Current Affairs Update – 24-25th July, 2016

Hello and welcome to exampundit . Here are the Important Current Affairs of 24th and 25th July, 2016. These are important for the upcoming UBI PO PGDBF and RBI Grade B 2016 Exams.

• The RBI has imposed penalties of
  Rs 5 crore and Rs 3 crore on PSU lenders Bank of Baroda and Punjab National
  Bank, respectively and also fined private sector HDFC Bank Rs 2 crore for
  lapses in adhering to anti-money laundering guidelines.
• “The RBI has imposed a
  penalty of Rs 50 million on Bank of Baroda (BoB)… Pursuant to the internal
  audit of the Bank of Baroda, the Reserve Bank of India and investigative
  agencies in October 2015 were advised by the Bank of certain irregularities
  observed,” BoB said in a BSE filing.
• The public sector lender further
  said the Reserve Bank carried out the investigation and noted the deficiencies
  which were reflective of weaknesses and failures in internal control mechanisms
  in respect of certain “anti-money laundering (AML) provisions such as
  monitoring of transactions, timely reporting to Financial Intelligence Unit
  (FIU) and assigning of Unique Customer Identification Code (UCIC) to
  customers”.
• BoB said it has implemented a
  comprehensive corrective action plan to strengthen internal control and ensure
  that such incidents do not recur.
• Punjab National Bank (PNB) also
  informed the BSE that the RBI has imposed an aggregate penalty of Rs 3 crore on
  it.
• “Though the amount of
  penalty is not material to the size of the Bank, reporting is done in terms of
  SEBI (LODR) Regulations 2015,” PNB said.

• Tata AIG General Insurance has
  launched an integrated travel product, for all Axis Bank customers through the
  bank’s one stop solution called ‘Happy Holidays Package’.
• The package allows Axis Bank
  customers, who are travelling abroad to buy Tata AIG travel insurance policy
  instantly and in a seamless manner from the bank’s mobile application.
• The ‘Happy Holidays Package’
  offers multiple travel benefits to globetrotters such as a Multi-Currency Forex
  Card, that can be loaded with up to 16 currencies; travel insurance policy,
  tailor-made Travel Insurance plans; TripAssist Services – an emergency
  assistance service; Free International Calling Cards, and discounts at
  restaurants in overseas locations.

• Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister
  of Kerala, on 23 July 2016 launched Kochi Water Metro project in Kochi, Kerala.
  It is the first ever Water Metro project in the country.
• German Development Bank,
  Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) is funding 85 million euro for the
  project. The German bank has inked an agreement with the Kochi Metro Rail
  Limited for the project worth 747 crore rupees.
• The Water Metro will link various
  islands to the mainland.
• The metro network through inland
  waterways will provide last-mile connectivity to islanders and leisure travel
  to visitors.
• The Water Metro will provide
  Kochi with 78 modern boats.

• Union Ministry of Water
  Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation on 22 July 2016 constituted
  a committee to prepare guidelines for desiltation of river Ganga.
• Madhav Chitale, an Expert Member
  of National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) has been appointed as Chairman
  of the committee. The tenure of the committee would be for a period of three
  months.
• It will provide guidelines for
  desiltation of river Ganga from Bhimgauda (Uttarakhand) to Farakka (West
  Bengal).
• It will establish difference
  between desilting and sand mining in the river.

• Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister
  for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, on 22 July 2016 launched the
  Solar Power Tree in New Delhi.
• The Solar Power Tree has been
  developed by the CSIR-Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute
  (CSIR-CMERI), a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial
  Research (CSIR).
• The product harnesses solar
  energy for producing electricity with an innovative vertical arrangement of
  solar cells. Therefore, it reduces the requirement of land as compared to
  conventional Solar Photovoltaic layout.
• As a future prospect, the Solar
  Power Tree will be developed in a rotatable module, which will have a motorized
  mechanism to align itself with the movement of the Sun during the day.
• It takes only 4 square feet of
  land for a 5 KW Solar Power tree. On the other hand, a conventional layout
  requires 400 square feet of land.
• By holding the photovoltaic
  panels at a higher height, it gets more sunrays for one hour in a day on an
  average. As a result, it is possible to harness 10-15% more power in comparison
  to a conventional layout on ground.

• The Malabar Botanical Garden and
  Institute of Plant Sciences, Kozhikode, and Bharat Petroleum Corporation
  Limited (BPCL) in July 2016 joined hands to launch field trials of oil-degrading
  bacteria in Kochi.
• The scientists will undertake the
  trail to establish the oil-degrading properties of three new strains of
  bacteria.
• The oil-degrading properties of
  these bacteria will pave the way for the development of bioremediation agents
  to clean up petroleum pollutants from the environment.

• The fourth edition of the
  Brahmaputra Valley Film Festival commenced on 22 July 2016 in Guwahati, Assam.
• The festival pays homage to the
  rich culture of northeast India and is dedicated to the film fraternity of the
  region.

• L&T Finance Holdings has
  promoted Dinanath Dubhashi as managing director with effect from July 22 while
  CMD Y M Deosthalee will continue to serve as its chairman.
• The board of directors of the
  company at its meeting held on July 22, appointed Dinanath Dubhashi, deputy
  managing director as the manging director of the company and said that
  Deosthalee, would continue to serve as the chairman of the company, L&T
  Finance said in a regulatory filing.
• The company has sought
  shareholders’ approval for the appointment of Dubhashi as Managing Director and
  Amit Chandra as a nominee director of the company, it said.

• Neeraj Chopra, the javelin
  thrower from India, on 23 July 2016 won gold in the IAAF World Under-20
  Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. With this, Neeraj, 18, managed to set a new
  world record (U-20) of 86.48m.
• His 86.48m effort also helped
  India in bringing its first world record as well as the country’s first-ever
  gold in any World athletics championships.
• South African Johan Grobler with
  80.59m took the silver and Anderson Peters with 79.65m of Granada the bronze.

• Top-seeded Feliciano Lopez of
  Spain on 24 July 2016 defeated Robin Haase of the Netherlands 6-4, 7-5 to win
  the 2016 Swiss Open Gstaad.
• It is Lopez’s first title on clay
  and his fifth overall.

• Narsingh Yadav, the Indian
  wrestler qualifier for Rio Olympics, in July 2016 failed a dope test. He was
  tested positive for a banned substance steroid in an out-of-competition test
  conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA).
• In the samples collected at the
  National camp in Sonepat, he was tested positive for the methandienone — a
  banned anabolic steroid.
• A former Commonwealth Games
  gold-medallist qualified for the Rio Olympics in the 74kg freestyle category
  ahead of the two-time Olympic medalist Sushil Kumar.

• Nepal’s Prime Minister, Khadga
  Prasad Oli, on 24 July 2016 resigned from his office. He resigned ahead of a
  no-confidence vote.
• Oli’s resignation, who was
  heading Nepal’s eighth government in past 10 years, threw the nation into a
  fresh political turmoil.
• Oli, 64, who became prime
  minister of Nepal in October 2015, has been facing a no-trust motion after the
  Maoists withdrew support from the coalition government.

• One of the biggest electronic
  music festivals Tomorrowland began on 22 July 2016 in Boom, Belgium.
• The year 2016 also marks
  Tomorrowland 10th edition.
• More than 350000 tickets for the
  festival were sold out in an hour of their opening in February 2016.

• The Madras Music Academy on 24
  July 2016 announced that it has chosen versatile violinist A. Kanyakumari for
  its coveted Sangita Kalanidhi Award for the year 2016.
• Kanyakumari was unanimously named
  for the award by the Executive Committee of the Academy.
• The violinist is the first woman
  violinist to get the award in the history of the Music Academy. She will
  preside over the 90th annual conference of the Academy to be held between 15 December
  2016 and 1 January 2017.

Regards

Team ExamPundit