Current Affairs Update – 30 Sept – 1 Oct, 2014

• ·        
  As widely expected, the Reserve Bank of India
  (RBI) had kept the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility
  (LAF) unchanged at 8.0 per cent.
• ·        
  Also, it has decided to keep the cash reserve
  ratio (CRR) of scheduled banks unchanged at 4.0 per cent of net demand and time
  liabilities (NDTL).
• ·        
  However, it has reduced the liquidity
  provided under the export credit refinance (ECR) facility from 32 per cent of
  eligible export credit outstanding to 15 per cent with effect from October 10.
• ·        
  The RBI has said that it will continue to
  provide liquidity under overnight repos at 0.25 per cent of bank-wise NDTL at
  the LAF repo rate, and liquidity under 7-day and 14-day term repos of up to
  0.75 per cent of NDTL of the banking system through auctions.

• ·        
  The fiscal deficit for the first five months
  of 2014-15 is 75 per cent of the Government’s Budget estimate.
• ·        
  This trend is similar to what was seen in the
  corresponding period of last fiscal.
• ·        
  According to the latest data of the
  Controller General of Accounts, fiscal deficit during the April-August period
  reached Rs. 3.97 lakh crore, nearly 75 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs. 5.31
  lakh crore.

• ·        
  The Reserve Bank today relaxed ‘know your
  customer’ norms by allowing self-certification of documents needed for opening
  bank accounts.
• ·        
  “With a view to easing difficulties
  faced by common persons while opening bank accounts and during periodic
  updating, guidelines on KYC will be further simplified with immediate
  effect,” the central bank said in its monetary policy statement.
• ·        
  RBI has asked banks to “allow
  self-certification; accept a certified copy of the document by mail/post”
  for account opening.
• ·        
  Banks have also been asked not to seek fresh
  documents if an existing KYC compliant customer of a bank desires to open
  another account in the bank.
• ·        
  For periodic updating of KYC, the RBI told
  the banks not “insist on physical presence of the customer” and also
  not seek fresh proof of identity and address in case of no change in status for
  ‘low risk’ customers.
• ·        
  The Reserve Bank further said there is a need
  for banks to complete KYC for all customers including long standing ‘low risk’
  customers.
• ·        
  “Banks should complete documentation,
  while minimising the effort on the part of the customer to what is strictly
  needed,” it said.
• ·        
  In the event that customers are unable to
  comply within a reasonable time period, ‘partial freezing’ may be introduced in
  respect of KYC non-compliant customers, RBI added.
• ·        
  This means credits would be allowed in such
  accounts while debits would not be allowed, with an option to the account
  holder to close the account and take back the money in the account.

• ·        
  President Pranab Mukherjee on 30 September
  2014 authorised Vigilance Commissioner Rajiv to act as chief of Central
  Vigilance Commission (CVC) until the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner.
• ·        
  His appointment came with effect from 29
  September 2014.

• ·        
  The new Andhra Pradesh will grow as fast as
  Google and Visakhapatnam will become a IT hub, according to Chief Minister N
  Chadrababu Naidu.
• ·        
  He was speaking at a conclave of CEOs from
  400 IT companies across the country after signing MoUs with several of them,
  including Google India.
• ·        
  Claiming credit for developing Hyderabad as
  the foremost IT destination in the country during his tenure as the Chief
  Minister of an undivided AP, he said he would achieve the same feat in a much
  quicker time in Visakhapatnam with the co-operation of IT companies.
• ·        
  He said Visakhapatnam with its natural
  resources and human resources was ideally suited for the development of IT.
  Promising co-operation to the IT companies, he invited them to invest in the
  State and become partners in its progress.
• ·        
  Rajan Anandan, Country Head, Google India,
  said his company would strive to develop Telugu fonts to make the internet popular
  in Telugu. It would also strive to bring online one lakh SMEs in the state. It
  would be a partner in the programme to digitalise AP.
• ·        
  Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, said
  he had no doubt that Chandrababu Naidu would be as good as his word in developing
  IT sector in the new Andhra Pradesh.

• ·        
  India and US have in principle agreed to
  extend their defence agreement for another 10 years which will take forward the
  cooperation between the two countries in the crucial area.
• ·        
  Sources in the Department of Defence said,
  “we are still negotiating the framework agreement (defence) but have not
  finished.”
• ·        
  Pentagon sources said it was “happening“.
• ·        
  The framework agreement, which will expire
  next year, was signed here in 2005 by then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee
  and his US counterpart Donald Rumsfeld.
• ·        
  Earlier, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel
  called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here and discussed issues relating to
  defence cooperation and combating terrorism.
• ·        
  The pact had laid strong foundations leading
  to mutually beneficial defence cooperation between the two countries through
  security dialogue, service-level exchanges, defence exercises and defence trade
  and technology collaboration.

• ·        
  India and the U.S., after sending their own
  respective spacecraft into Mars’ orbit, have now agreed to cooperate on future
  explorations of the Red Planet, which America said will yield “tangible
  benefits” to both the countries and the world at large.
• ·        
  The agreement in this regard was signed by
  NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman of the Indian
  Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Toronto on Tuesday on the sidelines of
  the International Astronautical Congress.
• ·        
  The two sides signed a charter that
  establishes a NASA-ISRO Mars Working Group to investigate enhanced cooperation
  between the two countries in Mars exploration.
• ·        
  They also signed an international agreement
  that defines how the two agencies will work together on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic
  Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, targeted to launch in 2020.
• ·        
  “The signing of these two documents reflects
  the strong commitment NASA and ISRO have to advancing science and improving
  life on Earth,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

• ·        
  The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy
  (MNRE) Wednesday said it has signed a memorandum of understanding to form a
  joint venture (JV) company for setting up a 100 MW offshore wind power project
  off the Gujarat coast.
• ·        
  The MoU was signed between MNRE, National
  Institute of Wind Energy and a consortium of partners consisting of NTPC, Power
  Grid Corp, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency, Power Finance Corp,
  Power Trading Corp and Gujarat Power Corporation Ltd.
• ·        
  “Considering the country’s 7,600 km coast
  line, opportunities for scaling up offshore wind power projects are humongous,”
  said Power and MNRE Minister Piyush Goyal, who was present on the occasion.
• ·        
  Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message in the
  US was loud and clear that renewable energy is the way to go, Goyal said.
• ·        
  “It dovetails the world’s concerns about
  climate change and it clearly enhances India’s energy security,” he added.
• ·        
  The minister also suggested building
  partnerships with defence, coast guard and shipping to ensure seamless and time
  bound approval process.

• ·        
  India and the United States issued Vision
  Statement to boost strategic ties on 29 September 2014. The Vision Statement
  titled Chalein Saath-Saath: Forward Together We Go was issued after Indian
  Prime Minister Narendra Modi met US President Barack Obama at the dinner at
  White House in Washington DC.
• ·        
  The joint statement sought to expand and
  deepen the strategic partnership between the largest and oldest democracies in
  the world for the benefit of not only the two nations but also for the benefit
  of the world.

• ·        
  Both the countries would cooperate in
  security and fight terrorism
• ·        
  It called for an inclusive rule based global
  order in which India will assume greater multilateral responsibility, including
  a reformed United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
• ·        
  Both the countries also determined to work
  together to tackle the threat of climate change
• ·        
  The two countries also committed to cooperate
  to address the consequences of unchecked pollution through cooperation among
  governments, science and academic communities of both the nations.
• ·        
  Both the countries will partner to ensure
  that they have affordable, clean, reliable, and diverse sources of energy,
  including efforts to bring American-origin nuclear power technologies to India.
• ·        
  Two countries would also work to ensure that
  economic growth brought better livelihoods for all people.
• ·        
  The vision statement also stressed the
  importance of open markets and fair and transparent practices to allow trade to
  flourish.

• ·        
  Union government on 30 September 2014
  accorded in-principle approval for setting up six more Software Technology
  Parks of India (STPIs) in Odisha. With this the number of such parks in the
  state will go up to 10.
• ·        
  These six STPIs will be developed at Jaypore
  in Koraput district, Sambalpur, Jajpur, Angul, Rayagada and Bhawanipatna in
  Kalahandi. The four existing STPIs are at Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Brahmapur and
  Balasore.

• ·        
  The India-US Combined Military Training
  Exercise Yudh Abhyas 2014 concluded at Ranikhet in Uttarakhand on 30 September
  2014. The Yudh Abhyas 2014 started on 17 September 2014.
• ·        
  It was the tenth exercise in the Yudh Abhyas
  series that started in 2004 under US Army Pacific partnership program. Yudh
  Abhyas 2014, a part of bilateral defence cooperation, aimed at sharing of
  ideas, concepts and learning from each other’s experiences.
• ·        
  During the 14-day exercise, the troops of
  Mountain Brigade of Indian Army and Company and Brigade Headquarter of the US
  Army cooperated to strengthen and broaden inter-operability and cooperation
  between armies of  the US and India.
• ·        
  It also featured training, planning and
  executing a series of tactical drills by contingents for neutralizing possible
  threats.  It also focused on
  counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in mountainous terrain and
  in United Nations mandated operations.

• ·        
  Modi promised that that Persons of Indian
  Origin (PIO) cardholders will get lifetime Indian visa and that American
  tourists will be given visa on arrival.
• ·        
  Modi announced the merger of PIO and Overseas
  Citizens of India schemes to facilitate hassle-free travel to the Indian
  diaspora.
• ·        
  He announced that PIO card holders staying in
  India on long-term basis will no longer have to report to the local police
  station.

• ·        
  With their landmark 2005 civil nuclear deal
  still in limbo, India and the US have established an inter-agency Contact Group
  to sort out outstanding liability and technical issues to fast-track its full
  implementation.
• ·        
  Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President
  Barack Obama while taking note of the delay reaffirmed their commitment to
  “implement fully” the US-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement
  that would facilitate installation of American-origin nuclear reactors in
  India.
• ·        
  From the Indian side, the inter-agency
  Contact Group will have representatives from Department of Atomic Energy,
  Ministry of External Affairs and Finance Ministry.
• ·        
  After summit talks with Obama, Modi said both
  sides are serious about resolving at the earliest issues blocking the
  implementation of the civil nuclear deal.

• ·        
  Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography ‘The Story of
  My Experiments with Truth’ has now been published in Kashmiri and Punjabi
  languages also and the editions would be released on his birth anniversary
  tomorrow.
• ·        
  “Tomorrow on 145th birthday of Mahatma
  Gandhi, we will release Kashmiri and Punjabi versions of his autobiography ‘The
  Story of My Experiments with Truth’,” said Vivek Desai, managing trustee
  of Navjivan Trust, founded by Gandhi in 1929.
• ·        
  With this, the Father of the Nation’s
  autobiography will be available in 17 major languages of the country. The book
  is available so far in Gujarati, English, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil,
  Kannada, Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam, Assamese, Oriya, Manipuri, Sanskrit and
  Konkani languages.
• ·        
  On the objective behind releasing the book in
  two more languages, Desai said the trust wants to make Gandhi’s autobiography
  and his ideas available to more and more people.

• ·        
  Afghanistan on 30 September 2014 signed
  Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US with an aim to allow some US
  troops to remain in the country till 2015.
• ·        
  National Security Adviser of Afghanistan
  Mohammad Hanif Atmar and US Ambassador James Cunningham signed BSA at the
  presidential palace of Afghanistan in Kabul.
• ·        
  Signing of the BSA was the first act of the
  new government in Afghanistan headed by President Ashraf Ghani who was sworn-in
  on 29 September 2014.

• ·        
  Google closed the social networking site
  Orkut permanently on 30 September 2014. Google announced the decision to shut
  down Orkut in June 2014.
• ·        
  Old users of Orkut will be able to take
  backup of their pictures and posts till September 2016 and users can export
  their profile data, community posts and photos using Google Takeout. But no one
  will be able to create new IDs on Orkut account.
• ·        
  Decision of shutting down Orkut was taken as
  its competitor social networking sites namely Facebook and Twitter were much
  popular than orkut. Now, Google has moved to a new platform – the Google Plus.
• ·        
  Orkut started in 2004 was named after its
  creator, Orkut Buyukkokten, a Google employee.

• ·        
  The first case of Ebola diagnosed in the U.S.
  was confirmed on Tuesday in a patient who recently travelled from Liberia to
  Dallas — a sign of the far-reaching impact of the out-of-control epidemic in
  West Africa.
• ·        
  The unidentified man was critically ill and
  has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday,
  federal health officials said. They would not reveal his nationality or age.
• ·        
  Authorities have begun tracking down family
  and friends who may have had close contact with him and could be at risk for
  becoming ill. But officials said there are no other suspected cases in Texas.
• ·        
  At the Centers for Disease Control and
  Prevention, Director Tom Frieden said the man left Liberia on September 19,
  arrived the next day to visit relatives and started feeling ill four or five
  days later. He said it was not clear how the patient became infected.
• ·        
  There was no risk to any fellow airline
  passengers because the man had no symptoms when he was travelling, Mr. Frieden
  said. Ebola symptoms can include fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding, and
  can appear as long as 21 days after exposure to the virus. The disease is not
  contagious until symptoms begin, and it takes close contact with bodily fluids
  to spread.

• ·        
  Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will be
  visiting India this month, and is most likely to meet Prime Minister Narendra
  Modi, who himself is an avid user of the social networking site.
• ·        
  Mr. Zuckerberg, the second high-profile
  executive from Facebook to visit India after Sheryl Sandberg, will be in India
  to address the first Internet.org summit taking place on October 9-10 here.
• ·        
  Facebook had last year announced the launch
  of Internet.org, a global partnership with six other technology giants-
  Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung. The project aims to
  make Internet access available to the next five billion people who are not
  online yet.
• ·        
  He is expected to discuss with the Prime
  Minister ways in which the government and the social networking giant can
  collaborate on Internet.org.
• ·        
  One of the youngest billionaires in the
  world, Mr. Zuckerberg is expected to meet other senior ministers as well.
• ·        
  Mr. Zuckerberg’s visit to India, the second
  biggest market for the social networking giant, will mark the third visit by
  high-profile CEO of U.S.-based corporations to the country in a fortnight,
  after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

• ·        
  A huge controversy broke out on Wednesday at
  the Asian Games when India’s woman boxer Sarita Devi returned her bronze medal,
  protesting against her controversial loss to a South Korean, inviting a possible
  suspension for defiance.
• ·        
  Sarita, who was declared a loser despite
  dominating the 60kg semifinal bout against home favourite Jina Park, was today
  inconsolable on the podium and was crying bitterly as she stunned the officials
  and spectators by refusing to accept the bronze medal, which is now in the
  custody of organisers.
• ·        
  The boxer was in disbelief yesterday when she
  lost to Park, who ended up as the silver-medallist. Sarita was clearly the
  better of the two pugilists but the judges thought otherwise.
• ·        
  Left in the lurch by the accompanying IOA
  officials, she managed to collect $500, including with the help of a journalist
  and Mary Kom’s husband, to lodge an appeal against the verdict but lost.
• ·        
  The former Asian and world champion then left
  the ceremony. Park, visibly rattled by the turn of events, left the medal on
  the podium and made her exit.

• ·        
  Legendary Indian boxer MC Mary Kom on 1
  October 2014 bagged her first ever Asian Games Gold Medal. She defeated Zhaina
  Shekerbekova of Kazakhstan in the finals of the women’s flyweight category
  (48-51kg) at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon.
• ·        
  She became the first Indian woman boxer to
  clinch a gold medal at the Asian Games. This is the seventh gold for India at
  Incheon games.

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