Daily GK Updates - 25th September, 2016

NATIONAL UPDATES:

1. Madhya Pradesh passes GST Amendment Bill: The Madhya Pradesh Assembly has passed the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Constitution Amendment Bill. MP became the seventh state in the country to ratify the historic tax amendment bill. Before Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have already passed the bill in their respective assemblies. 

2. Five Indian cities in the top 100 MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index: Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Pune are the Indian cities that have made it to the list of top 100 cities in the 6^th Annual MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index. Kolkata ranks 62nd in the index. The study is based on data from IATA, National Tourism Boards, IMF and other organisations.

3. Race Course Road renamed as LokKalyanMarg: The Prime Minister's residential address will now be called 7 LokKalyanMarg and not the famous Race Course Road. The authorities have approved the renaming of the iconic British-era road in posh Lutyens' Delhi.A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level meeting of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) presided by Chief Minister of Delhi ArvindKejriwal.

4. Rajasthan replaces 5 lakh streetlights with LED bulbs: Rajasthan becomes the first state to adopt Centre's Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) in all its urban local bodies (ULB). Almost 5 lakh conventional streetlights have been replaced with LED streetlights across the state. The project has been funded by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a public energy services company under the administration of Union ministry of power at no cost to the state.

INTERNATIONAL UPDATES:

1. French Development Agency and Chandigarh Administration, sign MoUs: Chandigarh Administration and French Development Agency (AFD) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) on Chandigarh Smart City Project and 'Technical Cooperation' in the field of Sustainable Urban Mobility.

OTHER UPDATES:

FINANCE/BANKING:                                 

1. Govt. appoints ICICI Prudential AMC to manage new CPSE ETF: The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management, Ministry of Finance has appointed ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Ltd as the asset management company for the creation and launch of a new Exchange Traded Fund (ETF).

2. ICICI Bank team up to launch UPI for micro-merchants, ftCash:Mobile payments and loans start-up ftcash, backed by IvyCap Ventures, is the first fintech start-up to launch Unified Payment Interface (UPI) for merchants in association with ICICI Bank. ftcash is a virtual POS for micro-merchants to accept payments through credit cards, debit cards, and wallets such as Freecharge, Mobikwik, and PayPal, among others.

SPORTS:

3. Sania Mirza - Barbora Strycova crowned women’s doubles champions at Pan Pacific Open: India’s Sania Mirza along with her partner Barbora Strycova from Czech Republic produced a straight sets win over China’s Chen Liang and Zhaoxuan Yang in the final to win the women’s doubles titles at Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo on 24 September 2016.The current tournament in Tokyo is Sania’s 40th doubles title win and third in Tokyo.

AWARDS:

4. Lopamudra Raut, the 2^nd runner-up at Miss United Continents 2016:  Lopamudra Raut makes India proud as she stands tall as the 2^nd runner-up at Miss United Continents 2016, which was held on 25th Sept, 2016 in Ecuador. 32 participants from the four continents of America, Asia, Europe and Africa were a part of this grand event. Whereas Jeslyn Santos from Philippines won the Miss United Continents 2016 title.