, working to design and develop a prototype for an atomic reactor using thorium and low-enriched uranium, a key part of India’s three stage nuclear power programme. The country has also recently re-initiated its involvement in the LENR research activities, in addition to supporting work done in the fusion power area through the ITER initiative.

The United States and Canada terminated their assistance after the detonation of India’s first nuclear explosion in 1974.

India’s domestic uranium reserves are small and the country is dependent on uranium imports to fuel its nuclear power industry. Since the early 1990s, Russia has been a major supplier of nuclear fuel to India.

India has signed bilateral deals on civilian nuclear energy technology cooperation with several other countries, including France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea. India has also uranium supply agreements with Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Argentina and Namibia. An Indian private company won a uranium exploration contract in Niger.

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Indian President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, stated while he was in office, that “energy independence is India’s first and highest priority. India has to go for nuclear power generation in a big way using thorium-based reactors. Thorium, a non-fissile material is available in abundance in our country.” India has vast thorium reserves and quite limited uranium reserves.

By 2020, India’s installed nuclear power generation capacity will increase to 20,000 MW.

South Korea became the latest country to sign a nuclear agreement with India after it got the waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) in 2008. On 25 July 2011 India and South Korea signed a nuclear agreement, which will allow South Korea with a legal foundation to participate in India’s nuclear expansion programme, and to bid for constructing nuclear power plants in India.

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