Current Affairs Update – 1st December, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 1st December, 2015. These are important for the upcoming IBPS Clerk Exam and Insurance Exams.

• RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan today kept the key policy rate
  unchanged but affirmed the Central Bank’s commitment to ease it as and when
  room is available, saying inflation is likely to perform better than expected.
• Accordingly, the repo rate at which the Reserve Bank lends
  to the system will continue at 6.75 per cent. The cash reserve ratio (CRR) or
  the amount of deposits banks park with RBI has also been unchanged at 4 per
  cent. The status quo was widely expected.
• RBI, which is set to achieve its target of getting inflation
  down at 6 per cent by January and is aiming to reduce the number further to 5
  per cent by March 2017, will monitor developments on the commodity prices,
  including food and oil and external developments in its future policy
  formulations, Mr. Rajan said.
• Though the RBI Governor noted that second-quarter GDP
  numbers indicate early signs of recovery, he chose to stick to the earlier
  projection of 7.4 per cent for the fiscal with a marginal downward bias.
• Rajan also expressed anguish at the banks’ reluctance to
  pass on the benefits of the earlier rate cut actions to the borrowers, saying
  the median decrease in the base rates over the course of the year has only been
  0.60 per cent as against the RBI’s 1.25 per cent cut in the repo rate since
  January.

• International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 30 November 2015
  included China’s Yuan into its elite reserve currency basket. Yuan’s entry into
  the basket takes effect from 1 October 2016.
• Yuan also known as the Chinese Renminbi (RMB) was included
  in the basket after it met the existing criteria for its inclusion. The action
  was taken after the executive board at IMF completed the regular five-yearly
  review of the basket of currencies that make up the Special Drawing Right
  (SDR).
• Yuan will be a freely usable currency and will be included
  in the SDR basket as a fifth currency, along with the US Dollar, Euro, Japanese
  Yen and British Pound.
• Launching the new SDR basket on 1 October 2016 will provide
  sufficient lead time for the Fund, its members and other SDR users to adjust to
  these changes.

• The Union Government on 30 November 2015 launched the
  injectable Inactivated Polio Vaccine (IPV) as part of its commitment to the Global
  Polio Endgame Strategy.
• The IPV injection was launched in New Delhi by Union
  Minister for Health and Family Welfare JP Nadda. It is part of next step in
  India’s universal immunization programme to fight against polio in the country.

• The first phase this vaccine will be introduced in six
  states, viz Assam, Gujarat, Punjab, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.
• IPV injection will be given to children below one year of
  age along with the third dose of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) at the routine
  immunization sessions free of cost.
• New evidences now clearly show that IPV and OPV together
  will further strengthen the children’s immune system and will provide double
  protection against polio.

• India and France on 30 November 2015 launched the
  International Solar Alliance in Paris. The alliance was launched jointly by PM
  Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande during the United Nations
  climate change conference (COP21).
• The alliance also invited all countries located fully or
  partly between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn to join the group. It will
  function from the National Institute of Solar Energy in India, Gurgaon.

• It aims to bring 121 tropical countries together to tap
  solar energy.
• The Alliance will enable solar-rich developing countries to
  make the best use of an abundant, free natural resource.
• It seeks to share collective ambitions to reduce the cost of
  finance and technology that is needed to deploy solar power widely.
• It would adapt the generation and storage technologies to
  the individual countries’ needs.

• Hinduja Brothers on 29 November 2015 were honoured with the
  prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Asian Business Leadership
  Forum (ABLF) Series in Dubai.
• The prestigious award recognizes the most powerful and
  influential business leaders.
• ABLF Series’ Royal Patron and the UAE’s Minister of Culture
  Sheikh Nahyan Mubarak Al Nahyan presented the award to Gopichand P Hinduja,
  Co-Chairman, Hinduja Group of Companies, The Hinduja Group, UK.

• Polish professional footballer Robert Lewandowski’s
  nine-minute, five-goal haul for German Football Club Bayern Munich against
  Wolfsburg was officially recognised on 30 November 2015 by Guinness World
  Record.
• Lewandowski was presented with four separate official
  Guinness World Records certificates for his goal scoring spree during a special
  press conference which took place at Bayern Munich’s ground.

• On 22 September 2015, the Polish star scored five goals
  during the league encounter with Wolfsburg in nine minutes, the fastest in any
  major European football league since records have been kept.
• He broke a series of records including Fastest Bundesliga
  hat-trick (3 minutes 22 seconds), Fastest Four Goals in a Bundesliga Match (5
  minutes 42 seconds), Fastest Five Goals Scored in a Bundesliga Match (8 minutes
  59 seconds), Most Goals Scored by a Substitute in a Bundesliga Match (5 goals).

• Internationally co-produced adventure drama film Embrace of
  the Serpent on 30 November 2015 was awarded with the Golden Peacock Award for
  the Best Film at the 46th International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa.
• The Best Film Award comprises the Golden Peacock and a
  citation with prize money of 40 lakhs rupees to be shared between the Director
  and the Producer of the movie.
• The film is produced by Christina Gallego and directed by
  Ciro Guerra.

• The Best Director award went to Peter Greenaway for the film
  Eisenstein in Guanajuato.
• The Best Actor (Male) went to Vincent Lindon for his
  portrayal of a laid off factory worker Thierry Taogourdeau in the film The
  Measure of a Man.
• The Best Actor (Female) award was shared by Gunes Sensoy,
  Doga Doguslu, Tugba Sunguroglu, Elit Iscan and Ilyada Akdogan for portrayal of
  role of five young orphaned sisters in the Turkish fim Mustang.
• The Special Jury Award went to the Spanish film Sealed Cargo
  directed by Julia Vargas. 
• The ICFT – UNESCO Fellini Medal was awarded to Kaushik
  Ganguly’s Cinemawala that focuses on the sad state of single screen cinema
  halls in West Bengal.

• The World AIDS Day was on 1 December 2015 observed across
  the world with the theme Getting to zero, End AIDS by 2030. However, the
  federal theme for the World AIDS Day 2015 was The time to act is now.
• Both themes comply with fast-track strategy of UNAIDS, the
  Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, to end the Aids epidemic by 2030.
  The strategy is aimed at averting 21 million Aids-related deaths, 28 million
  new HIV infections and 5.9 million new infections among children by 2030.

• The United Nations (UN) Chief Ban Ki-moon along with the agencies
  of the UN system on 30 November 2015 launched initiative titled Anticipate,
  Absorb, Reshape to build climate resilience in the world’s most vulnerable
  countries.
• The initiative was launched during the United Nations
  climate change conference (COP21) in Paris. The initiative was launched in the
  wake of economic losses that have increased by more than half over the past
  decade. Ecosystems, and food and water supplies are under increasing pressure.

• The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on 30
  November 2015 released the Measuring the Information Society Report 2015. It
  was launched on the first day of the World
• Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Symposium (WTIS) 2015 in
  Hiroshima, Japan.
• The report, through ICT Development Index (IDI), captures
  the level of ICT developments in 167 economies worldwide and compares progress
  made since the year 2010.
• As per the report, India ranked 131 out of 167 nations
  surveyed in terms of information and communication technology development.

• Top 5 countries with higher ICT development are South Korea
  (1), Denmark (2), Iceland (3), the UK (4) and Sweden (5).
• Bottom 5 countries are Malawi (163), Madagascar (164),
  Ethiopia (165), Eritrea (166) and Chad (167).

• Compared to its 125th rank in 2010, India was placed at the
  131st position in the overall ranking with 2.69 IDI score.
• In terms of IDI access and IDI use categories India was
  placed at the 135th position.

• Roch Marc Christian Kabore on 30 November 2015 was elected
  as the President of the West African country Burkina Faso.
• Kabore won the vote in the first round with 53.49 percent of
  ballots, which was enough to secure a first round victory.
• Zephirin Diabre came in the second place with 29.6 percent
  of the vote, and Tahirou Barry stood third with just three percent of the
  votes.

Regards

Team ExamPundit

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