SSC Exam: Idioms and Phrases Part-2

As promised here I am with the new set of Idiom and phrases.For Set 1(Click Me)

Get Down to Brass Tacks:

To become serious about something.

Go Down Like A Lead Balloon:

To be received badly by an audience.

Go Out On A Limb:

Put yourself in a tough position in order to support someone/something.

Head Over Heels:

Very excited and/or joyful, especially when in love.

Icing On The Cake:

When you already have it good and get something on top of what you already have.

In The Heat Of The Moment:

Overwhelmed by what is happening in the moment.

In Your Face:

An aggressive and bold confrontation

Keep body and soul together:

To earn a sufficient amount of money in order to keep yourself alive .

Keep your chin up:

To remain joyful in a tough situation.

Kick The Bucket:

Die.

Know the Ropes:

To understand the details.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie:

To avoid restarting a conflict.

Loose Cannon:

Someone who is unpredictable and can cause damage if not kept in check.

Make No Bones About:

To state a fact so there are no doubts or objections.

Nest Egg:

Savings set aside for future use.

No Room to Swing a Cat:

An unsually small or confined space.

Off The Hook:

No longer have to deal with a tough situation.

On Pins And Needles:

Anxious or nervous, especially in anticipation of something

Out On A Limb:

When someone puts themself in a risky situation.

Pig In A Poke:

A deal that is made without first examining it.

Put a sock in it:

To tell noisy person or a group to be quiet.

Queer the pitch:

Destroy or ruin a plan.

Ring Fencing:

Seperated usual judgement to guarantee protection, especially project funds

Sitting Shotgun:

Riding in the front passenger seat of a car.

Up a blind alley:

Going down a course of action that leads to a bad outcome.

Wag the Dog:

A diversion away from something of greater importance.

Water Under The Bridge:

Anything from the past that isn't significant or important anymore.

Wild and Woolly:

Uncultured and without laws.

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SSC Exam: Idioms and Phrases Part-1

For Important Geometry Formula(Click Me)

An Arm And A Leg:

Very expensive. A large amount of money.

Beat A Dead Horse:

To force an issue that has already ended.

Blood Is Thicker Than Water:

The family bond is closer than anything else.

Break A Leg:

A superstitious way to say 'good luck' without saying 'good luck', but rather the opposite.

Can't Cut The Mustard :

Someone who isn't adequate enough to compete or participate

Close but no Cigar:

To be very near and almost accomplish a goal, but fall short.

Cry Wolf:

Intentionally raise a false alarm.

Cut to the Chase:

Leave out all the unnecessary details and just get to the point.

Dead Ringer:

100% identical. A duplicate.

Dog Days of Summer:

The hottest days of the summer season.

Don't Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth:

When someone gives you a gift, don't be ungrateful.

Doozy:

Something outstanding.

Down To The Wire:
Something that ends at the last minute or last few seconds.

Dry Run:
Rehearsal.

Eighty Six:
A certain item is no longer available.

Everything But The Kitchen Sink:
Almost everything and anything has been included.

Feeding Frenzy:
An aggressive attack on someone by a group.

Field Day:
An enjoyable day or circumstance.

Finding Your Feet:
To become more comfortable in whatever you are doing.

Flash In The Pan:
Something that shows potential or looks promising in the beginning but fails to deliver anything in the end.

Foam at the Mouth:
To be enraged and show it.

Fuddy-duddy:
An old-fashioned and foolish type of person       

Why Rupee is falling and measurs to contain its depreciation.

Recently depreciating of rupee becomes the major point of concern for Indian economy. The USD/INR exchange rate depreciated 9% during this Monsoon Session, hitting a record low of INR 68 to a dollar on August 28 .At the same time it is also depreciated 11% against the British Pound and 8% against the Euro during this session, thus forces government in general and RBI in particular  to take some harsh fiscal and monetary steps to arrest its downturn.

  Impact of Depreciation of Rupee on Indian Economy    

1) High Inflation --->  affecting the price of imported goods, especially of oil. --> thus high Current Account Deficit CAD

2) However, it will boost exports--> improving the Current Account Deficit (CAD),but overall impact is low due to global recession and poor available infrastructure.

  Reasons  for the decline in the value of the Rupee    

• Large Current Account deficit: The current account (net exports of goods and services, remittances, and net dividend payments) has been in a deficit continuously for the last eight years. Falling growth rate of Indian exports, coupled with a sharp rise in imports, especially of crude oil and gold, have increased this deficit.

• Weakening capital inflows: The capital account (the net flow of funds through equity investments and borrowings) surplus has been used to finance the current account deficit for many years.  Capital inflows have reduced due to the improving economic situation in the US and other developed countries.Investors are exiting developing markets in expectation of the US Federal Reserve increasing the interest rates, impacting the currencies of emerging markets, like India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa.

• Inflation: Part of the depreciation is attributable to the adjustment of the rupee exchange rate to the inflation differential, i.e. India’s relatively high rate of inflation versus other economies.

 Steps taken by the RBI and the government of India to stabilize the currency markets

Issue	Details
Capital Outflow	The RBI reduced the limit for outbound investment and remittances from India.
Encouraging Capital Inflows	RBI has removed administrative restrictions on investment schemes offered by banks to non-resident Indians, and removed ceiling on interest rates on deposit accounts held by NRIs.The government liberalised the FDI limits for 12 sectors, including oil and gas.A Bill is pending in the Parliament to revise the FDI limit to 49% in the insurance sector. RBI increased the current overseas borrowing limit for banks from 50% to 100%, and allowed it to be converted into rupees and hedged with the RBI at concessional rate. RBI also allowed banks to swap fresh NRI dollar deposits with a minimum duration of 3 years with the RBI.
Limiting Imports and encouraging exports	The Finance Ministry increased the customs duty on importing precious metals including gold and platinum.20% of every lot of import of gold must be exclusively made available for the purpose of export.
Oil Import Needs	RBI decided to provide dollar liquidity to three public sector oil marketing companies (IOC, HPCL and BPCL) to help them meet their entire daily dollar requirements.Government is also considering increasing its import of crude oil from Iran, and pay for it directly in Indian rupees.
Trade Deficit	Ministry of Commerce is exploring the possibility of using local currency for trade with major trading partners.RBI allowed exporters and importers more flexibility in management of their forward currency contracts.
Curbing Speculative  in currency	RBI increased the short-term emergency borrowing rates for banks. The daily holding requirements under the Cash Reserve Ratio for banks have been modified.
International Cooperation	Government increased its currency swap limit with Japan from USD15 billion to USD50 billion. The BRICS nations also agreed on a USD100 billion foreign currency reserve pool as part of their plan to create a BRICS New Development Bank.  India will contribute $18 billion to this fund from its reserves.

Source: Reserve Bank of India; PRS.

The government targets to limit the fiscal deficit to 4.8% of GDP, and the CAD to under USD70 billion in 2013-14.  More recently, the new RBI Governor, upon taking office on September 4, 2013, re-affirmed the central bank’s commitment to sustain confidence in the currency and to gradually liberalize the financial market.

Stay Tuned For more updates...

Credits:PRS Blog

SSC Tier 2- Some useful Geometry Formulas

As all of you know that gradually SSC is increasing the weightage of the Geometry (See the below table) , thus gaining a prominent place in the maths section. Moreover, because of the complexity and diversity of the problem area  usually it become a tough nut to crack for the aspirants.

But truly speaking with a little bit knowledge of some basic formula one is able to solve easily more than 75% of the problems.

Type	2010	2011	2012
Geometry	14	10	27

Facts about Polygon

Some of all angles of polygon with 'n' side= (2n-4)*90
Sum of Interior and exterior angles of a polygon= I+E=180
Each Exterior angle=360/n
Each Interior angle =180-360/n

Triangle Properties
Assume a Tringle having sides a,b,c where

R= Circum Radius : r= Inradius ; s=(a+b+c)/2  ; A= Area of triangle
Sine Rule     :  a/SinA=b/SinB=c/SinC= 2R
Cosine Rule  :  a2=b2+c2 -2bcCosA
Area             :  1/2 bcSinA             
Important Formula  :  abc/4A=R  and r=A/s  one of the favorite formula of examiners.

For Equilateral Triangle

Area	Height	R	r
Sqrt3/4 side*2	Sqrt3/2 side	Side/Sqrt3	Side/2Sqrt3

OrthoCenter  Meeting point of all altitudes

angle BOC  + angle A = 180 = angle C + angle AOB

Incenter  angle BOC = 1/2 angle A + 90

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National Food Security Bill 2013:Highlights and Issues

Recently Parliament has passed much awaited Food Security Bill  which gives right to subsidized grains to two-thirds of India's 1.2 billion population of around 800 million, the largest such scheme anywhere in the world.

Below are the key highlights of the Bills :

• The Bill proposes food grain entitlements for up to 75 percent of the rural and up to 50 percent of the urban population at Rs.3, Rs.2, Re 1 per kg for rice, wheat and coarse grains, respectively. Of these, at least 46 percent of the rural and 28 percent of the urban population will be designated as priority households.The rest will be designated as general households.
• Priority households will be entitled to 7 kg of subsidised foodgrains per person per month.General households will be entitled to at least 3 kg.
• The central government will determine the percentage of people in each state that will belong to the priority and general groups.State governments will identify households that belong to these groups. 
• The Bill proposes meal entitlements to specific groups.These include: pregnant women and lactating mothers to have maternity benefit of at least Rs.6,000 for six months and  children between the ages of six months and 14 years, malnourished children, disaster affected persons, and destitute, homeless and starving persons.
• The state government will provide food security allowance to the beneficiaries in case of non supply of food grains.
• The eldest woman in the household,18 years or above,will be the head of the household for the issue of ration card.
• Grievance redressal mechanisms will be set up at the district, state, and central levels of government. 

Key Issues and analysis 

There is no doubt that this bill is going to be a boon for disaster affected persons, people suffering from hunger and poverty in general and under nourished children ,children suffering from malnutrition in particular.Moreover being integrated with direct benefit transfer scheme this bill is trying to abate the on going widespread corruption in public distribution system.

But at the same time ,as per planning commission report this bill burdened exchequer with huge sum of Rs 1.30 lakh crore thus further stressed the slowing down economy and sliding rupee.More over it will add up the subsidy burden by whopping amount of around 28000 crore thus posing a serious threat to fiscal deficit problem.

Nevertheless,this bill is meant for less privileged section of our society (at present around 37% of India  population is living under poverty line) and  act as a stepping stone to weed out hunger from our country.

Stay tuned for more updates....

National Sports Awards 2013

As per announcement  by Ministry of Youth Affairs and sports , President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee today (normally on 29 August which is celebrated as sports day) conferred the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, Arjuna Awards and  Dhyan Chand Awards to recognize and reward excellence in sports to athletes belongs to diverse disciplines.

 List of awardees who received the National Sports Awards is as follows:

  Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award:
 Committee Headed by : Shri Michael Ferreira
 Cash Prize of Rs 7.5 lakhs

S.No	Name
1	Mr . Ronjon Sodhi

Arjuna Awards:
Cash Prize of  Rs 5 lakhs 

Name	Discipline
Ms. Chekrovolu Swuro	Archery
Ms. Kavita Chahal	Boxing
Mr. Rupesh Shah	Billiards & Snooker
Mr. Virat Kohli	Cricket
Mr. Abhijeet Gupta	Chess
Mr. Gagan Jeet Bhullar	Golf
Ms. Saba Anjum	Hockey
Ms. Rajkumari Rathore	Shooting
Ms. Joshna Chinnappa	Squash
Ms. Mouma Das	Table Tennis
Ms. Neha Rathi	Wrestling
Mr. Dharmender Dalal	Wrestling
Mr. Amit Kumar Saroha	Athletics (Para)

Dronacharya Awards
Cash Prize of  Rs 5 lakhs
 

Name	Discipline
Ms. Poornima Mahato	Archery
Mr. Mahavir Singh	Boxing
Mr. Narinder Singh Saini	Hockey
Mr. K.P. Thomas	Athletics
Mr. Raj Singh	Wrestling

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NICL Exam update: Some Facts About Insurance Business

NICL admit cards have been sent on respective mails of the candidates else  you can visit : http://www.nationalinsuranceindia.com/

For detailed strategy and structure of Exam: Click Me and for August Current Affairs Part I; Part II ; Part III

So continuing about Insurance business : Indurance Business in India is divided into four classes
a)Life Insurance b)Fire c)Marine d)Miscellaneous Insurance.Life Insurer(Statutory body) undertake the Life Insurance and rest is taken care by General Insurers(Statutory body).

History Of Life Insurance

In terms of Pooling Resources it finds mention in the writings of Manu ( Manusmrithi ), Yagnavalkya ( Dharmasastra ) and Kautilya ( Arthasastra ).
In Modern India: 1818 saw the advent of life insurance business in India with the establishment of the Oriental Life Insurance Company in Calcutta.This Company however failed in 1834.
An Ordinance was issued on 19^th January, 1956 nationalizing the Life Insurance sector and Life Insurance Corporation came into existence in the same year. The LIC absorbed 154 Indian,16 non-Indian insurers as also 75 provident societies—245 Indian and foreign insurers in all. The LIC had monopoly till the late 90s when the Insurance sector was reopened to the private sector. 

In 1972 with the passing of the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, general insurance business was nationalized with effect from 1^st January, 1973. 107 insurers were amalgamated and grouped into four companies, namely National Insurance Company Ltd., the New India Assurance Company Ltd., the Oriental Insurance Company Ltd and the United India Insurance Company Ltd.

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) 

 

Chairman of IRDA - TS Vijayan  

• Following the recommendations of the Malhotra Committee report, in 1999, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) was constituted 
• The IRDA was incorporated as a statutory body in April, 2000. 
•  Foreign companies were allowed ownership of up to 26%. 
• The key objectives of the IRDA include promotion of competition so as to enhance customer satisfaction through increased consumer choice and lower premiums, while ensuring the financial security of the insurance market.  
•  In December, 2000, the subsidiaries of the General Insurance Corporation of India were restructured as independent companies and at the same time GIC was converted into a national re-insurer. Parliament passed a bill de-linking the four subsidiaries from GIC in July, 2002.
• Together with banking services, insurance services add about 7% to the country’s GDP
  
  

  National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) 

   
  Chairman of NICL- NSR Chandraprasad
• The company headquartered at Kolkata was established in 1906 and nationalized in 1972.
• After nationalisation in 1972, NICL operated as a subsidiary of General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC).
• In April, 2004, NICL signed an agreement with Nainital Bank for distribution of its general insurance products through the bank's branches in Uttarakhand, Haryana and New Delhi. 
• NICL's foreign operations are carried out from its branch offices in Nepal.
• As of 2010, NICL has a AAA rating from Indian rating agency, CRISIL, a subsidiary of Standard and Poor's Company

 

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) 

 

Chairman of LIC- S. K. Roy

• LIC is  the largest insurance group and investment company in India. It's a state-owned company where Government of India has 100% stake.
• Headquartered in Mumbai, financial and commercial capital of India, the Life Insurance Corporation of India currently has 8 zonal Offices and 118 divisional offices located in different parts of India
• Slogan of LIC is "Yogakshemam Vahamyaham" which translates from Sanskrit to "Your welfare is our responsibility".

 

Mock Questions

1) Which of the following is not a principle of Insurance?

Principle of :

a)Uberrima fides

b)Supply and demand

c)Contibution

d)Subrogation

2)What does 'Causa Proxima' stand for in the principle of Causa Proxima in Insurance?

a)Cause of Insurance

b)Nearest Cause

c)Closest type of Insurance

d)Closest Relation b/w insurer and insured

3)What is the term used for compensation paid by insurer to the insured for particular loss suffered by latter?

a)Loss minimization

b)Claim

c)Indemnity

d)Subrogation

4)Which of the following statements regarding underwriting is correct?

a)is essenial in all form of insurance

b)process of determining level of risk presented by insurer

c)It is deciding whether to accept level of risk and if so at what terms and at what price.

d)All of the above

5)The Insurance Act(1938) is applicable to:

a)Whole of India

b)J&K

c)Whole of India(except J&K)

d)None of the above

6)In accordance with the protection of policy holders interest Regulations ,2002,In how many days one should claim under a life policy be paid or be disputed ?

a) 7 days

b)15 days

c)30 days

d)60 days

7)All Insurances purchases involve contracts,In fact insurance is distinct branch of contract law,This law of contract governed by the:

a)Indian contract Act,1856

b)Indian contract Act,1872

c)Indian contract Act,1891

d)Indian contract Act,1911

8)In which year medicalim policy introduced in India for the first time?

a)1978

b)1981

c)1993

d)1996

9)Which of the following is not public sector general insurance company of India?

a)Oriental Insurance Company Limited

b)New India Assurances Company Limited

c)Life Insurance Corporation

d)National Insurance Company Limited

10)The birth place of social insurance is

a)England

b)Italy

c)America

d)Germany

11)The term "insurers " as defined by Indian Insurance Act(1983) included

a)Proprietary Joint stock companies

b)Mutal joint stock Comapnies

c)Partnership firms to which the Inidan Partnership Act of 1932 applied

d)All of the above

12)Which of the following insurance companies were started in the Bombay Residency in the 19 century?

a)Bombay Mutual

b)Oriental

c)Empire of India

d)All of the above

13)Exporters of India get insurance and risk cover from which of the following organizations?

a)SIDBI

b)NABARD

c)ECGC

d)RBI

14)Which of the following  institutions deals with credit to Agriculture and rural development?

a)IDBI

b)NABARD

c)SIDBI

d)ICICI

15)In which year did LIC come into existence?

a)1947

b)1950

c)1956

d)1969

Answers:

1)b 2)b 3)c 4)d 5)c 6)c 7)b 8)b 9)c 10)b 11)d 12)d 13)c 14)b 15)c

If u want me to update any other article related to any other exam just leave me a comment

For highlights and analysis of  Food Security Bill

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