Daily GK Updates - 5th January, 2016

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. 15 states have joined UDAY Scheme: Piyush Goyal: Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Bihar have agreed to join the central government’s electricity distribution utility (Discom) financial turnaround scheme to take the total number up to 15.

2. Wipro management changes, T K Kurien elevated as Vice Chairman, COO becomes CEO: T K Kurien was the CEO earlier. Abidali Neemachwala has been appointed as the new CEO. He was the COO earlier.

3. Paytm acquires Shifu for $8 million to enrich customer experience: Shifu, a context-aware personal assistant application, mines the smartphone usage patterns of users and makes personalized and highly relevant recommendations to them.

4. LIC offers longer cover under ‘Jeevan Labh’: LIC is offering a ‘New Year gift’ to the public in the form of a limited-premium, non-hiked and with-profit endowment assurance plan ‘Jeevan Labh’. The highlight of the plan is that premium is payable for a limited period while risk is covered for the whole policy term.

5. PM Modi lays foundation for HAL’s new helicopter plant in Tumkur, Karnataka.

6. Jharkhand Government inaugurated land bank web portal jharbhoom.nic.in: Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das inaugurated the state’s land bank web portal, jharbhoom.nic.in, which will help investors know land related information.

7. LinkedIn names Akshay Kothari as India Country Manager.

8. Supreme Court directed Gujarat Government to make Gujarat State Cooperative Tribunal functional.

9. Toilets made mandatory to contest Panchayat polls in Bihar: State Election Commissioner (SEC) Ashok Kumar Chauhan announced that toilets will be made mandatory requirement for eligibility to contest panchayat elections. This declaration means that no one can contest the Bihar Panchayat elections 2016 without having a toilet at their home.

10. Union Government to launch River Information System for Inland Waterways: The system is expected to improve navigation in Inland Waterways in the country as the government is set to expand the network across the country through the National Waterways Bill, 2015.

11. Sterlite Grid commissioned first power project under TBCB incentive regime: Sterlite Grid set a new benchmark by commissioning the Transmission Project to Rajasthan Atomic Power Project (RAPP) ahead of the schedule under the Tariff Based Competitive Bidding (TBCB) incentive regime.

12. PM Modi inaugurates Indian Science Congress in Mysuru: This is the 103^rd edition of the ISC and the theme of this year is ‘Science and Technology for Indigenous development in India’. The Congress will continue till January 7.

13. Volvo Buses India merged with Volvo India Pvt Ltd.

14. IRB Infra bagged 10050 crore rupees project to build Zozila Pass Tunnel Project in Jammu & Kashmir.

15. BHEL commissioned 600 MW thermal unit at Kakatiya Thermal Power Project in Warangal.

16. Radha Krishna Mathur took charge as Chief Information Commissioner of India.

17. Industry body the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) appointed FreeCharge CEO Kunal Shah as Chairman.

18. Vishal Suri appointed as the new MD of Kuoni India.

19. Department of Posts formed Kamlesh Chandra Panel on Gramin Dak Sevaks.

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INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Nokia completed acquisition of Alca-Lucent for 15.6 billion euro: Nokia Corporations announced that it has completed the regulatory formalities for acquiring the French telecom equipment company Alca-Lucent. 

2. Mary Barra elected as the Chairperson of General Motors Board of Directors: She was earlier serving the company as its CEO.

3. India-Nepal bus service resumed after 27 years: The service was suspended 27 years ago in the wake of the Indo-Nepal Trade and Transit Treaty. The service runs between Kanchanpur in Nepal, which is close to Banbasa border in Champavat district of Uttarakhand, and Anand Vihar ISBT in Delhi.

4. IUPAC announced addition of four elements to complete the Seventh row of Periodic Table: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced discovery and assignment of elements with atomic numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118.

5. Filippo Grandi takes helm as UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

6. Sachin Tendulkar has been appointed as the brand ambassador for Danish Pharmaceutical Company Novo Nordisk for the disease awareness campaign ‘Changing Diabetes’ initiated by it in India.

OTHER UPDATES:

FINANCE/BANKING:

1. Reserve Bank of India has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on State Bank of Travancore, for violation of some of its instructions.

2. Andhra Bank launches Immediate Payment Service: It has announced its Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) across branches to provide interbank electronic transfer service, capable of processing person to account remittances.

SPORTS:

3. ONGC won 26^th Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey Tournament by defeating Indian Railways.

4. Pranav Dhanawade became the first batsman to score 1000 plus runs in an innings in any form of cricket.

AWARDS:

5. Kate Atkinson won 2015 Costa Novel Prize for her book ‘A God in Ruins'

OBITUARIES:

6. Ian Murdoch, best known for founding one of the World’s best known Linux distributions, passed away in San Francisco.

7. Former CJI S H Kapadia died at the age of 68 in Mumbai.

8. Former Wigan Athletic defender Steve Gohouri passed away at the age of 34 after he went missing on 12 December 2015.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS:

9. The book titled ‘Jinnah often came to our house’ authored by Kiran Doshi released by Vice President Hamid Ansari.