Current Affairs Update – 28-29 Sept, 2014

• ·        
  The Finance Ministry hopes to bring a bill
  for merging Forward Market Commission (FMC) with the Securities & Exchange
  Board of India (SEBI) during the winter session of Parliament.
• ·        
  “There are two options. Either to give more
  power to FMC through enactment of long pending Forward Contract Regulation Act
  (FCRA) Amendment Bill or to scrap FCRA and merge FMC with SEBI,” a senior
  Finance Ministry official told Business Line.
• ·        
  The second option (scrap FCRA) has higher
  probability and a bill could be brought during winter session, the official
  said adding that this will require amendment in SEBI Act.
• ·        
  FMC regulates forward trading of commodities
  while SEBI is capital market regulator.
• ·        
  Forward trading in commodities market is
  facing tough time as volume has dipped to five year low. Imposition of
  Commodities Transaction Tax (CTT) besides factors such as NSEL incidence and
  shifting of investors from commodities to equity are key reasons for this fall.
• ·        
  According to FMC latest figure, trading
  volume during first fortnight of September stood at ₹ 2.49 lakh crore which is
  nearly 25 per cent less than corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
  Currently, there are 6 national and 16 regional exchanges.
• ·        
  The merger has some logic as forward trading
  in commodities is also one of the capital market activities and a kind of
  financial transactions, the official said. Besides, the Financial Sector
  Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) has recommended bringing all the
  financial transactions under one regulator (barring banking which will continue
  to be regulated by RBI).

• ·        
  President’s rule was imposed on poll-bound
  Maharashtra on Sunday, a day after the Union Cabinet recommended its
  imposition.
• ·        
  Following the stepping down of Prithviraj
  Chavan as Chief Minister on Friday, the Union Cabinet chaired by Home Minister
  Rajnath Singh made the recommendation on Saturday.
• ·        
  Mr. Chavan quit his post, following the end
  of the 15-year-old Congress-NCP alliance in the State. His resignation was
  accepted by Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao on Saturday.
• ·        
  Assembly elections in Maharashtra are
  scheduled on October 15.

• ·        
  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited New
  Jersey Governor Chris Christie to visit India with a trade mission.
• ·        
  Mr. Modi extended the invitation to Mr.
  Christie when the latter called on him at the New York Palace hotel, where the
  Prime Minister is staying for attending the annual session of the U.N. General
  Assembly.
• ·        
  Mr. Christie, a popular Republican politician
  and a 2016 presidential election aspirant, has accepted the invitation to visit
  India with a trade delegation sometime next year, said Andy Shenoy, Director on
  the Board of United Nations Development Corporation who played a major role in
  coordinating this important meeting.
• ·        
  Mr. Modi and Mr. Christie held discussions on
  the hurricane Sandy’s effect on business and life of people in New Jersey.
• ·        
  The two leaders shared their thoughts on disaster
  management.

• ·        
  AIADMK Treasurer O Panneerselvam was sworn-in
  as Chief Minister (CM) of Tamil Nadu on 29 September 2014. He replaced the former
  AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa.
• ·        
  He is the 28th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
  since 1920. Along with Panneerselvam, the State Cabinet was also sworn-in by
  the Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah.

• ·        
  Justice Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu
  was sworn-in as the 42nd Chief Justice of India on 28 September 2014. He was
  administered the oath of office by President Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati
  Bhawan. He succeeded Chief Justice RM Lodha who demitted office on 27 September
  2014.
• ·        
  Dattu will have tenure of 14 months as the
  Chief Justice of India as he will retire from his office on 2 December 2015.
• ·        
  His name for the appointment for the office
  of the Chief Justice of India was cleared by President on 3 September 2014.
  Dattu will be the CJI with longest tenure in recent years, as the previous two
  CJIs namely Justice S Sathasivam and Justice RM Lodha retired from their office
  with a tenure of nine and five months respectively.

• ·        
  Delhi Metro has been ranked second among 18
  international Metro systems in terms of overall customer satisfaction in an
  online customer survey.
• ·        
  According to a DMRC official, in the survey
  conducted among the commuters of those Metro systems by Global Metro
  Benchmarking Groups ‘NOVA’ and ‘CoMET’, Delhi Metro along with London DLR and
  Bangkok were the best three performers in the ‘Net Promoters Score’ (NPS)
  category.
• ·        
  Under this category the survey analysed the
  likelihood of customers recommending the service to others on the basis of
  their satisfaction.
• ·        
  More than 41,000 respondents gave their
  feedback worldwide in this survey conducted online through the websites and
  social media links of 18 major Metros of the world from April 28th to May 25th
  earlier this year. The Metro systems that participated in this survey apart
  from Delhi Metro were Hong Kong MTR, London Underground, Metro De Madrid, Paris
  RATP, Metro De Sandiago, Singapore SMRT, Barcelona TMB, Brussels STIB, Bangkok
  BMCL, London DLR, Istanbul Ulasim, Kualalumpur Rapid PL, Metropolitano De
  Lisboa, Montreal STM, Newcastle Nexus, Metro Rio and Toronto TTC.

• ·        
  A hotel management professional has found a
  dire need for an online source for medical and healthcare information in India.
  He spent all his savings, hired three techies and keyed in scientific data
  himself to build, what he claims, the first dedicated medical search engine.
• ·        
  Titled Braham (or the universe), the search
  engine can also be used as a general search engine. “But I would like it to
  emerge as a one-stop-shop information source for all medical and healthcare
  related information,” Rajeev Shandilya told Business Line over phone.
• ·        
  To beat high costs in acquiring the servers,
  Rajeev chose to take virtual servers on pay-per-use mode. “At present, I am
  getting about 10,000 hits a day,” he said.
• ·        
  Apart from providing answers to medical
  queries, the search engine gives city-based information on the availability of
  hospitals and doctors.

• ·        
  World Heart Day was observed across the world
  on 29 September 2014. The objective of the day is to inform people around the
  world of the danger of heart disease and stroke.
• ·        
  2014 theme for World Heart Day’s is Heart
  Choices NOT Hard Choices. The World Health Organization on the occasion said
  that there is a need to reduce the consumption of salt that is linked to death
  of people from cardiovascular diseases.
• ·        
  On the other hand, the World Heart Federation
  members spread the news that at least 80 percent of premature deaths from
  cardiovascular disease could be avoided of major four risk factors is
  controlled. The four major risk factors are
• •      
  Tobacco use
• •      
  Unhealthy diet
• •      
  Physical inactivity
• •      
  Harmful use of alcohol

• ·        
  Libya’s new parliament on Sunday swore in
  Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni and his cabinet during a meeting in the
  eastern port town of Tobruk.
• ·        
  The ceremony followed weeks of political
  manoeuvring in the fractious assembly, as clashes continued between rival
  militias near the capital Tripoli and in the eastern city of Benghazi.
• ·        
  In Tripoli, a rival government under Omar
  al-Hassi claims power with the support of Islamist militias and the reconvened
  former interim parliament, the General National Congress.
• ·        
  In Benghazi, the largest city in eastern
  Libya, radical Islamist militias have succeeded in pushing rival forces loyal
  to retired general Khalifa Haftar out of most areas.
• ·        
  The Tobruk-based parliament, the House of
  Representatives, has swung behind the anti-Islamist forces, declaring the main
  Islamist militias to be terrorist organizations.

• ·        
  In the first meeting between Indian and
  Israeli Prime Ministers in more than a decade, Prime Minister Modi asked Prime
  Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to explain Israel’s perspective on the Islamic
  State (ISIS). According to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Syed
  Akbaruddin, the two leaders discussed the situation in West Asia. “Given that
  Israel is well placed in that region, the Prime Minister requested and was
  given a briefing of their understanding of the situation.”
• ·        
  The conversation takes significance given it
  came before Mr. Modi’s dinner meeting with US President Barack Obama in
  Washington, as well as Mr. Modi’s address to the council for foreign relations
  to outline his government’s foreign policy objectives.
• ·        
  Mr. Modi and Mr. Netanyahu also discussed
  ways of increasing bilateral ties in the areas of agriculture, water management
  and urban development. Israel is one of India’s largest defence suppliers, and
  Mr. Modi discussed his government’s decision to open up Foreign Direct
  Investment (FDI) in the field to 49 per cent. He also told Mr. Netanyahu that
  Israel should consider defence partnerships based in India, in line with his
  “Make in India” initiative. According to The Jerusalem Post, Mr. Netanyahu said
  “the sky is the limit” for relations between both countries.

• ·        
  The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on
  27 September 2014 addressed the 69th session of United Nations General Assembly
  (UNGA) in New York. He addressed the 193-member UN General Assembly in Hindi
  becoming the second Prime Minister after Atal Behari Vajpayee who was a Prime
  Minister from 1998 to 2004.
• ·        
  Apart from this, Modi is the third person to
  address the UNGA session in Hindi aafter Vajpayee and PV Narasimha Rao. Rao
  addressed the session in Hindi as foreign minister in 1988 and Vajpayee also
  addressed the UN General Assembly’s Millennium Summit session in Hindi in 1977.
• ·        
  The theme of the UNGA was delivering and
  implementing a transformative Post-2015 development Agenda.

• •      
  He termed the 69 UN peacekeeping missions
  since 1948 as the blue helmet, the colour of peace.
• •      
  India is ready to engage in a serious
  bilateral dialogue with Pakistan but in a peaceful atmosphere, without the
  shadow of terrorism, to promote our friendship and cooperation. For this
  purpose, Pakistan should take its responsibility seriously to create such an
  environment.
• •      
  He also called for concerted multilateral
  action to meet the challenges like fragile global economy, terrorism, Ebola
  health crisis, climate change and poverty.
• •      
  While calling for concerted international
  efforts to fight with terrorism, he termed that it takes new shape and new name
  and there is no country either big or small across the world is free from its
  threat. So efforts should be made to combat terrorism and extremism by keeping
  aside the difference by adopting Comprehensive Convention on International
  Terrorism
• •      
  All G-groups should be converted into G1 or
  G-All
• •      
  The United Nations including the Security
  Council should be made more democratic and participative
• •      
  Development and empowerment should be spread
  at the speed of Facebook or Twitter
• •      
  The eradication of poverty must remain at the
  core of the Post-2015 Development Agenda
• •      
  Technology and capabilities of the countries
  should be shared with each other
• •      
  International Yoga Day should be adopted

• ·        
  China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, which
  completed the world’s largest initial public offering ever this month, has won
  approval from authorities here to establish a private bank as it diversifies
  into financial services.
• ·        
  Alibaba, through its subsidiary Zhejiang Ant
  Small and Micro Financial Services Group Co, will hold 30 per cent of share
  capital of the new bank, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said.
• ·        
  Having its own commercial bank will afford
  Alibaba greater control over many of its key services, including online payment
  and wealth management products.
• ·        
  Alibaba is the latest company outside the
  financial sphere to win approval to start a bank in China. Beijing hopes
  private banks will help in its drive to open up the economy to more competition
  and get private capital to more parts of the economy.
• ·        
  Alibaba completed the biggest initial public
  offering ever this month by selling $25 billion of stock to investors keen to
  tap into the world’s biggest pool of Internet users.
• ·        
  Shanghai JuneYao Group, the parent of Juneyao
  Airlines, also received regulatory approval to set up its own bank and will own
  a 30 per cent stake, according to the regulator.

• ·        
  Yogeshwar Dutt ended India’s 28-year-old wait
  for a wrestling gold medal in the Asian Games by emerging champion in the men’s
  freestyle 65kg category at the Dowon Gymnasium in Incheon Sunday.
• ·        
  The Indian, an Olympic bronze medallist, put
  on a stupendous show in winning 3-0 against Zalimkhan Yusupov of Tajikistan in the
  title clash.

• ·        
  On Sunday, Indian race walking’s wonder girl
  Khushbir Kaur won a sensational silver in the 20km at the 17th Asian Games
  here. It was the country’s first-ever women’s silver in the event at the Asiad.
• ·        
  “I’ve been to the World Cup and Asian
  Championships, yes, I was expecting this medal,” said the 21-year-old. “This is
  not my personal best, I’ve run faster but I got two cautions today, the first
  at the 10km and the second between the 16 to 18km and this slowed me down. I
  was worried after that, I did not want to lose a medal chance. I was in the
  first group of four girls early.” A few hours later, quartermilers M.R.
  Poovamma and Arokia Rajiv picked up bronze medals while Manju Bala brought
  another in the women’s hammer throw.

• ·        
  Sanam Singh could not add a second
  consecutive Asian Games gold medal to his kitty as he and Saketh Myneni settled
  for a silver after losing the hard-fought final in straight sets to Korea’s
  Yongkyu Lim and Hyeon Chung, in Incheon on Monday.
• ·        
  The fifth seeded Indians lost the summit
  clash 5-7, 6-7(2) in an hour and 29 minutes to the eighth seeded local
  favourites.
• ·        
  The Koreans, cheered by the home fans, were
  precise in shot-making and won points with some intelligent tennis against the
  fighting Indians.
• ·        
  The Koreans stood out with their shot
  selection as some of the drop volleys won them crucial points.
• ·        
  Sanam had won men’s doubles gold with Somdev
  Devvarman at the Guangzhou edition in 2010.

• ·        
  Sania Mirza and Saketh Myneni’s successful
  run at the Asian Games 2014 continued as the pair beat Chinese Taipei’s Hsien
  Yin Peng and Hao Ching Chan 6-4, 6-3 to win India’s sixth gold medal at
  Incheon. 
• ·        
  This is Sania’s third consecutive Asian Games
  mixed doubles final appearance. In 2006, she won a gold with Leander Paes. She
  followed that up with a silver medal in 2010 with Vishnu Vardhan and has now
  won a gold with Saketh Myneni at Incheon.

• ·        
  Discus thrower Seema Punia Antil ended
  India’s gold-less streak in track and field events on the third day of
  athletics competitions as she beat back a strong challenge from two Chinese
  rivals to bag the coveted yellow metal at the Asian Games on Monday.
• ·        
  Seema ran away with the gold with a best
  throw of 61.03m in the women’s discus throw final while team-mate Krishna
  Poonia finished fourth with a below par 55.57m at the Incheon Asiad Main
  Stadium here.
• ·        
  Prior to Sema’s golden throw, women’s metric
  miler O P Jaisha and men’s 3000m steeplechaser Naveen Kumar picked up a bronze
  each to boost the country’s medal tally from athletics to eight from three
  days.

• ·        
  Europe on 28 September 2014 won the 40th
  Ryder Cup in Gleneagles, Scotland. Europe defeated United States by 16½ points
  to 11½. The team captains were Paul McGinley for Europe and Tom Watson for the
  USA.
• ·        
  Europe took 10-6 lead over the United States
  into final day of Ryder Cup. 
• ·        
  Europe has now won eight of the last 10 Ryder
  Cups. Europe was the defending cup holders, having defeated the USA in 2012 at
  Medinah.
• ·        
  The 40th Ryder Cup Matches were held from
  26–28 September 2014 on the PGA Centenary Course at the Gleneagles Scotland.
• ·        
  This was the second time that Scotland hosted
  the Ryder Cup. First time, the competition was held at Muirfield in 1973.