Current Affairs Update - 02 August 2016

Updated on : 11:05, 30 August 2016

— NATIONAL —

– Odisha to recruit members of transgender community as jail warders

• The Odisha government has decided to recruit members of transgender community as warders in jails of the State.
• “We have directed the Sub-ordinate Staff Selection Commission to start the process of recruitment of transgenders. They will compete in women categories,” said M. R. Pattnaik, Additional Inspector General of prison.
• As per the direction of the Directorate of Prison, members of transgender community could apply for 185 warders’ posts in jails.

– PM to launch ’70 Saal Azadi-Zara Yaad Karo Kurbani’ on Aug 9

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch a programme-’70 Saal Azadi-Zara Yaad Karo Kurbani’ on August 9.
• Talking to media persons after BJP Parliamentary Party meeting, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting M. Venkaiah Naidu said that the campaign is aimed at developing a feeling in every person that nation is first and individual is secondary.

– MoC launches Twitter Sewa to address the complaints of common man.

• Honble Minister of Communications Sh. Manoj Sinha today launched Twitter Sewa” for addressing the complaints and concerns of common man and other stake-holders in the telecom and postal sectors.
• The twitter handle of the Minister will be @manojsinhabjp.
• Launching the Sewa here, Shri Sinha said that this is in tune with Shri Narendra Modis vision of minimum government, maximum governance” as from the Prime Minister himself to his ministers and their ministries are connecting with Indian citizens through live communications platform to provide a transparent, clean and responsive and accountable administration.

– Central body approves Rs 400 crore for Ganga rejuvenation projects

• A high-level panel of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) on Monday approved various projects worth approximately Rs 400 crore for development of ghats (river fronts) and crematoria at different places along the river Ganga from Uttarakhand to West Bengal under the Centre’s ambitious Namami Gange programme.
• The projects, approved by the empowered steering committee of the NGRBA, include development of ghats and crematoria in the stretch from Rudraprayag to Guptkashi in Uttarakhand; Kanpur, Allahabad, Bithoor and Bijnor (on Ramganga) in Uttar Pradesh; Kahalgaon in Bihar; Sahibganj and Rajmahal in Jharkhand and Bhatpara and Naihati in West Bengal.

– Prabhu lays foundation stone of rail project in Nagaland

• Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu laid the foundation stone of the Dhansiri (Dimapur)-Zubza broad gauge line at the Dimapur railway station on Monday.
• “More than geography, it is important to bring together different aspirations of the people and fulfil the long-cherished dream of the citizens by connecting the capital of Nagaland with Delhi,” Mr. Prabhu said in his address.
• “A comprehensive plan on how to meet the aspirations of the people of the North East is in the process of finalisation and very soon it will be presented to all the Chief Ministers concerned,” he said.

– Resolution for renaming of Madras High Court passed

• Even as a Bill introduced by the Union Law Ministry to rename the Madras High Court as the High Court of Chennai awaits Parliamentary nod, the State Legislative Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Monday urging the Centre to rename it as the High Court of Tamil Nadu.
• Moving the resolution in the House, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said that the High Court was located in the city of Chennai but has jurisdiction over the whole State of Tamil Nadu.

– Govt launches performance, credit rating scheme for MSMEs

• A performance and credit rating scheme has been launched by the MSME Ministry to assess the capabilities and creditworthiness of the industries in the sector, Lok Sabha was informed today.
• Mishra said recently, a new scheme of Financial Support to MSMEs in Zero Defect Zero Effect Certification has been approved in which the MSMEs will be assessed on ZED Maturity Model on 50 parameters which will strengthen or facilitate the Make in India initiative.

– Andhra Inks MoU With Japan To Develop Food Value Chain

• The Andhra Pradesh government inked a MoU with Japan to develop a food value chain in the state.
• Under the MoU, Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will encourage direct investments by Japanese companies in the fields of agriculture and food-related industry in Andhra Pradesh.
• Along with developing a food value chain, it will also establish food industrial parks and develop cold chains.
• Speaking to the representatives from MAFF, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said that Andhra Pradesh occupies a premier position in agri-business with a major contribution in agriculture, horticulture, dairy, poultry, fisheries and marine production.

– Union Communication Minster launches Twitter Sewa to address the Comman Man complaints and needs

• In order to address the grievances and concerns of common man and other stake-holders in the telecom and postal sectors, The Minister of Communications Manoj Sinha launched “Twitter Sewa” program for better lucidity in helping the growing population.
• The telecom ministry and Department of Post will henceforth compile a list of complaints from this Twitter Sewa and categorize them into immediate, mid-term and long-term complaints.
• The twitter handle of the Minister will [email protected] and the Telecom operators from Government as well as private and the Department of Posts shall use the utility of Twitter sewa” to the fullest to address the grievances of the public.
• This platform may be misused by some rogue elements, under such conditions Twitter authorities will take care of the same.
• This new initiative will help in connecting Indian citizens through live communications platform to provide a transparent, clean and responsive and accountable administration.
  About Twitter :
  • Owner – Jack Dorsey
  • HQ – San Francisco, US
  • Establishment – 2006

 

— INTERNATIONAL —

– Virgin Galactic gets its spaceship license

• Virgin Galactic is one step closer to making us all space tourists: it just received its operator license from the US Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA-AST).
• To get the paperwork that allows Virgin Galactic to use its ship for commercial operations. THE FAA looked into the vehicle’s system design, safety features and flight trajectory analysis.

– Typhoon Nida brings hurly burly situation in Southern part of China

• Owing to a battering typhoon Nida people in the the region large areas of southern China are on emergency alert in order to reduce the damage to life and properties in case of any natural hit.
• Typhoon Nida brought Hong Kong to halt with high winds and rains and many schools, businesses and transport services remained shut.
• The strong typhoon packing winds up to 151.2 km per hour is moving northwest at 25 km per hour, and is expected to sweep across the cities of Shenzhen, Dongguan, Guangzhou, Foshan and Zhaoqing to Guangdong’s neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
• All flights from Shenzhen and Zhuhai were cancelled and hundreds of trains to and from Pearl River Delta cities have also been delayed.
• It is also ntoed that sea waves as high as 11 meters are expected in the northern South China Sea and the SOA also issued a red alert storm tides and estimated that the sea level off the Pearl River estuary will rise up to 220 cm.

– China to perform world’s first human genetic editing trial

• China’s Sichuan University to perform world’s first genetic editing trial on humans aiming to cure lung cancer.
• The university oncologists will inject cell that are modified using the CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-Cas9 gene-editing technique into the humans to perform the trial.
• The Cas9 is an enzyme that can make alteration of genetic patterns by genome modification. The trail allows the scientists to take out microorganism parts and replace them with new DNA stretches.
• The treatment the edited cells will be multiplied in the lab that will start the T cells to attack on the tumor cells. The Multiplication process will be carried out in a lab before being injected into the human.

 

— BOOKS & AUTHORS —

– ‘Grassroots Innovation’ authored by Prof. Anil K. Gupta

• A book titled Grassroots Innovation was released which was authored by professor Anil K Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad.
• The book describes about the people who are silently making contribution in the innovation for the economic development and also for the advancement of society.
• President Pranab Mukherjee a copy of book from the author at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.
  About Anil K Gupta:
  • He is the founder of the Honey Bee Network also holds the post of Vice Chairman at National Innovation Foundation.
  • He is Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
  • He received Padma Shri award in 2004 for his contribution in the Management field.

 

— BANKING —

– RBI Releases Guidelines for ‘On-Tap’ Bank Licence

• RBI today released the much-awaited guidelines for ‘on tap’ universal banking licence, but excluded large industrial houses as eligible entities from the purview, though they can invest in banks up to 10 per cent.
• As per the “Guidelines for ‘on tap’ Licensing of Universal Banks in the Private Sector”, the initial minimum paid-up voting equity capital for a bank should be Rs 500 crore and thereafter, the bank should have a minimum net worth of Rs 500 crore at all times.

– Bank of Baroda ties up with start-up Fisdom

• Bank of Baroda   has tied up with a fintech start-up Fisdom for personal wealth management services.
• Besides, the bank has entered into pact with six other fintech companies, proficient in different areas, Fisdom said in a release.
• These are CreditMantri, FundsTiger, Probe42, Power2SME, IndiaLends and KredX.
• Fisdom app helps users make financial investments in an easy and paperless manner by blending cutting-edge technology with personalised financial advice. It helps people manage their money with the help of a robo-advisor, it said.

– ICICI Bank reduces MCLR by 0.05%

• Country’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank today announced a 0.05% reduction in its marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR).
• The overnight MCLR will be 8.90% under the revised rate structure which is effective from today, sources said.
• The one-year MCLR, to which the home loans are linked, has moved down to 9.10%, they said, adding that the reductions are across tenors.

– SBI starts certification for officers who sanction loans

• To face the challenge of high non-performing assets (NPAs), country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has started working on a multi-pronged strategy, including a certification programme for loan sanctioning officials.
• “In our bid to face the challenge of high-level NPAs the industry is currently faced with, we are working on a multi-pronged strategy,” bank’s chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya told reporters on the sidelines of 60th Foundation Day of ECGC here on Monday.

– UIDAI RBI’s final guidelines exclude large industrial groups from on-tap banking licence

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued new guidelines for issuing ‘on tap’ banking licence, even as it excluded large business groups from the same.
• The guidelines, nevertheless pave the way for the government to issue on demand banking licences to non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), certain qualified individuals and some private firms that apply for licences at a time of their choosing. Monday’s guidelines follow draft rules that were issued in May this year.

 

— BUSINESS AND ECONOMY —

– Freecharge inks partnership with PayUbiz

• India’s fastest growing digital payments platform Freecharge has partnered with the leading payment gateway solution provider, PayUbiz, to further strengthen its merchant base and help consumers move from cash to digital payments.
• This integration allows Freecharge to tap PayUbiz’s more than 10, 000 online merchants. Furthermore, the latter’s wide assortment of merchants across sectors will also be accessible to Freecharge patrons.

– ICICI Bank ties up with Apollo India to form ARC

• To resolve cases related to bad loans, besides revitalising and turning around over-leveraged borrowers, ICICI Bank has inked an MoU with Apollo India Credit Opportunity Management LLC and AION Capital Management to set up an asset reconstruction company.
• The MoU is subject to regulatory approvals, acquisition of debt exposures from lenders and equity stakes in companies.

– NHPC to raise Rs 4,500 cr after Subansiri project clearance

• As part of its Rs 3,000 crore diversification plan to venture into solar and wind power projects, NHPC Limited (previously known as National Hydroelectric Power Corporation) is looking at feasible options in various states in the sector.
• The company also plans to raise Rs 4,500 crore through private placement, but is waiting National Green Tribunal (NGT) clearance for the 2,000-Mw Lower Subansiri hydroelectric project at Gerukamukh along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border.

– Alphabet arm Verily to collaborate with GSK for bioelectronic medicines

• GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has signed an agreement with Verily Life Sciences LLC (formerly Google Life Sciences), an Alphabet company, to form Galvani Bioelectronics to enable the research, development and commercialisation of bioelectronic medicines.
• GSK will hold a 55 percent stake in the new jointly owned company and Verily will hold 45 percent.
• Galvani Bioelectronics will be headquartered in the UK, with the parent companies contributing existing intellectual property rights and an investment of up to Pound 540 million (about $ 710 million) over seven years, subject to successful completion of various discovery and development milestones.

– Novopay aims to disrupt payments in rural India with its assisted wallet

• Novopay, a Bengaluru-based payment firm is slowly disrupting the mobile wallet space by focusing to serve unbanked and rural customers.
• Many of these customers, like in rural Midnapore, use their nearby Kirana store with the Novopay Solutions board as their local banking channel.
• Money transferred from their family members working in Delhi or Mumbai to their bank account is reflected into their Novopay wallet with the store keeper assisting them in doing transactions on a smartphone.

– Wipro Infrastructure to acquire Israel’s H R Givon

• Wipro Infrastructure Engineering (WIN) will acquire Israel-based H R Givon, supplier of metallic parts and assemblies to the aerospace industry, in an all-cash deal. WIN, however, did not disclose the size of the deal.
• “This acquisition will help WIN broaden its product portfolio, expand global footprint and strengthen its ability to forge deeper customer relationships in the aviation and aerospace industry,” WIN said in a statement.
• The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, which are expected to be completed in September this year.
• Givon manufactures structural parts and assemblies that form part of the fuselage, wings and empennage of an aircraft.

 

— APPOINTMENTS AND RESIGN—

– Bhaskar Khulbe appointed Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi

• Senior IAS officer Bhaskar Khulbe has been appointed as Secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.He was Additional Secretary in Prime Minister’s Office.
• The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved appointment of Khulbe as Secretary to Prime Minister with effect from Friday, an order issued today by Department of Personnel and Training, said.
• Khulbe is a 1983 batch IAS officer of West Bengal cadre.He looks after work related to Cabinet Secretariat and thrust areas of the government, among others.

– Air Marshal Neelakantan takes charge of Southern Air command

• Air Marshal S Neelakantan today assumed charge as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Southern Air Command.
• The traditional Guard of Honour was presented to him by the ‘Air Warriors.’
• Air Marshal Neelakantan, who was commissioned as a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force on December 28, 1977, is an alumni of National Defence Academy, Defence Services Staff College, Wellington and Tactics and Combat Development Establishment, a defence press release said.

– Dilip Rath takes over as Chairman NDDB

• After the former IAS officer T Nanda Kumar abruptly resigned from the chairmanship of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Govt of India has given Dilip Rath, Managing Director of the Dairy Board an additional charge of Chairmanship till the regular appointment.
• Rath was closely involved in project conceptualization and formulation of NDP. As the Mission Director of NDP, he is actively pursuing the project objectives, an NDDB statement said here.

– Mondelez names Deepak Iyer MD of India business

• Chocolate maker Mondelez International has roped in Deepak Iyer as managing director of its India unit and part of the Asia-Pacific leadership team.
• Iyer, until recently the chief executive officer at Bharti AXA General Insurance, will replace Chandramouli Venkatesan, who quit after two years at the helm to pursue opportunities outside Mondelez.

 

— SPORTS —

– India’s Vivek Teja becomes World Karate Champion

• India’s Vivek Teja becomes World Karate Championi. India’s martial arts hero and rising star Vivek Teja bagged the World Karate Champion (All Styles) at the Martial Arts World Championships in Sydney, Australia.
• The Indian Teja defeated James Chatfield from New Zealand in the first round and England’s Anthony Raiyas, in the second round, and beat Australian star Matthew Rose in the title clash to clinch the title.
• Teja becomes the first Indian to have acquired expertise in all martial art styles of the world in his 15 years fighting career

– Wrestler Narsingh Yadav gets NADA’s clean chit in doping case

• The National Anti-Doping Agency has given a clean chit to wrestler Narsingh Yadav from doping charges, with this he will be eligible to take part in Rio Olympics.
• The wrestler had tested positive for a banned steroid in an out of competition test conducted by the Doping Agency.
• In addition Praveen Rana was named as the replacement of Yadav to secure quota in the in the 74kg category Wrestling in the Rio Olympics.
• Yadav qualified for the Rio after he won bronze medal in the World’s Championship held last year. India stages in 15 games including Wrestling with 120 athletes in the Mega event.

 

— OBITUARY —

– Indian American linguist, Professor Braj B. Kachru passes away

• Well-known Indian American linguist and Jubilee Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign Braj B. Kachru, 84, has passed away on July 29.
• Born in Srinagar, Kashmir on 15, May 1931, into a Kashmiri Pandit family, Kachru had held many higher posts at the University of Illinois. He was the head of the Department of Linguistics from 1968 to 79. He directed the Division of English as an International Language and was director of the Center for Advanced Study