Daily GK Updates - 30th March, 2017

­­­­NATIONAL UPDATES:

 1. Govt. announces regional aviation routes & airlines under UDAN scheme: The union Civil Aviation Minister ‘Ashok Gajapathy Raju’ has announced regional aviation routes and airlines after the first round of bidding under UDAN. The first phase of the UDAN scheme for regional aviation will include 45 airports and about 70-odd routes.

2. Suresh Prabhu inaugurates high-speed rail wire Wi-Fi facility: Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu  inaugurated the high-speed rail wire Wi-Fi facility at National Rail museum in New Delhi. The free Wi-Fi service built over the fiber network of Rail Tel is designed to offer High- Speed Broadband like experience to users. Mr. Prabhu also launched a book " Indian Railways- The Weaving of a National Tapestry". The book has been authored by Bibek Debroy, Sanjay, and Vidya Krishnamurthi.

3. SC bans sale, registration of BS-III vehicles: The Supreme Court has banned the sale and registration of Bharat Stage (BS)-III emission norm-compliant vehicles from April 1, 2017, when environmentally friendly BS-IV emission norms will come into force across the country.

4. Lok Sabha passes 4 GST Bills: Lok Sabha has passed four Bills relating to the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). It paves way for implementing a new, consolidated indirect tax regime from the proposed date of July 1, 2017. The four bills passed were Central GST Bill, Integrated GST Bill, GST Compensation Bill, and the Union Territory GST Bill, 2017. These Bills were passed as Money Bills, thus eliminates the role of Rajya Sabha.

OTHER UPDATES:

SPORTS

1.  Turkey's Abeylegesse stripped of 1 world silver, 2 Olympic silver medals: Turkish runner Elvan Abeylegesse (34-year) was stripped of two Olympic silver medals and one world silver after a re-analysis of an in-competition doping test dating back to 2007.

2. Srinath Narayanan set to become India's 46th Grandmaster: Srinath Narayanan (23-year) is all set to become India's 46th Grandmaster after he defeated David Anton Guijarro (Spanish Grandmaster) at the ongoing Sharjah Masters 2017 chess tournament. He had become India's youngest FIDE rated player in 2002 when he was just eight and also finished as joint winner in the Under-12 World Championship in 2005 in France.

BANKING & FINANCE

3. SBI launches 'Unnati' credit card: ‘SBI Unnati card’ is a credit card offered those SBI customers who have a minimum account balance of Rs. 25,000 in their accounts. The annual fee of Rs.499 is waived off for the first four years.

BUSINESS & ECONOMY

4. Amazon makes entry in UAE by acquiring Souq.com: The USA based e-commerce giant Amazon made its entry in UAE by acquiring the Middle East’s largest online retailer Souq.com. Souq.com is the largest e-commerce platform offering more than 400,000 products in the Arab world, currently delivers to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar.