Current Affairs Update – 10th March, 2015

• The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) net dollar purchases from the spot market rose to a near seven-year high in January 2015 to $12.14 billion, a level last seen in January 2008 amounting to $13.63 billion.
• In a bid to keep comfortable liquidity in the system in the fourth quarter, RBI had started making dollar purchases more from the spot market than what they were doing earlier. Net dollar purchases of RBI stood at $6.74 billion in December 2014.
• Under the intervention strategies in the spot market transactions the settlement happens in two days which means when dollar is bought from the sport market the rupee liquidity flows within two days. When the intervention is done through forwards contracts there is no immediate rupee liquidity flowing into the system due to dollar purchases.

• With e-commerce business growing in India, realty major DLF has tied-up with online market place Snapdeal to sell its apartments and would offer 1 per cent discount to potential home buyers.
• DLF will offer on Snapdeal about 50 flats in eight housing projects across the country in a price range of Rs 34 lakh to Rs 3 crore.
• Customers of the country's largest realty player will be able to buy flats at Rs 30,000 booking amount on the Snapdeal. The offer is likely to start this week.
• These flats are in projects located at New Chandigarh, Panchkula, Lucknow, Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi and Kolkata.
• This is the first time DLF is having a tie-up with an e-commerce firm.
• Earlier, Tata Housing had tied up with Google, Snapdeal, and Housing.com, while Puravankara had tied up with Google and realty portal 99 acres.com. Godrej Properties, too, had tied up with Snapdeal to offer online booking of its projects.

• The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed far-reaching amendments to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition law, amidst walk-out by several opposition parties including Congress, Samajwadi Party, Biju Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress.
• As many as nine significant including some controversial amendments were made to the law enacted by the UPA Government in 2013.
• These changes are widely seen as a U-turn by the Government and those expected to serve the interests of the State and the land banks, rather than the farmers.
• The far reaching amendments passed by the lower house today include doing away with consent clause and also the requirement of a social impact assessments before notification of the acquisition.
• An amendment that would help remove the bottlenecks faced hitherto faced by industry in acquisition of multi-cropped irrigated land was also passed by Lok Sabha.
• In another significant move, the Centre today dropped an earlier proposal that talked about government being required to acquire land for private hospitals and private educational institutions.
• The 2013 law stipulates land acquisition for government projects and private companies only after securing 80 percent consent from farmers (70 percent in case of public private partnerships).
• With both consent clause and the social impact assessment removed out of the way, many critics claimed that both the “heart and soul” of the land acquisition law was being removed and this step was totally “anti-farmer”.

• Maharashtra Government on 8 March 2015 launched Bhagyashree scheme for girl child. The scheme replaced Sukanya scheme.
• As per the scheme, the state government will deposit an amount of 21200 rupees in bank for a girl child born in a Below the Poverty Line (BPL) family.
• The Bhagyashree scheme aims at providing one lakh rupee on maturity after the girl completes 18 years of age.
• The scheme was launched by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis in the presence of Bollywood actress Bhagyashree.  Bollywood actress Bhagyashree is the brand ambassador of the scheme.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 9 March 2015 launched the first indigenously developed Rotavirus vaccine named Rotavac. This is the third such vaccine, besides GSK Rotarix and Merck’s RotaTeq available globally against Rotavirus.
• The vaccine will boost India’s efforts to combat infant mortality due to diarrhea. The vaccine will be available at a price of 1 US dollar per dose making it the cheapest vaccine available for rotavirus globally.
• Rotavac vaccine was developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model that involved Union Ministry of Science and Technology, US’s National Institute of Health (NIH), NGOs in India supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL).

• First Kisan Call Centre (KCC) of North-East was opened on 9 March 2015 in Agartala, Tripura. The KCC was launched by the Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
• KCC was financed by the Tripura government. It will be run by a private enterprise with experts of agriculture, horticulture, fisheries and animal husbandry.
• The Kisan Call Centre will give immediate solution and real time advisory to farmers if they need expert consultation regarding seed procurement, agro-metric, fertilizer, soil health, pesticides usage and marketing of the produces.

• Pakistan test-fired its surface-to-surface ballistic missile Shaheen III,which is capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads upto a range of 2750-kilometers.
• A Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) release said the test launch was aimed at validating various design and technical parameters of the weapon system at maximum range.
• The successful launch was witnessed by senior officers from the Strategic Plans Division, strategic forces, scientists and engineers of strategic organizations.
• Director General Strategic Plans Division, Lieutenant General Zubair Mahmood Hayat, while congratulating the scientists and engineers on achieving yet another milestone of historic significance, termed it a major step towards strengthening Pakistan's deterrence capability.

• Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily on 9 March 2015 was selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for 2014 for his Kannada poem Ramayana Mahanveshanam.
• Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil.
• The selection for the award was made by a 13-member panel of scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti.

• With nine straight World Cup wins under their belt, the Mahendra Singh Dhoni—led India stand only second to Ricky Ponting’s Australian side that registered 24 consecutive victories in the showpiece event.
• India now stands second alongside Clive Lloyd’s West Indies in terms of consecutive victories in World Cup. The eight-wicket win against Ireland here today was India’s ninth in the quadrennial extravaganza, the run starting with the victory over the West Indies in the previous edition.
• They comfortably took the top spot in pool B as Dhoni also overtook former captain Sourav Ganguly, who had led the Men in Blue to eight consecutive World Cup wins in the mega event.
• It was against the West Indies on March 6 that Dhoni overtook Ganguly for most overseas ODI wins as a captain. Dhoni’s India surpassed Ganguly’s record of 58 wins in 110 matches, at the WACA last week.
• Dhoni is also credited with most wins (12) by an Indian captain in World Cups. He has overtaken 1983 World Cup-winning skipper Kapil Dev (11), Mohammed Azharuddin (10) and Ganguly (9).

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