S.NO
TITTLE
PG NO
1
S.NO
TITTLE
PG NO
1
Israel–Syria incident
4
2
Pakistan central bank keeps main policy 7
rate steady at 5.75%
3
ARTICLES FOR SMALL BUSINESS 8
OWNERS
4
We want to position millets as alternative 10
to oats and quinoa: Karnataka Agri
Minister
5
Crude oil price
6
I spent a month living with an 14
Amazonian tribe at 23,and it changed
my career forever:
7
Is This the Underground Everest?
12
8
17
19
SBI minimum Rs 5,000 balance rule: No,
it does not apply to Jan Dhan accounts
2
Editorial board
Dr.m.selvam
([email protected])
Arunkumar S
([email protected])
Daniel Francis J
([email protected])
Dhanabalan T
([email protected])
Mathan Kumar
([email protected])
Devi Priya S
([email protected])
NashihaNiloffer A
([email protected])
Sindhuja M
([email protected])
3
Israel–Syria incident
The Syrian Civil War is an armed
conflict taking place in Syria. The unrest in
Syria, part of a wider wave of 2011 Arab
Spring protests, grew out of discontent with
the
authoritarian
government
of
President Bashar al-Assad and escalated to
an armed conflict after protests calling for
his removal were violently suppressed. The
war is being fought by several factions: the
Syrian government and its allies, a loose
alliance
of Sunni Arab rebel
groups
(including the Free Syrian Army), the
majority-Kurdish Syrian
Democratic
Forces (SDF), Salafi
jihadist groups
(including al-Nusra Front) who cooperate
with the Sunni rebel groups, and the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG) joined
forces with Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, and
some Turkmen groups, to form the Syrian
Democratic Forces, while most Turkmen
groups remained with the FSA.[98]
Russia and Hezbollah militarily engaged in
support of the Syrian government, while
beginning in 2014, a coalition of NATO
countries began launching airstrikes against
ISIL.
International organizations have accused the
Syrian government, ISIL, and some rebel
groups of severe human rights violations and
of many
massacres.[101][102][103][104][105]The
conflict has caused a major refugee crisis.
Over the course of the war a number of
peace initiatives have been launched,
including the March 2017 Geneva peace
talks on Syria led by the United Nations, but
fighting continues
Syrian opposition groups formed the Free
Syrian Army (FSA) and seized control of
the area surrounding Aleppo and parts of
southern Syria. Over time, some factions of
the Syrian opposition split from their
original moderate position to pursue
an Islamist vision for Syria, joining groups
such as al-Nusra Front and ISIL. In 2015,
4
Israel
Syrian Civil War
Part
of Israeli-Syrian
incidents during
the Syrian
War and Iran-Israel
proxy
Syria
Hezbollah[citation
needed]
border
Civil
co
Israeli
Force
Air Syrian Air Defense
Force
Casualties and losses
None
(Israeli None
claim)
One fighter jet shot
down
(Syrian
claim)
The March
2017
Israel–Syria
incident took place on 17 March 2017, the
Syrian Army fired several S-200 missiles at
the Israeli jets above Golan Heights. Syrian
Armed Forces claimed that Israeli Air Force
jets struck a military site in Syria,
near Palmyra. Israel reported that one Syrian
missile had been shot down by an Arrow 2
missile, while none of its aircraft had been
damaged.[2] Israel stated it was targeting
weapon shipments headed toward antiIsraeli
forces,
specifically Hezbollah,
in Lebanon.
Syria claimed to have shot down one Israeli
aircraft. Israel denied Syria's claim that one
jet fighter was shot down and another
damaged. Israel has not reported any pilots
or aircraft missing in Syria, or anywhere else
in the Middle East following the incident.
Also, neither Syria nor Hezbollah have
shown photos or video of downed Israeli
aircraft or personnel. According to some
An Israeli Arrow 2 missile launcher,
similiar to one used at the beginning of
the current Israeli/Syrian conflict
Date
March 17, 2017
Location
Golan Heights
5
sources, the incident was the first time
Israeli officials clearly confirmed an Israeli
strike against Hezbollah during the Syrian
Civil War.
Syrian response
Following a generic statement by the Israeli
Defense Forces reading "Several antiaircraft missiles were launched from Syria
following the mission, and IDF aerial
defense systems intercepted one of the
missiles. At no point was the safety of
Israeli civilians or the IAF aircraft
compromised" several news reports started
speculating about the use of the Arrow
system to defend jet fighters from hostile
surface to air missiles. However other Israeli
news publications confirmed that the initial
reading of the IDF statement was wrong; in
fact, the IDF said that the jet fighters were
never in danger and the missiles were far
from the planes. But the IDF detected Syrian
S-200 missiles on course to reach Israel, so
the Arrow missile system was used to
prevent
them
falling
on
settled
[8]
areas. Indeed a S-200, after losing its
target,
hence
going
ballistic,
has
approximately the size, the speed and the
range of a battlefield artillery rocket such as
the FROG-7, which is one of the very
standard targets the Israeli missile defense is
shaped around. The Jordanian Armed
Forces reported that a part of the Arrow
missile fell in its territory. There were no
casualties in Jordan.[9]
S-200 missile, similar to the ones fired
at Israeli Air Force fighter jets, seen here in
a Ukrainian museum
In response to the fourth round of Israeli
bombings, the administration of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad has threatened
war
with Israel,
stating
it
will
fire Scud missiles at Israeli cities, and that
the Syrian government will specifically
target the Israeli city of Haifa. In response to
the rhetoric from Damascus, Israel stated
that any such moves by Syria will cause
Israel to begin targeting Syrian air defense
systems
AftermathOn 19 March an Israeli Skylark
drone crashed in Syria reportedly due to
human error.[11] There were further reports
on alleged Israeli airstrikes on 22 March
2017, with another round of bombings
carried out on suspected Hezbollah targets
near Damascus
- sindhuja .M MBA(IB)
6
Pakistan central bank keeps main policy rate steady at 5.75%
Pakistan's central bank maintained its main
policy interest rate at 5.75 percent on
Saturday, the bank said in a statement, citing
stable inflation expectations and the
gathering pace of economic activity.
The stronger economic picture spurred
investments but exports, a persistent weak
spot, did not have any sustained
improvement. Together with a small decline
in remittances, this pushed the current
account deficit to $5.5 billion in the JulyFebruary period, the bank said.
The move highlights the generally positive
direction in the economy in Pakistan since
the country emerged from an economic
crisis just over three years ago with a reform
programme backed by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF).
But the central bank said that it expected the
current account deficit to be contained by
recent steps to boost exports and limit nonessential imports.
“The real economic activity continues to
gather pace at the back of better agricultural
output, increase in key large-scale
manufacturing sectors, and a healthy uptick
in credit to the private sector,” the central
bank said in a statement.
Government reforms of the power sector,
together with tax and revenue measures
designed to close loopholes and broaden the
tax base have strengthened the economy.
However, the IMF says the government
must focus on further increasing tax
revenues and boosting economic growth and
private sector investment.
Domestic demand was showing signs of
improvement
with recent
consumer
sentiment surveys pointing to further
increases in consumer demand this year, the
statement said.
-DEVIPRIYA .S MBA(IB)
Low and stable market rates led to a pick up
in borrowing by the private sector for both
investment and consumer financing.
7
ARTICLES FOR SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
When you’re running a small business, who
you know can be just as important as what
you do. Your connections in the business
community can provide valuable contacts,
opportunities for deals, and crucial
knowledge about best practices.
industry can be a huge asset, particularly if
your business is relatively young. Knowing
someone with years of experience can help
you understand the challenges you’ll be
facing down the road and how to tackle
them.
Networking is one of the key principals of
the
Goldman
Sachs 10,000
Small
Businesses program and 84% of its
graduates are now actively working together
to better grow and manage their businesses.
THE INNOVATOR
If you’re looking for ways to stay on the
cutting-edge, try to find an early-adopter
with tech expertise who can keep you
informed about the latest platforms and tools
that can improve your operations.
Program participants are taught that
networking should always be focused
around a key goal, whether that’s increasing
sales, expanding into new markets, or
raising awareness about your business. Let’s
say you’re planning to expand product
distribution into a new region. See if you
can connect with someone with logistical
experience in that area that could help you
meet your warehousing and transportation
needs or put you in touch with suitable
vendors.
THE ADVOCATE
It helps to know an active promoter who will
be likely to spread the word about what
you’re doing. This advocacy helps build
your reputation and increases your chances
of making new connections.
THE DEALMAKER
Someone who is assertive in bridging gaps
and is always looking for ways people can
help each other—whether through new
contacts or deals—will serve you well.
While objectives will vary from business to
business, a handful of personality types will
be useful for your network regardless of
your goal. Here are some people who can be
helpful:
THE OUTSIDER
It helps to know someone outside your
industry who can provide a fresh perspective
on your business or customer base. If you
run a clothing shop, communicating with a
graphic designer could provide you with a
THE VETERAN
Someone who’s been long established in
their field and knows the ins and outs of an
8
new understanding of aesthetics and product
presentation.
Taking this approach will greatly boost your
chances of creating and sustaining an
entrepreneurial network that supports your
business through thick and thin. With the
holidays approaching you’ll have plenty of
events and opportunities to build new
contacts and reestablish old connections.
The real-life members of your network
probably won’t fall neatly into each of these
categories, but might share certain traits
from across the spectrum. If you’re
wondering how to meet people to build up
your network, or how to fill any gaps in your
membership, it’s time to increase your
outreach.
ARTICLES
OWNERS
FOR
SMALL
BUSINESS
One of the most direct ways to add new
members is by attending an industry
conference, forum, or roundtable discussion.
Remember to remain open to new ideas
when meeting with new contacts and to
follow up with them so you stay fresh in
their mind. For example, if you had a
conversation about ways to reduce overhead
costs while attending a conference, send an
email to the person you spoke with thanking
him or her and adding some more of your
own cost-cutting insights to keep the
dialogue going
-DEVIPRIYA .S MBA(IB)
9
We want to position millets as alternative to oats and quinoa: Karnataka Agri
Minister
Byre
Gowda
in
an
with BusinessLine. Excerpts:
interview
Why should the State intervene when
organic products already attract a
premium?
Four years ago we started Savayava Bhagya,
a comprehensive organic production
oriented programme. We have developed
some 566 organic clusters under the
programme involving about 1 lakh farmers,
who have brought 1.8 lakh hectares under
organic cultivation. We realised that a
farmer can be encouraged to produce, but
unless returns are assured, you cannot
sustain the organic way of cultivation.
Access to the market and market are key if
we have to increase area under organic
cultivation.
KRISHNA BYRE GOWDA, Karnataka Agriculture
Minister
Karnataka, the first State to formulate an
organic farming policy way back in 2004,
has stepped up measures to spread the
concept among farmers in recent years.
Also, it has been working on rebuilding
farmers’ interest in millets through
incentives such as guaranteed buy-back and
a bonus over the minimum support price.
To provide market linkages to the over 1
lakh organic farmers in the State, the
Karnataka government is organising a
three-day National Trade Fair on Organics
and Millets here from April 28. The idea is
to showcase the organic production
capacity and create awareness on the
health benefits of millets among the public,
said Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna
We spoke to buyers and retailers, who said
there is a lot of demand for organic
products but they face the problem of
reliable suppliers. So we organised the
farmers (who had availed of assistance
under the Savayava Bhagya scheme and
taken up organic farming) into 14 unions, so
that it was easier to aggregate. Since we
had funded the production side of it by
encouraging farmers to go organic, we are
also funding the creation of infrastructure
such as warehousing and grading. So far, we
10
have spent about ₹180 crore under
Savayava Bhagya, which has been one of
our successful interventions. No other State
has adopted this kind of model of
organising farmers under clusters and
connecting them with markets. Maybe a few
small hilly States like Uttarakhand or
Sikkim have been supporting growers, but in
a diverse agriculture State, I don’t think
anybody has done it. In fact, the Centre’s
Paramparagat Krishi Vikaas Yojana has
picked up the idea of cluster approach from
our scheme.On the market development
side, we have been doing organic and millet
fairs. That is again a public awareness
building programme to create demand. The
ultimate objective is that farmers should get
better revenue. It will help us to to position
Karnataka and Bengaluru as the centre for
organic crops and millets.
certification. Some private NGO type
agencies are also assisting with certification.
What has been your experience on
reviving millets?
The area under millets, which had gone
down, is now beginning to look up after we
started to incentivise production of ragi and
jowar from 2013-14 through subsidised
seeds, guaranteed buyback and providing
bonus over the MSP. We now have around
20 lakh ha under millets, mainly jowar and
ragi. The area under other millets such as
foxtail and barnyard millet is around 30,000
The awareness of millet is still low. We
want to position millets as a healthy food
which are not grown by our farmers. With
drought and climate change becoming an
increasing reality, they are most suited for
water deficit and drought conditions. They
require far lesser chemical fertilisers and
virtually zero sprays or pesticides. For
farmers, they are a hardy and low-risk crop.
For millets such as foxtail, proso and
barnyard, it is difficult to come up with a
programme. But once the market picks up, I
am expecting their prices to pick up and that
could act as an incentive.
But are farmers bringing more area
under organic cultivation?
In the past four years, we have added around
1.2 lakh ha, increasing the total area to 1.8
lakh ha. Most of the new area under organic
is government sponsored, but farmers on
their own are also bringing area under
organic. There is a State agency for organic
spurt
in
prices
of
these
DHANABALAN.T MBA(IB)
millets
11
in
one
or
two
year.
Crude oil price
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in
London, Brent oil for May delivery slumped
82 cents, or about 1.6%, to settle at $51.37 a
barrel by close of trade. The global
benchmark fell to $51.14 earlier, its cheapest
since November 30.
For the week, London-traded Brent futures
recorded a loss of $4.53, or 8.1%, the fifth
straight weekly decline
Investing.com - Oil futures settled at the
lowest level since the end of November on
Friday, booking a weekly loss of around 9%
as concern over rising shale production and
record-high U.S. crude inventories offset
optimism that OPEC and its allies have been
following through on their commitment to
cut production.
shale production could derail efforts by
other major producers to rebalance global oil
supply and demand pressured crude prices.
Data from oilfield services provider Baker
Hughes on Friday revealed that the number
of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by
8 last week, the eighth weekly increase in a
row. That brought the total count to 617, the
most since October 2015.
The U.S.
West
Texas
Intermediate
crude April contract touched a session low
of $48.31 a barrel on Friday, a level not seen
since November 30. It was last at $48.49 by
close of trade, down 88 cents, or about
1.8%.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information
Administration
said
on
Wednesday
that crude supplies jumped by 8.2 million
barrels last week to yet another all-time high
of 528.4 million. It was the ninth straight
weekly build in U.S. stockpiles, feeding
concerns about a global glut.
The U.S. benchmark lost $4.84, or almost
9%, on the week, its biggest weekly drop in
five months.
Oil prices have been trading in a narrow $5
range around the low-to-mid-$50s over the
past three months as sentiment in oil
12
markets has been torn between rising
stockpiles and increased shale production in
the U.S. and hopes that oversupply may be
curbed by output cuts announced by major
global producers.
In the week ahead, market participants will
eye fresh weekly information on U.S.
stockpiles of crude and refined products on
Tuesday and Wednesday to gauge the
strength of demand in the world’s largest oil
consumer.
OPEC and non-OPEC countries made a
strong start to lowering their oil output by
almost 1.8 million barrels per day by the end
of June, but so far the move has had little
impact on inventory levels.
Meanwhile, investors will keep an eye out
for monthly reports from the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Counties and the
International Energy Agency to gauge
global supply and demand levels.
Kuwait is scheduled to host a ministerial
meeting on March 26 comprising both
OPEC and non-OPEC members to review
compliance with the output agreement and
to discuss whether cuts would be extended
beyond June.
Traders will also continue to pay close
attention to comments from global oil
producers for further evidence that they are
complying with their agreement to reduce
output this year.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for
April shed 2.4 cents, or about 1.5% to
$1.600 on Friday. It ended down about 3.2%
for the week.
Ahead of the coming week, Investing.com
has compiled a list of these and other
significant events likely to affect the
markets.
-DEVIPRIYA .S MBA(IB)
April heating oil inched down 2.5 cents, or
1.7%, to finish at $1.503 a gallon, the lowest
since November 30. For the week, the fuel
lost roughly 5.7%.
Natural gas futures for April delivery rose
3.4 cents, or almost 1.2%, to $3.008 per
million British thermal units. It posted a
weekly gain of 6.4%.
13
I spent a month living with an Amazonian tribe at 23,and it changed my
career forever:
BY SEDARIUS PERROTTA
In 2000, I was working as an IT consultant
in Sydney, Australia, and using some of my
earnings to backpack around Southeast Asia.
During a hike in the mountains in Northern
Laos, I stumbled upon an Akha village and
was invited to stay for a week. It was an
amazing experience, and by the time I got
home I was already determined to go deeper.
For the next few months, I researched other
opportunities to spent time in remote
communities,
and
eventually
I
connected with FUNAI, Brazil’s governing
body for indigenous peoples.
THE MIND AND BODY ADAPT MORE
THAN YOU’D THINK
Upon arriving, everything was a struggle.
There was no glory or romance here, I soon
found, only nature at its most raw.
All day, clouds of insects buzzed incessantly
around my head and bit my skin. Since there
was nowhere to escape, I had to learn to
ignore them. Around noon, the heat was so
unbearable that all human activity stops.
Even in full shade, I’d sweat what felt like
liters of water and would quickly dehydrate
if I wasn’t careful. In the afternoon, the rain
would often come in such intensity that
everything was muted by its roar. Sheltering
from it wasn’t always possible, so I’d often
sit shivering, waiting for it to stop. I didn’t
sleep much, thanks to the bug bites, the rain
leaking through the thatched roof, and the
hard roots and vines on the ground beneath
me.
After many conversations with officials, I
managed to secure permission to organize a
solo trip to a remote area of the Upper
Amazon Basin. Later that year I found
myself on a flight to Manaus, the capital of
the state of Amazonas, to meet with a local
representative of the Tucano tribe.
That contact helped me with organizing the
logistics and materials for my upcoming
trip, advising me to buy gifts for the
community leaders such as fishing nets,
metal pots, cigarettes and machetes.
After a week of this, I was tired beyond
belief, suffering from hunger pangs, and
oscillating between unbelievably hot and
horribly cold. But by the second week,
something magical happened: I was so
exhausted that I actually slept.
With those supplies secured, we set off. And
after five days of painful travel, some 50
miles upriver from São Gabriel da
Cachoeira, I arrived at the Tucanos’ home
and was warmly welcomed. I was 23 years
old, and the next few weeks changed my life
and career from that point forward.
Day by day, the very things that had
bothered me so much that I’d wondered how
I could possibly endure them began to fade
into the background. Before long, I stopped
14
noticing
them.
It’s remarkable
how
adaptable the mind and body can be when
you cut off alternatives. I’ve constantly used
this lesson whenever I’ve faced subsequent
challenges,
including those of
entrepreneurship. From
downsizing
to
fundraising to scaling, the psychological
hurdles have sometimes felt overwhelming.
But whenever I’ve faced these obstacles, I
remember the jungle.
Overcoming all these daily obstacles meant
constantly working together. Everyone I met
had their own form of specialized
knowledge and contributed in some way to
the overall health of the community. Despite
the fact that illness, accident, and death were
ever-present realities, the tribe seemed to
function like a highly coordinated
organization.
This lesson never left me. The value of
bringing people together with specialized
knowledge to exchange ideas and support
one another is a bedrock of any team’s
growth and success. Wherever I’ve lived
and whatever I’ve done since in my career,
I’ve always done my best to surround
myself with as many experienced people as
possible.
ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL
When you’re a potential food source for the
other inhabitants of your environment, you
start to see things differently. I was only a
guest for a few weeks, but for my Tucano
hosts, the excruciatingly difficult task of
finding food was a matter of survival. In
order to protect their quality of life, the tribe
needs to specialize in tasks and work
together.
NO DISTRACTIONS EQUALS DEEPER
THINKING
It goes without saying that there was no cellphone signal in the jungle, no power outlets,
and no Wi-Fi (all things that many modernday digital nomads often can’t do without). I
was completely cut off from the outside
world and and, subsequently, any chance of
distracting
myself. This
was
before
smartphones came on the scene, but as a 23
year old, I was still a pro at
entertaining myself with digital media. It
Meat is a rarity. It can take days for a
hunting party to bring back game. The
community’s staple food, manioc—a root
vegetable known elsewhere as cassava—is
difficult to prepare. It takes a long time to
extract the product’s toxins with traditional
methods in order to make it digestible.
15
was just so convenient—and remains even
more so today. But when distraction isn’t an
option, you’re forced to face all your
thoughts and emotions head-on.
different from the lives of my Amazonian
hosts. No matter what high-pressure
situations or low points I’ve experienced
since—from sweating my way through VC
pitches to wallowing in despair when my
company wasn’t meeting expectations—I
know it’s nothing like the realities of
surviving in the Amazon.
At first, the only thing I could think about
was how much I hated this horrible place.
What had I gotten myself into? I had no way
of stopping my relentless feelings of
frustration and self-recrimination—at least
within the first few days. Then, after dinner
one night, they came to an end.
The month I spent in the jungle taught me,
sooner than most people in their twenties
learn, to move past self-pity, and to realize
the tremendous privilege it is to work in an
office with people I respect on something
we feel connected to. I am grateful to be part
of a team of intelligent, motivated people
who care about their jobs.
With nothing else to divide my attention, I
began to reflect on more important things
like family, community, love, and purpose. I
was actually shocked that this stuff was
coming from inside my own head; I’d never
had such crystal-clear thoughts about those
subjects before. I had never given myself a
chance to reflect that deeply.
My visit with the Tucano people has served
as a compass for my life and career ever
since. Upon returning home, I joined the
U.S. Peace Corps and volunteered in
Romania for the next two years. I couldn’t
have been more prepared. Being stripped of
everything I took for granted helps me to
remember that things can always get much
more difficult. Just as the bee stings and
embarrassment subsided, so did my
perception of them as negative events. The
most challenging experiences of those few
weeks—by far the hardest I’d ever
experienced up to that point—now serve as
guideposts.
To be honest, this freaked me out a little at
first, but with no choice but to come to grips
with these new thoughts, I realized they
made me feel stronger, more connected, and
better grounded. Meditation is now a key
component of my daily routine and helps me
grapple with my most pressing problems.
PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING
But perhaps the biggest lesson my
experience left me with had to do with
perspective. My own life was dramatically
-ARUNKUMAR .S MBA(IB)
16
Is This the Underground Everest?
blackness swallows the light of our
headlamps just a few feet from our heads,
forcing us to move like moles, scuttling,
slithering, feeling our way along hundreds
of feet of stiff, mud-caked ropes that help
guide us through myriad passages known in
caving argot as “squeezes,” “meanders,” and
“shafts.”
Far beneath a remote mountain range in
Uzbekistan, explorers are delving into a
labyrinth that could be the world's
deepest cave
These passages have already been mapped,
but as we crawl up and down, side to side, I
feel disoriented by the nightmarish spiral of
icy mud and wet gravel. For a climber and
mountaineer like me, this is an altogether
different kind of navigation. I’m accustomed
to moving across dangerous terrain, but
down here printed maps are often useless,
GPS doesn’t work, and there are no celestial
guides to offer reassurance. And despite
what Larisa tells me, I know I could never
find my way out of this soul-sucking
labyrinth on my own.
‘Don’t worry, you can’t get lost down
here.’ Larisa Pozdnyakova’s words, in her
thick Russian accent, float to me from
within the cave’s seemingly endless black
void. Apparently, she can read my mind: All
I can think about is not getting lost a mile
inside the Earth. For the past several hours
I’ve struggled to keep up as she leads me
deeper into a frozen underworld known as
Dark Star.
When I finally catch up, she has stopped at a
ledge overlooking what our headlamps
reveal to be a body of water—one of Dark
Star’s many subterranean lakes. She grabs a
lanyard attached to her harness and clips it
on a gritty rope attached to a bolt hammered
into the rock above us. The rope leads out
over the lake and disappears into the black.
The setup acts as a sort of zip line to ferry
cavers across the frigid lake, too cold to
swim in without a wet suit. She gives me a
perky smile and steps off the ledge. Her
Larisa, a 30-something veteran caver from
the Ural Mountains, moves with fluid,
snakelike ease along our twisting route,
while I grunt and heave my way after her
like the clumsy rookie that I am. The cold
17
blond ponytail whips wildly in the beam of
my headlamp before she vanishes into the
darkness, leaving me alone with my fears.
The allure of this huge system is similar to
that which big mountains hold for
climbers—with one difference: We know
that Mount Everest is Earth’s highest peak,
but the potential for conquering new and
enormous subterranean voids is almost
limitless. More is known about the terrain of
Mars than about what lies hidden beneath
the Earth’s surface. Krubera Cave in the
republic of Georgia is currently the deepest
known cave, at 7,208 feet. But Dark Star,
with so many areas still to survey, is a prime
candidate to take over the title.
Outside the cave, it’s a blistering 100°F.
Inside, temperatures range from 30°F to
37°F—a small variance with a big impact on
the scenery: As team members descend
deeper, blue ice gives way to barren rock.
To date, eight expeditions have identified
nearly 11 miles of Dark Star’s passageways,
the deepest lying about 3,000 feet below the
surface. But the system hasn’t been fully
mapped, partly because of its remote
location in a politically unstable region and
partly because its vastness requires
advanced technical abilities and a lot of
equipment. Many expeditions have simply
run out of rope. I can immediately see why.
Just a thousand feet from our entry point,
Larisa and I had already negotiated nearly a
dozen roped sections.
I'm in this predicament because I signed
on with a 31-member expedition—
composed mostly of non-English-speaking
Russians—to explore this monstrous
limestone cave system inside a mountain in
a remote corner of Uzbekistan. The Russians
spotted an entrance to the cave in 1984, but
British cavers were the first to reach it and
began exploring the system in 1990; they
named it after a satirical American sci-fi
movie from the 1970s. In the decades since,
Dark Star, along with neighboring
Festivalnaya (the two systems may someday
be found to be connected), has drawn hardcore cavers from around the world.
She and I had been paired at base camp: her
assignment, to guide the “Amerikanski”
(I’m sure I heard them calling me that) to
Gothic camp, more than a mile inside the
mountain. I would spend two nights
recording the team’s progress in mapping
new parts of the cave and collecting
scientific data.
-DANIEL FRANCIS J MBA(IB)
18
SBI minimum Rs 5,000 balance rule: No, it does not apply to Jan Dhan
accounts
State Bank of India's decision to reintroduce
minimum balance requirement for the
saving accounts will not be applicable to the
Prime
Minister's
Jan-Dhan
Yojana
(PMJDY) accounts or to the 'Basic Savings
Bank' accounts, according to reportsPradhan
Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana is India's National
Mission for Financial Inclusion to ensure
access to financial services, namely banking
savings & deposit accounts, remittance,
credit, insurance, pension in an affordable
manner. This financial inclusion campaign
was launched by the Prime Minister
Narendra Modi on 28 August 2014. As on
March 1, 2017, at least 22.30 crore accounts
have been opened by Public Sector Banks
under this mission.
ALSO READ: Fitch raises India's GDP
forecast to 7.1% for FY17 over surprise
Q3 numbers
The Times of India reported that SBI chief
Arundhati Bhattacharya has clarified that
minimum balance requirement does not
apply to the PMJDY accounts.
"This does not apply to any financial
inclusion account. All banks as far as we are
aware already have such charges," The TOI
quoted Bhattacharya as saying.
Once the revised charges are in force, SBI
account holders will have to maintain the
monthly balance or else they will invite a
penalty ranging from Rs 20 (rural branches)
to Rs 100 in (metro cities).
In metropolitan areas, there will be a charge
of Rs 100 plus service tax, if the balance
falls below 75 per cent of the MAB of Rs
5,000. If the shortfall is 50 per cent or less of
the MAB, then the bank will charge Rs 50
plus service tax, the TOI reported.
Currently, monthly average balance for a
savings bank account is Rs 500 without
facility of cheque book and Rs 1,000 with
cheque book across the country.
SBI has also imposed restrictions on
withdrawals of cash from its branches as
well as ATMs. However, the government
has asked SBI to reconsider it's decision to
impose a penalty on non-maintenance of
minimum balance in accounts from April 1
onwards.
The government also urged SBI and other
lenders, including private sector banks to
"reconsider the charges on cash transactions
and ATM withdrawals above a certain
limit".
Some private banks, like HDFC Bank, ICICI
Bank and Axis Bank, have started charging
a minimum amount of Rs 150 per
transaction for cash deposits and
withdrawals beyond four free transactions in
a month.
-NASHIHANILOFFER A MBA (IB)
19