several initiatives have been taken to achieve financial awareness and literacy among various target groups, which included publication of comic books on banking and rbi ; games on financial education ; arranging school / college visits for creating financial awareness ; participation in exhibitions / fairs / melas at the state & district levels ; conducting essay competitions and quizzes in schools to create awareness about banking and rbi ; outreach programmes undertaken by thetop management and regional offices ; rbi ’ s young scholars scheme, etc. banks have been advised to setup financial literacy centres ( flcs ) in the 630 plus offices of the lead district managers ( ldms ). as at the end of december 2012, 658 flcs were functioning and 1. 5 million people were educated during the period april to december 2012. further, 35, 000 rural branches of scbs including rrbs have been mandated to undertake outdoor financial literacy activities, at least once a month, with focus on financially excluded population. in order to link the financially excluded segment with the banking system, a “ model ” for conduct of literacy camps to be held by banks has been designed, detailing the operational modalities to culminate in effective financial access to the excluded people. further, to ensure consistency in the financial literacy material reaching the target audience in a simple and lucid manner, rbi has prepared a comprehensive financial literacy material consisting of a financial literacy guide, financial diary and a set of 16 financial literacy posters ( few posters have been displayed below ). v ) education one of the most important things, which i want to touch upon before concluding is education, as i see there are a large number of youngsters assembled here. the efforts and outlay made by government alone will not meet the requirements of outlay on education. the scope of education has widened both in india and abroad covering new courses in diversified areas. realizing the importance of education for economic development and raising overall living standards, rbi, has classified loans and advances granted to individuals for educational purposes, including vocational courses up to rs. 10 lakh for studies in india and rs. 20 lakh for studies abroad, under “ priority sector ”. with a view to enable banks, the indian banks ’ association has brought out a model scheme for educational loan in the year 2001, bis central bankers ’ speeches which facilitated economically weaker sections of the society to avail educational loans from scheduled banks with modified easier norms. the scheme was revised by iba subsequently, the latest being in september 2012. loans for education should be seen as an investment

suggest a need to withhold judgment. the 12 - month core pce rate now stands at 2. 8 percent. that rate represents considerable progress, but it is still meaningfully above the fomc's 2 percent target. i like to think about core pce inflation in terms of three main components : goods, housing services, and non - housing services. twelve - month inflation for core goods peaked first, reaching about 7 - 1 / 2 percent in early 2022. but goods inflation cooled quickly, and in february goods prices were nearly half a percentage point below their level a year ago. services inflation peaked later and has cooled less quickly. within services, housing services - a measure of the cost of rent, and the equivalent for owneroccupied housing - rose above 8 percent early last year but was 5. 8 percent in february. housing services inflation is naturally persistent because tenant rents often have yearlong lease agreements, and estimates of owner - occupied housing costs are imputed based in large part using those tenant rents. data on new tenant rent agreements 1 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches suggest that housing inflation broadly will continue to cool. finally, inflation in core nonhousing services hovered between 4 - 1 / 2 and 5 - 1 / 2 percent from mid - 2021 through mid2023 but began cooling after that, reaching 3. 3 percent in february. continued disinflation will indeed require further progress in housing and non - housing services. the rise and subsequent easing of inflation in recent years were related to both supply and demand factors. this development has been confirmed by granular, " bottom - up " statistical research looking at price and quantity changes within narrow product categories. roughly speaking, if a price goes up while quantity goes down, that is an indication that a negative supply shock is dominating ; if price and quantity move in the same direction, that is an indication that a demand shock is dominating. research using this method finds that, for the economy broadly, demand shocks accounted for roughly two - thirds of the 2021 pickup in, and 2023 slowing of, core pce inflation, with the remaining one - third related to supply. the role of supply is somewhat larger in a narrower analysis focused on the domestic manufacturing sector. 2 " top - down " research looking at aggregate time - series data also found significant contributions for both supply and demand factors. 3 let me be a bit more concrete about this point by discussing supply and demand for goods and services in turn.