Current Affairs Update – 12th June, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here is the important Current Affairs of 12th June, 2015. These are Important for the Upcoming SBI PO Mains 2015 Exam.

• The Reserve Bank on Friday issued final guidelines for the 6-year and 13-year cash settled interest rate futures (IRF).
• "The final guidelines for introduction of the 6-year and the 13-year cash settled IRF on government securities with residual maturity of 4-8 years and 11-15 years, respectively have been issued," RBI said in a statement.
• For the 6-year cash settled IRF contracts, the underlying shall be a coupon bearing government security of face value of Rs. 100 and residual maturity between 4 and 8 years on the expiry of futures contract.
• Another option for the 6-year IRF is that the underlying shall be coupon bearing notional 6-year government security with a face value of Rs. 100.
• "For each contract, there shall be a basket of government securities, with residual maturity between 4 and 8 years on the day of expiry of futures contract, with appropriate weight assigned to each security in the basket," RBI said.
• For the 13-year cash settled IRF contracts, the underlying can be a coupon bearing government security of face value of Rs. 100 and residual maturity between 11 and 15 years on the expiry of futures contract.
• "The underlying shall be the coupon bearing notional 13-year government security with a face value of Rs. 100. For each contract, there shall be a basket of government securities, with residual maturity between 11 and 15 years on the day of expiry of futures contract, with appropriate weight assigned to each security in the basket," RBI said as the second option for the 13-year cash settled IRF.
• Among other requirements for cash settled 6-year, 10-year and 13-year IRF contracts shall cash-settled in the rupees.
• The RBI has also expanded the residual maturity for the existing 10-year cash settled IRF from 9-11 years to 8-11 years to "provide market participants greater choice and flexibility to hedge their interest rate risk across different tenors."

• Tamil Nadu Government and Adani Power Ltd in the second week of June signed a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to set up a 200 MW solar power plant in Ramanathapuram district.
• The plant will be constructed with an investment of nearly 1400 crore rupees.
• The district was chosen by the group because of the fact that it is one of the two districts along with Thoothukudi that receive highest solar radiation in the state.
• In March 2015, Adani Power Ltd applied to Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGDECO) for a load flow study to establish 1000 MW solar plant at Kamuthi in the district.

• The US government has opened an investigation against two of the biggest Indian outsourcing companies for possible violations of H1-B visa rules, according to a media report.
• The power company had recently laid off more than 500 technology workers amid claims that many of those laid off were made to train their replacements who were immigrants on the temporary work visas brought in by the Indian firms Senators Richard Durbin of Illinois and Jeff Sessions of Alabama announced the investigation after they were notified by the department, the report said.
• The move by the Labour Department comes days after the NYT had reported that hundreds of employees at entertainment giant Walt Disney were laid off and replaced with Indians holding H1-B visas.
• About 250 Disney employees were told in late October last year that they would be laid off and many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on H1-B visas brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India, the report had said.

• Zimbabweans will start exchanging “quadrillions” of local dollars for a few U.S. dollars next week, as President Robert Mugabe’s government discards its virtually worthless national currency, the central bank said on Thursday.
• The southern African country started using foreign currencies like the U.S. dollar and the South African rand in 2009 after the Zimbabwean dollar was ruined by hyper-inflation, which hit 500 billion per cent in 2008.
• At the height of Zimbabwe’s economic crisis in 2008, Zimbabweans had to carry plastic bags bulging with bank notes to buy basic goods like bread and milk. Prices were rising at least twice a day.
• From June 15, 2015, customers who held Zimbabwean dollar accounts before March 2009 can approach their banks to convert their Zimbabwean dollar balance into dollars, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor John Mangudya said in a statement.
• The process will legally end the local currency. Zimbabweans have until September to turn in their old bank notes, which some people sell as souvenirs to tourists.
• Bank accounts with balances of up to 175 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars will be paid $5. Those with balances above 175 quadrillion dollars will be paid at an exchange rate of $1 to 35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars.

• Matt Prior, the English cricketer, on 11 June 2015 retired from all forms of cricket. The 33-year-old, wicketkeeper-batsman helped England to win three Ashes series between 2009 and 2013.
• He was the first English wicketkeeper to score a century on debut match against West Indies in 2007. He scored an unbeaten 126 at Lord’s. 
• He played his One Day International (ODI) debut match against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo on 5 December 2004.
• Matt Prior played his last test match against India at Lord's from 17 to 21 July 2014 and his last ODI match was against Sri Lanka at Colombo (RPS), on 26 March 2011.

• Forbes on 10 June 2015 released the list of 2015 World's 100 Highest-Paid Athletes. The list has been topped by Floyd Mayweather and the only Indian to figure in the list is Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
• The earnings were calculated based on athletes’ salaries, bonuses, prize money, appearance fees, as well as licensing and endorsement income between 1 June 2014 and 1 June 2015.
• The list only includes athletes active during the given period.

• Prof Sanghmitra Bandyopadhayay was on 10 June 2015 appointed as the Director of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) by the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI).
• She is the first woman to lead the institute and replaced Dr Bimal K Roy who was removed on charges of indiscipline.
• Earlier on 8 June 2015, she was appointed as director-designate of the institute and was set to assume the office on 1 August 2015 on Roy’s superannuation.
• She is a computer scientist specializing in computational biology. Her research is mainly in the areas of evolutionary computation, pattern recognition, machine learning and bioinformatics.
• She obtained a master's degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT KGP) and pursued Ph. D. at the ISI.

• The World Day Against Child Labour was on 12 June 2015 observed globally with the theme NO to child labour – YES to quality education! The day is the United Nations observance to bring awareness against child labour.

• Free, compulsory and quality education for all children at least to the minimum age for admission to employment and action to reach those presently in child labour;
•  New efforts to ensure that national policies on child labour and education are consistent and effective;
• Policies that ensure access to quality education and investment in the teaching profession.

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