India figured among top 10 markets for Australia - AIBS

India has figured among the top 10 markets for the international business community in Australia’s International Business Survey (AIBS). India has also emerged as the most challenging of the top 10 countries to do business with.

The AIBS found that India ranked as ninth important market currently. The country was also seen as the third important future market. The survey found that the most important market for international business for the participants varied by the industry. For India it is education and training industry stood as the most important market for Australian international business community. On the list of top most important overseas markets in terms of international revenue, India stood at the ninth position, while US and China took the first and second rank respectively. 

On rating the ease of doing business in their most important markets as compared to Australia, only 9 per cent of businesses perceived India as an easier or much easier market than Australia, with 81 per cent regarding it as more or much more difficult.

While strong growth prospects are the most important reason provided for planning on doing business in India in the future, personal contacts/networks do play a secondary role.

AIBS 2014, a comprehensive study of Australian companies involved in international business, was commissioned by Export Council of Australia with the support of Austrade and Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, and conducted by University of Sydney between October and December last year.

The survey captured data from more than 1,600 Australian businesses, reflecting the opinions of a wide range of firms from diverse industries operating in over 120 markets.

Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Service Examination 2014

The Union Public Service Commission will hold the Civil Service (Preliminary) Examination, 2014 for recruitment of various post of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), and certain other Group 'A' and Group 'B' Central Service/ Posts.

1. Indian Administrative Service
2. Indian Foreign Service
3. Indian Police Service
4. Indian P & T Accounts & Finance Service, Group ‘A’
5. Indian Audit and Accounts Service, Group ‘A’
6. Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise), Group ‘A’
7. Indian Defence Accounts Service, Group ‘A’
8. Indian Revenue Service (I.T.), Group ‘A’
9. Indian Ordnance Factories Service, Group ‘A’ (Assistant Works Manager, Administration)
10. Indian Postal Service, Group ‘A’
11. Indian Civil Accounts Service, Group ‘A’
12. Indian Railway Traffic Service, Group ‘A’
13. Indian Railway Accounts Service, Group 'A'
14. Indian Railway Personnel Service, Group ‘A’
15. Post of Assistant Security Commissioner in Railway Protection Force, Group ‘A’
16. Indian Defence Estates Service, Group ‘A’
17. Indian Information Service (Junior Grade), Group ‘A’
18. Indian Trade Service, Group 'A' (Gr. III)
19. Indian Corporate Law Service, Group "A"
20. Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service, Group ‘B’ (Section Officer’s Grade)
21. Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Civil Service, Group 'B'
22. Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Police Service, Group 'B'
23. Pondicherry Civil Service, Group 'B'

Qualifications: The candidate must hold a degree of any of Universities incorporated by an Act of the Central or State Legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an Act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University under Section-3 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification.
Age Limit (As on 01/08/2014): 21-32 years
Fee: Rs. 100/- either by remitting the money in any Branch of SBI by Cash, or by using net banking facility of State Bank of India/ State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur/ ate Bank of Hyderabad/ State Bank of Mysore/ State Bank of Patiala/ State Bank of Travancore or by using Visa/ Master Credit/ Debit Card. Female/ SC/ ST/ PH candidates are exempted from payment of fee.
Plan of Examination: The competitive examination comprises two successive stages.

• Civil Services (Preliminary) Examinations (Objective Type) for the selection of candidates for Main Examination; and
• Civil Services (Main) Examination (Written and Interview) for the selection of candidates for the various services and posts.

Penalty for Wrong Answers: Candidates should note that there will be penalty (negative marking) for wrong answers marked by a candidate in the Objective Type Question Papers.
How to Apply: Candidates are required to apply Online by using the website: www.upsconline.nic.in.

Important Dates:

• Closing date of online registration 30/06/2014
• Date of written examination 24/08/2014

For more details, please visit:  www.upsc.gov.in/exams/notifications/2014/csp/CSP%202014%20English.pdf

Cabinet Ministers of India 2014

Cabinet Ministers
● Narendra Modi – Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space, All important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister 
● Rajnath Singh – Home Affairs 
● Sushma Swaraj – External Affairs, Overseas Indian Affairs 
● Arun Jaitley – Finance, Corporate Affairs, additional charge of Defence 
● M Venkaiah Naidu – Urban Development, Housing, Urban Poverty Alleviation, Parliamentary Affairs 
● Nitin Gadkari – Road Transport and Highways, Shipping 
● DV Sadananda Gowda – Railways 
● Uma Bharati – Water resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation 
● Dr Najma Heptulla – Minority Affairs 
● Gopinath Munde – Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation 
● Ramvilas Paswan – Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution 
● Kalraj Mishra – Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises 
● Maneka Gandhi – Women and Child Development 
● Ananthkumar – Chemicals and Fertilizers 
● Ravi Shankar Prasad – Communications and Information Technology Law and Justice 
● Ashok Gajapathi Raju – Civil Aviation 
● Anant Geete – Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises 
● Harsimrat Kaur Badal – Food Processing Industries 
● Narendra Singh Tomar – Mines, Steel, Labour and Employment 
● Jual Oram – Tribal Affairs 
● Radha Mohan Singh – Agriculture 
● Thaawar Chand Gehlot – Social Justice and Empowerment 
● Smriti Irani – Human Resource Development 
● Dr Harsh Vardhan – Health and Family Welfare

Ministers of State (Independent Charge) 
● General VK Singh – Development of North Eastern Region (Independent Charge), External Affairs, Overseas Indian Affairs 
● Inderjit Singh Rao – Planning (Independent Charge), Statistics and Programme Implementation (Independent Charge), Defence 
● Santosh Gangwar – Textiles (Independent Charge), Parliamentary Affairs, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation 
● Shripad Naik – Culture (Independent Charge), Tourism (Independent Charge) 
● Dharmendra Pradhan – Petroleum and Natural Gas (Independent Charge) 
● Sarbananda Sonowal – Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Youth Affairs and Sports (Independent Charge) 
● Prakash Javadekar – Information and Broadcasting (Independent Charge), Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Independent Charge), Parliamentary Affairs 
● Piyush Goyal – Power (Independent Charge), Coal (Independent Charge), New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) 
● Dr Jitendra Singh – Science and Technology (Independent Charge), Earth Sciences (Independent Charge), Prime Minister Office, Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space 
● Nirmala Sitharaman – Commerce and Industry (Independent Charge), Finance, Corporate Affairs

Ministers of State 
● GM Siddeshwara – Civil Aviation 
● Manoj Sinha – Railways 
● Nihalchand – Chemicals and Fertilizers 
● Upendra Kushwaha – Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation 
● Pon Radhakrishnan – Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises 
● Kiren Rijiju – Home Affairs 
● Krishan Pal – Road Transport and Highways, Shipping 
● Dr. Sanjeev Balyan – Agriculture, Food Processing Industries 
● Mansukhbhai Dhanjibhai Vasava – Tribal Affairs 
● Raosaheb Danve – Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution 
● Vishnu Deo Sai – Mines, Steel, Labour and Employment 
● Sudarshan Bhagat – Social Justice and Empowerment

Forest Department Recruitment Test - 2014 Provisional Keys

Forest Section Officers

General Maths  General Knowledge

Forest Beat Officers

General Maths  General Knowledge

Asst. Beat Officers

General Maths  General Knowledge

Thanadars

General Maths           General Knowledge

Bunglow Watchers

General Maths        General Knowledge

Technical Assistant

General Maths        General Knowledge

General Elections 2014: Lowest ever Number of Independent Candidates Elected

General Elections 2014 has seen the lowest ever number of Independent candidates getting elected. Out of a total of 8251 contestants, 3234 were Independent candidates; out of this, 3 candidates have been elected. In the previous General Elections held in 2009, the total number of Independent candidates was 3831 out of which 9 were elected. The highest ever number of Independents elected is 42 (Second General Elections, 1957); the number of Independent candidates contested was highest at 10635 in 11^th General Elections, held in 1996.

Table 1:  Performance of Independent Candidates in General Elections 1951-52   ̶  2014

General Elections	Year	Total No. of Contestants	Total No. of Independent Candidates	No. of Independent Candidates Elected
First	1951 - '52	1874	533	37
Second	1957	1519	481	42
Third	1962	1985	479	20
Fourth	1967	2369	866	35
Fifth	1971	2784	1134	14
Sixth	1977	2439	1224	9
Seventh	1980	4629	2826	9
Eighth	1984 -'85	5492	3797	5
Ninth	1989	6160	3712	12
Tenth	1991 -'92	8749	5546	5
Eleventh	1996	13952	10635	9
Twelfth	1998	4750	1915	6
Thirteenth	1999	4648	1945	6
Fourteenth	2004	5435	2385	5
Fifteenth	2009	8070	3831	9
Sixteenth	2014	8251	3234	3
Source: Election Commission of India

Number of Contestants and Winners - Gender-Wise Highest number of Women in Lok Sabha so far

The 16^th Lok Sabha has the highest number of women members ever at 61, compared to 59 Women members in 2009.The least number of women members was in 1977 followed by 1971 and 1957.  In the 2014 Elections, 8251 candidates contested the elections, out of which 668 were women and 7,578 were men. 5 Transgenders also contested the polls this Elections. The winning percentage of women in the 16^th General Elections is 9.13% while that of Men’s is 6.36%.The Average number of contestants per seat is 15.2 in 2014.

Contestants and Winners - Gender-wise

General Elections	Year	Total Number of Seats	Total Number of Contestants	Average Number of Contestants Per Seat	Male			Female
					Contestants	Elected	Winning %	Contestants	Elected	Winning %
First	1952	489	1,874	4.67	--	--	--	--	--	--
Second	1957	494	1,519	3.77	1474	472	32.02	45	22	48.89
Third	1962	494	1,985	4.02	1919	463	24.13	66	31	46.97
Fourth	1967	520	2,369	4.56	2302	491	21.33	67	29	43.28
Fifth	1971	518	2,784	5.37	2698	497	18.42	86	21	24.42
Sixth	1977	542	2,439	4.5	2369	523	22.08	70	19	27.14
Seventh	1980	542	4,629	8.54	4486	514	11.46	143	28	19.58
Eighth	1984-85	542	5,492	10.13	5321	500	9.4	171	43	25.15
Ninth	1989	543	6,160	11.34	5962	514	8.62	198	29	14.65
Tenth	1991-92	543	8,749	16.11	8419	496	5.89	330	38	11.52
Eleventh	1996	543	13,952	25.69	13353	503	3.77	599	40	6.68
Twelfth	1998	543	4,750	8.75	4476	500	11.17	274	43	15.69
Thirteenth	1999	543	4,648	8.56	4364	494	11.32	284	49	17.25
Fourteenth	2004	543	5,435	10.01	5080	498	9.8	355	45	12.68
Fifteenth	2009	543	8,070	14.86	7514	484	6.44	556	59	10.61
Sixteenth	2014	543	8,251*	15.2	7,578	482	6.36	668	61	9.13

*5 transgenders contested the 2014 elections