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| Current Affairs |
Dear Readers,
Welcome to
Mentor for Bank Exams. Here I am posting Daily Current affairs News Updates
about the National and International events were listed here. Candidates those
who are preparing for IBPS/SBI/PO/Clerk exam and all other competitive exams
can use this. Kindly make use of these!!!
APPOINTMENTS
1) Justice Ansari sworn in as Patna HC CJ
Justice Iqbal Ahmed Ansari was sworn in as the chief justice (CJ) of
Patna high court by Bihar governor Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony held at the
Raj Bhawan on Friday.
Justice Ansari had been
officiating as the Patna HC CJ ever since CJ L Narasimha Reddy retired on July
31 last year. He was also the acting CJ of Patna HC from December 13, 2014 to
January 1, 2015 after the retirement of then CJ Rekha M Doshit. Justice Ansari
joined the Patna HC on November 11, 2013.
2) BCCI chief Anurag Thakur joins
Territorial Army
BCCI president Anurag Thakur became a part of the elite group of MS
Dhoni and Kapil Dev after joining the Indian Army.
Thakur, who also happens to be a
Member of Parliament, was commissioned into the Territorial Army as a
Lieutenant by Chief of Army Staff General Dalbir Singh Suhag at New Delhi's
South Block on Friday (July 29).
3) A.K. Mittal reappointed as Railway Board
Chairman for two years
Current Chairman Railway Board A.K.Mittal has been reappointed as the
new Chairman of the Railway Board for a period of two years i.e. till he
attains the age of 62 years, with effected from next month.
Mittal was appointed as Chairman
of Railway Board on 31st December 2014. Prior to this appointment, Mittal was
Member Staff, Railway Board.
Earlier, he served as General
Manager of South Western Railway-SWR (Headquarters Hubli) and was also looking
after the additional charge of General Manager, South Central Railway- SCR
(Headquarters Secunderabad).
4) Gujarat-based National Dairy Development
Board chief resigns
T Nanda Kumar, Chairman of Gujarat-based National Dairy Development
Board (NDDB), has resigned.
The Appointments Committee of
Cabinet has accepted the resignation of Kumar with effect from August 1, 2016,
an order issued today by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said,
without citing any reason.
The senior-most whole-time
director of the board has been given additional charge of the post of NDDB
until the appointment of a regular incumbent, it said.
Kumar, a former IAS officer, has
been working as NDDB chief since March 3, 2014. He is the third chairman of the
board based in Anand, Gujarat, after V Kurien (1965-1998) and Amrita Patel
(1998- February 2014).
5) First woman head of aviation regulator moves out
The first woman chief of aviation regulator DGCA M Sathiyavathy was today named as new Union Labour Secretary.
Sathiyavathi, a 1982-batch IAS officer of the union territories cadre, was in September last year appointed as the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved her appointment as Officer on Special Duty in the Ministry of Labour and Employment with immediate effect, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.
1) Four New Writers Get Jnanpith
'Navlekhan' Award
Four writers, three of them from
Rajasthan, were today given the Bharatiya Jnanpith's 11th Navlekhan award for
the year 2015 in a ceremony here today.
Amlendu Tiwari and Balram Kawant
were awarded for their respective novels 'Parityakt', and 'Sara Morila,' while
Om Naagar and Tasneem Khan were awarded for their non-fictions 'Nib Ke Chire
Se' and 'Yeh Mere Rahnuma' respectively.
The awardees were chosen by a
selection panel headed by senior writer and journalist Madhusudan Anand and
comprising of eminent literary figures Vishnu Nagar, Govind Prasad and Om
Nischal.
BANKING NEWS
1) LIC signs up Axis Bank as bancassurance
partner
India's largest insurer Life Insurance
Corporation of India (LIC) has signed an agreement with private sector lender
Axis Bank as its bancassurance partner wherein the bank will distribute LIC's
products to its customers.
In the preliminary phase, the bank
will distribute LIC’s life insurance products across its branches in West Bengal,
Bangalore and Haryana – Panchkula. Additionally, the bank will also provide
post sales services such as premium collection and renewal of policies.
In a statement, LIC said that this
is one of the largest bancassurance partnerships after the recent Insurance
Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) regulations issued on
open architecture framework for banks. As on June 30, 2016, Axis Bank had a
network of 3,006 domestic branches and extension counters situated in 1,882
centres.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
1) SBI partners Oracle to support Digital India
Banking behemoth State Bank of
India (SBI) and tech mammoth Oracle have joined hands for corporate India's
biggest volunteering program to bring in 'digital fluency' among the
underprivileged school students.
Under the program, “D-Change”,
both the organisations will distribute resources, including both staff and
equipment, to train the students in the basics of using ICT - information,
communication and technology tools.
The program will focus on three
key areas of education, women empowerment & rural upliftment.
2) Cognizant acquires Idea Couture
U.S.-based IT services major
Cognizant announced the acquisition of Toronto-based digital innovation and
design company, Idea Couture.
This acquisition will help the
New Jersey-headquartered Cognizant in its digital business and also enable its
client to succeed in the digital economy, according to a company statement.
3) Air India gets finance ministry nod to
recast bailout package
The finance ministry has approved
a proposal of Air India Ltd to recast a government-approved bailout package,
said two officials aware of the development.
The proposal is aimed at saving
the airline almost Rs.1,500 crore every year in interest costs.
The airline had in 2012 secured
about Rs.30,000 crore in equity infusion spread over 10 years from the
government that allows it, on average, to draw Rs.3,000 crore every year.
The government has been infusing
this amount directly into the company, in return receiving shares in the
airline. It has infused Rs.22,565 crore into the airline so far.
4) OKI Completes Installations of 600 Cash
Recycling ATMs
OKI announced the installations
of 600 sets of cash recycling ATMs, ATM-Recycler G7, in June 2016, to the State
Bank of India (hereinafter referred to as SBI), the largest bank in India.
This marks OKI's second
large-project deployment of its cash recycling ATMs for SBI in India. SBI
decided to procure OKI’s cash recycling ATMs in 2015 and deploy them in four of
its designated regions across India.
This project follows earlier
deployments by OKI that provided an opportunity to thoroughly evaluate the
performance of OKI’s robust cash recycling technology vis-à-vis the Indian
currency environment.
5) A10 Networks Acquires Appcito To Become
'First Cloud-Native' ADC Company
The company establishes a cloud
business unit that will complement the application delivery controller and
security services appliances.
A10 Networks is accelerating its
push into the cloud-based applications services market with the recent acquisition
of Appcito, which sold application delivery services via the cloud.
6) eBay India claims higher product
listings than Amazon India
E-commerce marketplace eBay India
today said shoppers can access over 100 million live product listings on
eBay.in and its global easy buy platform geb.ebay.in across electronics,
lifestyle, media and other categories.
In comparison, Amazon.in, which
has the highest percentage of shipments so far, lists over 65 million products,
while Flipkart stocks about 40 million products and Snapdeal lists over 35
million products.
IMPORTANT DAYS OBSERVED
1) International Tiger Day: July 29th
International Tiger Day is held
annualy on July 29 to give worldwide attention to the reservation of tigers. It
is both an awareness day as a celebration.
It was founded at the Saint
Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010. This was done because at that moment wild
tigers were too close to extinction.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
1) Former Australian PM Kevin Rudd
withdraws candidacy for top U.N. job
Former Australian Prime Minister
Kevin Rudd on Friday withdrew his candidacy to be the next U.N.
Secretary-General after current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared him
unfit for the job and refused to back his candidacy.
Conservative leader Turnbull
denied that politics played a part in his cabinet's decision not to back the
former Labor leader, who had asked the government to nominate him as
Australia's candidate.
2) Tamil American girl youngest delegate to
attend DNC
Sruthi Palaniappan, whose parents
immigrated to the United States in 1992 from Chennai, was the youngest delegate
to attend to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) that ended on Thursday
night.
The 18-year-old high school
graduate is set to join the Harvard University to study government. She also spoke on behalf of Iowa state
delegation during the voting process for presidential nomination.
3) Indo-Bangla meet: Delhi, Dhaka talk
anti-terror cooperation, border management
Home Minister Rajnath Singh and
his Bangladesh counterpart Asaduzzaman Khan Thursday agreed to enhance
bilateral cooperation on anti-terror efforts.
Both leaders concurred on the
need to immediately operationalise the Agreement on Combating Terrorism and
Organised Crime and Illicit Drug Trafficking between the two countries.
NATIONAL NEWS
1) India, U.S. Discover Major Natural Gas
Reserve in Indian Ocean
A joint expedition by India and the U.S. discovered a major deposit of
natural gas in the Indian Ocean, offering the potential to significantly expand
energy production in a region that’s currently a big importer.
India’s Ministry of Petroleum and
Natural Gas and the U.S. Geological Survey struck a large, highly enriched
deposit of natural gas hydrate -- an icy form of the fuel -- in the Bay of
Bengal off the country’s east coast, potentially the first producible reserve
of its kind in the waters, the U.S. agency said in a statement.
2) Union Government forms 'Disha' for
timely implementation of Central Schemes
Union Government on 28 July 2016 announced the formation of District
Development Coordination and Monitoring Committee (DDCMC) that will be known as
‘Disha’. First meeting of Disha will be held on 13 August 2016.
Disha was created for effective
development and coordination of Central Government's programme, whether it is for
infrastructure development or Social and human resource development.
3) Compensatory afforestation fund bill
gets Rajya Sabha nod
The Compensatory Afforestation
Fund (CAF) Bill, 2016 was cleared by the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, paving the
way for distribution of Rs.42,000 crore among states to expand India’s forest
cover.
The passage of the bill, which
has already been approved by Lok Sabha, was described as “a black day for
forest dwellers’ rights” by non-governmental organizations working for welfare
of tribals and forest dwellers.
4) Chandrababu Naidu launches 'Mission
Harita Andhra'
Chief Minister N Chandrababu
Naidu today launched 'Mission Harita Andhra Pradesh', with the theme 'green
cover for a happy living', by planting saplings at Sunkollu village under
Nuzividu mandal in Krishna district.
Interestingly, Harita Andhra
Pradesh was a pet project of late chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy but Chandrababu
has now made it a 'mission' with a new slogan Vanam-Manam (forest and we).
The objective of the mission is
to increase the green cover in the state to 50 per cent by the year 2029.
5) Google’s free Wi-Fi at railway stations
is being used by 2 mn people in India: Sundar Pichai
Nearly two million Indians are
using high-speed Wi-Fi services at 23 railway stations across the country that
Google provided as part of its project, the technology giant revealed.
Speaking during Google-owned
multinational conglomerate Alphabet's 2016 second quarter earnings call,
India-born CEO Sunder Pichai said that Google is with Indian Railways and
RailTel to bring high-speed wireless access to millions of people who use
railway stations.
6) Parliament passes key CAMPA Bill; RS
passes Bill unanimously
Parliament today passed by a
voice vote the crucial Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning
Authority (CAMPA) Bill with the Rajya Sabha clearing the legislation
unanimously.
The CAMPA Bill seeks to create a
Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) and a
Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF).
The authority is supposed to
manage the funds collected as compensation for diversion of forest land for
setting up industries, factories or infrastructure projects.
7) IT skills imparted to over 7 lakh school
teachers in India: Microsoft
Microsoft has so far equipped
more than 7.7 lakh government school teachers with IT skills across 12 states
in India under its Project Shiksha programme launched in 2003, the tech giant
said on Friday.
Aimed at developing skills among youth
from under-privileged communities to drive employability and entrepreneurship,
Project Jyoti helped establish over 1700 enterprises run by youth in the
country.
8) Centre approves 716.59 cr disaster
relief to UP, Rajasthan and Manipur
A high-level committee chaired by
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh approved a total of Rs 716.59 crore's worth
of central assistance to UP, Rajasthan and Manipur.
Earlier this year, the three
states were hit by drought, a hailstorm and an earthquake, respectively.
The committee approved financial
aid worth Rs 622.76 crore for UP, Rs 79.18 crore for Rajasthan and Rs 14.65
crore for Manipur.
OBITUARY
1) Veteran tabla maestro Pandit Lacchu
Maharaj dies
Tabla maestro Pandit Lacchu
Maharaj passed away on 28 July 2016 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. He was 72.
Lacchu Maharaj has been described
as one of the frontline tabla players in the world.
2) James Alan McPherson, Pulitzer
Prize-Winning Writer, Dies at 72
James Alan McPherson, who
overcame segregation and the narrow prism of a legal education to become the
first black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, died on Wednesday in
Iowa City. He was 72.
His death was announced by the
Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he was a professor emeritus.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
1) IMD to use supercomputer to forecast
monsoon with Dynamical Model
The Union Ministry of Earth
Sciences (MoES) in the last week of July 2016 announced that India
Meteorological Department (IMD) will use supercomputer to forecast India’s
annual summer monsoon.
The forecast made by a
supercomputer will be based on a dynamical monsoon model. It will be
operational from 2017.
SPORTS
1) Bastian Schweinsteiger retires from
international football
Bastian Schweinsteiger has
announced his retirement from international football following Euro 2016.
Schweinsteiger's club future is
currently up in the air, with Jose Mourinho having told the experienced
midfielder that his services are no longer required at Manchester United. The
Old Trafford side have had no bids for the midfielder.
The 31-year-old Manchester United
midfielder, who won his 120th and final cap in Germany's 2-0 defeat to France
in the semi-finals of Euro 2016, revealed the news on his official Twitter
account.
