Current Affairs Update – 1-3 October, 2016

Hello and welcome to exampundit . Here are the important Current Affairs from 1st October to 3rd October, 2016. These are important for the upcoming IBPS PO Mains, BOM PO, IBPS Clerk Mains 2016 Exams.

Current Affairs at a Glance – 1-3 October, 2016

  1. The State Bank of India on Monday announced
    its entry into Myanmar by opening a branch in the capital city of Yangon
    , becoming
    the first domestic lender to do so
    .
  2. Multilateral lending agency Asian
    Development Bank (ADB)
    on Monday
    said it will extend a $200 million loan to India for installation of
    energy-efficient home and street lights, and water pumps
    .
  3. HDFC Bank on Monday announced that it has selected software major Adobe’s ‘Marketing
    Cloud’ platform to deliver personalised digital experiences to its 37
    million customers
    .
  4. Amazon has partnered with Yes Bank to provide
    to provide working capital loans to merchants
    on its platform as it looks
    to boost business during the festive season and overtake reigning e-commerce
    champion Flipkart.
  5. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
    30 September 2016 inaugurated the India Sanitation Conference (INDOSAN) in New Delhi.
    During his inaugural address at INDOSAN, PM Modi said that Swachhta Abhiyan is
    touching people’s lives.
  6. Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed
    bin Zayed Al Nahyan
    will be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day
    celebrations on 26 January 2017
    . The Crown Prince has accepted the Indian
    invitation.
  7. S. Sivakumar, professor at
    Indian Law Institute (ILI), in the last week of September 2016 was appointed as full-time member of the 21st
    Law Commission of India
    .
  8. The Union Government on 1 October
    2016 gave a year extension to Arundhati
    Bhattacharya as the Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI)
    , first time in the history of the country’s
    largest lender
    .
  9. Reliance Life
    Insurance
    has appointed Ashish Vohra
    as the new CEO of the company.
  10. The World Habitat Day was on 3 October 2016
    observed
    across the world with
    the theme Housing at the Centre.
  11. The International Day of Older Persons
    (IDOP) was on 1 October 2016 observed
    across
    the world with the theme Take A Stand Against Ageism.
  12. The International Day of Non-Violence was observed across
    the world on 2 October 2016
    , the date that marks the birthday of
    Mahatma Gandhi. 

Finance/Industry –
SBI becomes first domestic bank to open branch in Yangon

  • The State Bank of India on Monday
    announced its entry into Myanmar by opening a branch in the capital city of
    Yangon, becoming the first domestic lender to do so.
  • The Yangon branch is the 54th
    foreign branch of the nation’s largest lender, chairperson Arundhati
    Bhattacharya, who opened the office, said in a statement here on Monday.
  • This branch extends the global
    presence of SBI in 37 countries through 198 offices, she said.
  • The Myanmarese central bank
    earlier this year allowed SBI to open a branch with the primary objective of
    extending wholesale banking services to foreign corporates.
  • India has been a major trading
    partner of Myanmar for centuries. Since the signing of India and Myanmar trade
    agreement in 1970, bilateral trade has been growing steadily and rose from USD
    328 million in 1997-98 to USD 2.052 billion in 2015-16.
  • Bhattacharya also donated equipment
    for recreation of cancer-surviving children to the Yangon Children’s Hospital.

ADB to fund US$ 2000 million for LED lights, pumps across India

  • Multilateral lending agency Asian
    Development Bank (ADB) on Monday said it will extend a $200 million loan to
    India for installation of energy-efficient home and street lights, and water
    pumps.
  • The entire exercise could save
    energy to the tune of 3,800 gigawatt-hours per year.
  • The statement said ADB will
    provide the funds to Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a joint venture between
    four public sector bodies – the National Thermal Power Corporation, Powergrid
    Corporation of India, Power Finance Corporation, and Rural Electrification Corporation
    – established in 2009.
  • EESL will make loans available
    for installing light-emitting diode (LED) municipal streetlights,
    energy-efficient domestic lights and fans, and energy-efficient agriculture
    water pumps.
  • The entire $400 million project
    will install 1.5 million LED street lamps, 42 million LED household lamps,
    ceiling fans and LED tube lights, and 225,000 new pumps. Lending will be made
    available in Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana,
    and Uttar Pradesh, as well as other states going forward, the statement said.

HDFC Bank partners Adobe for personalised customer experience

  • HDFC Bank on Monday announced
    that it has selected software major Adobe’s ‘Marketing Cloud’ platform to
    deliver personalised digital experiences to its 37 million customers.
  • HDFC Bank has developed a
    comprehensive e-mail marketing solution based on the Adobe platform that will
    span multiple outbound channels including email, SMS, social and mobile apps.
  • HDFC Bank will replace its
    current engine for outbound campaigns with an all new solution based on the
    “Adobe Campaign” marketing solution.
  • With this new technology, HDFC
    Bank will be equipped to handle tremendous volumes of 37-million customer
    enquiries and 400 million e-mails a month.
  • The implementation will augment
    HDFC Bank’s marketing efforts by helping plan, automate, orchestrate and
    measure marketing communications across channels.
  • The company will also take
    advantage of optimised costs, extensive reporting and marketing resource
    management capabilities that this implementation will deliver.

Amazon partners with Yes Bank for faciliting merchant loans

  • Amazon has partnered with Yes
    Bank to provide to provide working capital loans to merchants on its platform
    as it looks to boost business during the festive season and overtake reigning
    e-commerce champion Flipkart.
  • Sellers on Amazon will get access
    to unsecured financing at competitive rates at with quicker turnaround times
    enabling them to keep abreast with their monetary needs in the fast paced
    online commerce space. The partnership will see the bank also become the
    primary corporate banker for Amazon in India.
  • Amazon had launched its seller
    lending programme earlier this year, making it easier for its merchants to get
    loans ranging between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 2 crore. Initially the company had tied
    up with Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) Capital First, but
    will now use Yes Bank to power such loans.
  • Further, the partnership will
    provide Yes Bank with business from part of Amazon’s 120,000-strong seller base
    in terms of maintaining current accounts, enabling forex transactions and
    payment gateway, apart from disbursing business loans to them.

India –
PM Narendra Modi inaugurates India Sanitation Conference

  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi on
    30 September 2016 inaugurated the India Sanitation Conference (INDOSAN) in New
    Delhi.
  • During his inaugural address at
    INDOSAN, PM Modi said that Swachhta Abhiyan is touching people’s lives. He
    added that a healthy competition is now developing among cities and towns, for
    promoting cleanliness. He also emphasized that cleanliness is not something to
    be achieved by budget allocations. Rather, it is something that should become a
    mass movement.
  • During the conference, Prime
    Minister Modi also gave away cleanliness awards to Sindhudurg District
    (Maharashtra), Mandi district (Himachal Pradesh), Pune, Chandigarh and Mysore
    Municipal Corporations, Gangtok city (Sikkim), National Cadet Corps (NCC),
    Surat railway station, PGIMER Chandigarh, 
    heritage site Rani ki vav in Gujarat and Kendriya Vidyalaya FRI
    Dehradun.

Tamil Nadu tops list of endemic flowering plants
  • Botanical Survey of India (BSI)
    in the last week of September 2016 announced that almost one of every four
    species of flowering plants found in India is endemic to the country. Of these,
    Tamil Nadu garners the highest number of species with 410.
  • Tamil Nadu is followed by Kerala
    with 357 and Maharashtra with 278.
  • As per scientific data in a
    recently released book, Endemic Vascular Plants of India, of the 18259 flowering
    plants reported in the country, 4303 are found only in India.
  • When it comes to the geographical
    distribution of endemic plants, the Western Ghats tops the list with about 2116
    species, followed by the Eastern Himalayas with 466 species.
  • At least 37 species of Black plum
    Syzyguim (Jamun), 10 varieties of Musa (banana), along with 274 species of
    orchids are found only in India.

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Abu Dhabi Crown Prince to be chief guest on Republic Day in India

  • Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh
    Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day
    celebrations on 26 January 2017. The Crown Prince has accepted the Indian
    invitation.
  • His visit will give a strong
    boost to the bilateral ties between the two nations in key areas like trade and
    security. This is his second visit to India, earlier he came on a three-day-visit
    in February 2016.
  • This acceptance of the invitation
    by Sheikh Al Nahyan, who is also the Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE armed
    forces, sends out an important message at a time when tensions between India
    and Pakistan are escalating. This can be treated as the masterstroke of the
    government, which is trying to isolate diplomatically over the issue of
    cross-border terrorism.
  • UAE is one of the closest allies
    of Pakistan and once the two nations along with Saudi Arabia recognised the
    Taliban government in Afghanistan.
  • Earlier during PM Modi’s visit to
    UAE in August 2015, the two countries condemned the act of terrorism that
    originates from one country to trouble the other. In a joint statement, the two
    countries rejected extremism and any link between terrorism and religion.

Arunachal Pradesh CM flags off all-women Mt Gorichen Expedition
  • Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister
    Pema Khandu on 29 September 2016 flagged off the all-women Mount Gorichen
    Expedition from his office premises in Itanagar.
  • This will be the first all women
    team attempting to summit Mount Gorichen the second highest peak of Arunachal
    Pradesh. Its altitude is 6488 meter (21286ft) high above sea level. It belongs
    to the Himalaya Mountain Group and is a sub-range to Assam Himalaya. It is also
    the Headwaters of the Kameng River in Tawang.
  • Anshu Jansempa, who has climbed
    Mt Everest twice, is leading the team of 10 members from Jammu and Kashmir,
    Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh with four support staff.

Appointments –
S Sivakumar appointed as full-time member of 21st Law Commission of
India
  • S. Sivakumar, professor at Indian
    Law Institute (ILI), in the last week of September 2016 was appointed as
    full-time member of the 21st Law Commission of India.
  • Earlier, Rajkot-based lawyer
    Abhay Bhardwaj, who had represented the accused in the 2002 Gulbarg Society
    Massacre case, had been selected as part-time member of the 21st Law Commission
    of India.
  • In March 2016, former Supreme
    Court judge Justice Balbir Singh Chauhan was appointed as the new Chairman of
    Law Commission of India.
  • Former Gujarat High Court judge
    Justice Ravi R Tripathi was also appointed as a member of the Commission.

SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya gets one year extension

  • The Union Government on 1 October
    2016 gave a year extension to Arundhati Bhattacharya as the Chairman of State
    Bank of India (SBI), first time in the history of the country’s largest lender.
  • The extension will come to effect
    from 7 October 2016. The extension will help in smooth transition at a time
    when SBI’s consolidation with its associate banks is underway.
  • She is the first woman to be the
    Chairperson of State Bank of India.
  • She joined SBI in September 1977
    as a probationary officer at the age 22.
  • She is the first woman to lead an
    India-based Fortune 500 company.

Ashish Vohra appointed as Reliance Life CEO

  • Reliance Life Insurance has appointed
    Ashish Vohra as the new CEO of the company. Vohra joins Reliance Nippon Life
    Insurance from Max Life Insurance where he spent 8 years and served as senior
    director and chief distribution officer.
  • Further, Reliance Home Finance
    also announced the appointment of Ravindra Sudhalkar as the CEO of the company.

Ambati Venu appointed as Managing Director of Abbott India Ltd
  • Ambati Venu was on 29 September
    2016 appointed as Managing Director of Abbott India Ltd. The appointment came
    almost five months after its previous MD Rehan Khan resigned from the company
    in April 2016.
  • Venu was appointed for a
    five-year term and will report to Bhasker Iyer, Vice President with Abbott’s
    Established Pharmaceuticals Division.

Sports –
Services clinched overall title at 56th National Athletics
  • Services emerged as the overall
    champions at the 56th Atheletics Open Nationals that ended on 30 September 2016
    in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. The highlight of the final day’s action was a
    surprise win in triple jump by the Airforce Sergent Malkit Singh that sealed
    the gold.
  • Malkit, who earlier in September
    2016 set a new meet mark of 16.47meter during the Inter-Services championships,
    added 10cm to his personal best on the second round that sealed the gold.
  • Rakesh Babu, the teammate of
    Malkit stood second with 16.09 meter mark, while three-time Olympian Renjith
    Maheswary (Railways) stood third with 16.02meter mark.
  • On the same day, distance runners
    Suriya Loganathan and G Lakshmanan claimed their second gold medals through
    10000 metres victory.

Days –
World Habitat Day 2016 observed across the world

  • The World Habitat Day was on 3
    October 2016 observed across the world with the theme Housing at the Centre.
  • The 2016 World Habitat Day
    campaign aims to raise awareness about the need for affordable housing for all
    in urban areas, towns and cities.
  • World Habitat Day is observed
    every year on the first Monday of October throughout the world.

International Day of Older Persons 2016 observed across the world
  • The International Day of Older
    Persons (IDOP) was on 1 October 2016 observed across the world with the theme
    Take A Stand Against Ageism.
  • The theme for the 2016 IDOP draws
    attention to and challenges negative stereotypes and misconceptions about older
    persons and ageing.
  • Ageism is a widely prevalent and
    prejudicial attitude that stems from the assumption that age discrimination,
    and sometimes neglect and abuse of older persons is a social norm and
    therefore, acceptable.

International Day of Non-Violence observed across the world
  • The International Day of
    Non-Violence was observed across the world on 2 October 2016, the date that
    marks the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. This day is referred in India as Gandhi
    Jayanti.
  • Gandhi was the leader of the
    Indian independence movement and pioneer of the philosophy and strategy of
    non-violence.
  • The UN General Assembly through
    its resolution dated 15 June 2007 established the International Day of
    Non-Violence to disseminate the message of non-violence through education and
    public awareness.

Awards & Honors –
Indian-origin Kiara Nirghin wins Google Science Fair prize 2016

  • Indian-origin South African girl
    Kiara Nirghin on 1 October 2016 won the Google Science Fair prize 2016. She won
    this grand prize of 50000 US dollars scholarship for using orange peel to
    develop a cheaper super-absorbent material that helps soil retain water.
  • Kiara Nirghin is a Grade 11
    student at St Martin’s private school. She did a project titled No More Thirsty
    Crops which was aimed at tackling the severe drought plaguing South Africa. Her
    solution to the problem of drought uses orange and avocado fruit peel, which
    are normally discarded.
  • The Google Science Fair is a
    programme for budding scientists between the ages of 13 to 18, who are invited
    to solve the world’s biggest challenges using science and technology.

Obituaries –
Renowned Bangla writer Syed Shamsul Haq passes away
  • Syed Shamsul Haq, one of
    Bangladesh’s best known writers, passed away on 27 September 2016 in Dhaka,
    Bangladesh following a brief illness. He was 81.
  • He was known for his mastery over
    novels, poetry, essays and plays. He was also vocal against religious
    fundamentalism.

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