NATIONAL UPDATES:
I. Snapdeal acquires
Silicon Valley start-up Reduce Data: New
Delhi based Snapdeal has acquired Silicon Valley based start-up Reduce Data, a
programmatic display advertisement platform.
II. West Central Railway
Zone became 1st zone to eliminate all Unmanned Level crossings.
III. Union Cabinet approved
Policy for Marginal Fields of ONGC and OIL: Marginal
fields are those discoveries that could not be monetized for many years due to
various reasons such as isolated locations, small size of reserves, high
development costs, technological constraints, fiscal regime, etc.
IV. D K Likhi took charge
as the CMD of Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited.
V.
Bihar to give 2%
reservation to grandchildren of freedom fighters in Government jobs: The
reservation will be given to those freedom fighters whose names figured in the
list prepared by the Union Government.
VI. Allahabad High Court
asked Uttar Pradesh Government to ensure flag hoisting ceremony of National
Flag on Independence Day and Republic Day in Madarsas and other schools all
over the state.
VII. Railway Ministry
launched three IT initiatives developed by CRIS: The
initiatives developed by the IT arm of Railways, Centre for Railway Information
Systems (CRIS) are Paperless unreserved ticketing through mobile phones between
New Delhi-Palwal section (NR), Currency coin cum card operated automatic ticket
vending machines at New Delhi railway station and Mobile application for
freight operations (PARICHAALAN).
VIII. Swachhata Sangraam Abhiyan
in Indore to make it open defecation-free: It
was launched in Indore district of Madhya Pradesh. On this occasion, over 100
public representatives donated 140 toilets for the poor. The aim of the
programme is to make the entire district open defecation free by the end of the
financial year 2015-16.
IX. Uber to introduce cash
payment facility in Kolkata: Taxi aggregator
service Uber will expand the cash payment option to riders in Kolkata.
INTERNATIONAL
UPDATES:
I. Los Angles to be US
Bidder to host 2024 Olympics: It has hosted
the prestigious event twice before in 1932 and 1984.
II. Durban in South Africa
confirmed as 2022 Commonwealth Games host: The
South African city of Durban has been selected as the host for the 2022
Commonwealth Games at the Federation’s general assembly in New Zealand. The Commonwealth
Games are held every four years and feature athletes from over 50 countries,
mostly former British colonies.
III. NASA’s SERVIR-Mekong
project to help monitor environment in Southeast Asia: NASA
and US Agency for International Development (USAID) have started the
SERVIR-Mekong project to strengthen the environmental monitoring in the
Southeast Asian region. It has been launched in the Asian Disaster Preparedness
Centre in Bangkok, Thailand to serve 5 countries of the Mekong River Basin viz.
Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
IV.
India emerged as 8th
largest tourism market for Australia: Australian
Trade Minister Andrew Robb said that India has emerged as 8th
largest tourism market for Australia with over 2 lakh Indians visiting the
nation and spending about 1 billion dollars which was an increase of 39%.
V. India partnered with
UN’s Better than Cash Alliance to speed up PMJDY Programme: By
joining the alliance, the Indian Government will have a research, technical and
policy partner as it continues to create a digital financial economy.
OTHER UPDATES:
FINANCE/BANKING:
I.
FIIs/FPIs exempted from
MAT purview for the period prior to 1st April 2015: The
Union Government decided to exempt Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and
Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) from paying Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) for
the period prior to April 1, 2015. The decision was based on Justice AP Shah
Committee’s report and is expected to improve ease of doing business conditions
in the country.
II. RBI proposed marginal
cost of funds methodology to calculate Base Rate: The
new methodology is aimed at bringing uniformity among Base Rates of banks so
that they will be more sensitive to any changes in the policy rates of RBI like
CRR, SLR, etc.
SPORTS:
III. Mumbai
won BuchiBabu Memorial Trophy of Cricket: Mumbai defeated Tamil Nadu by six wickets in the final
match played at Chennai.
IV. India
won three matches test series against Sri Lanka 2-1: Cheteshwar Pujara was adjudged Man of the
Match for his outstanding century in the final test and RavichandranAshwin was
adjudged the Man of the Series for his 21 wickets in 3 matches.
AWARDS:
V. India wins UNESCO Award for conserving
SreeVadakkunnathan temple in Kerala: India has won
the UNESCO prize ‘Award of Excellence’ 2015 for the conservation of
SreeVadakkunnathan temple in Kerala.
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