Current Affairs Update – 25th June, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 25th June, 2015. These are important for the upcoming SBI PO Mains 2015 and RBI Assistant 2015 Exam.

• he Reserve Bank on Thursday extended the deadline for exchanging pre-2005 currency notes of various denominations, including of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, by six months till December 31, 2015.
• The earlier deadline was expiring on June 30.
• RBI had, in December 2014, set the last date for public to exchange these notes as June end.
• It is easy to identify pre-2005 notes. The currency notes issued before 2005 do not have the year of printing on the reverse side. In notes issued post 2005, the year of printing is visible at the bottom on the reverse.
• Soliciting cooperation from public in withdrawing these banknotes from circulation, RBI urged them to "deposit the old design notes in their bank accounts or exchange them at a bank branch convenient to them."

• State Bank of India (SBI) today announced the appointment of Anshula Kant as its Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Kant has been designated as the Deputy Managing Director and CFO of the bank, SBI said in a filing on BSE.
• She joined SBI as a Probationary Officer in 1983 worked under various departments of the bank. Prior to her appointment, P K Gupta was the CFO. Gupta moved to SBI Capital as Chief Executive Officer.

• SBI Capital Markets, the merchant banking arm of State Bank of India, has appointed Praveen Gupta as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
• Gupta replaces Rajnish Kumar, who has been elevated as Managing Director - Compliance and Risk, State Bank of India.
• Prior to this, Gupta was the Deputy Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of State Bank of India, SBI Capital Markets said in a statement.
• He has been with State Bank of India for over three decades, having joined the bank in 1982, and has undertaken various important assignments in the bank in India and abroad.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 June 2015 launched three urban development schemes- AMRUT, Smart Cities Mission and Housing for All (Urban) in New Delhi.
• During the occasion, the Prime Minister also released logos and taglines for AMRUT and Smart Cities Mission; and guidelines for AMRUT, Smart Cities Mission and Housing for All (Urban).
• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT): It is aimed at developing infrastructure in 500 cities and towns that are having a population of one lakh and above with an outlay of 50000 crore rupees between 2015-16 and 2019-20.
• Smart Cities Mission: It is aimed at developing 100 smart cities across the country with an outlay of 48000 crore rupees between 2015-16 and 2019-20.
• Housing for All (Urban): The Central Sector Scheme aimed at providing housing facilities to all eligible people in urban areas by 2022.

• The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared the proposal for the setting up of six new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the country, which will start offering courses from the coming academic session.
• The new IIMs will be located at Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Bodh Gaya (Bihar), Sirmaur (Himachal Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Sambalpur (Odisha) and Amritsar (Punjab).
• Each institute will start with an intake of 140 students for the post-graduate course, the flagship programme of the IIMs, admission for which will be through Common Aptitude Test (CAT) exam.

• The Taygan Lions Park and Skazka zoo in Yalta, Crimea signed an animal exchange agreement with Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram zoo. This agreement signed in the fourth week of June 2015 will allow them to exchange different animals with each other.

• In exchange for three elephants from India, the Thiruvananthapuram zoo will receive two white lions, 15 coatis, two Siberian tigers, two llamas, and five squirrel monkeys.
• The elephants will be accompanied by mahouts (handlers/keepers), as it is a requirement stipulated in the transport legislation of India.

• Created in 2012 in Belogorsky region of Crimea on the shores of the Taygansky reservoir, Taygan is the largest nursery in Europe for various breeds of lions and other species. It is also the only one of its kind animal park in the continent.

• Created in 1995 at Yalta, Ukraine, Skazka (fairy tale) zoo is a home of more than 700 creatures, representing over 120 species of birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians and fish. It was established by local businessman Oleg Zubkov.

• The Union Cabinet on 24 June 2015 approved renaming of Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) as Renewable Energy Corporation of India (RECI).
• Besides, the Cabinet also gave its nod to the SECI to apply to the Registrar of Companies (ROC) for converting it into a Section 3 company from a Section 8 company under the Companies Act, 2013.

• SECI will become a self-sustaining and self-generating organization.
• SECI will be able to engage itself in owning solar power plants generating and selling power and in other segments of solar sector activities, including manufacturing of solar products and materials.
• SECI will become RECI after change of its name and then will take up development of all segments of renewable energy namely, geo-thermal, off-shore wind, tidal etc. apart from solar energy.

• The Union Cabinet on 24 June 2015 gave its approval for signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) between the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO), Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan.
• The MoC is aimed at establishing a framework for bilateral cooperation in the field of industrial property (IP) with emphasis on capacity building, human resource development and awareness generation.
• Under the MoC, both the countries will implement a biennial action plan comprising cooperation projects and activities.

• India on Thursday pledged $1 billion in assistance to quake-ravaged Nepal for its massive reconstruction programme. The announcement was made by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at the Donors' Conference in Kathmandu.
• The International Conference on Nepal’s Reconstruction has been organised by the Nepalese government to raise funds for rebuilding the country devastated by a powerful earthquake that struck exactly two months back, killing about 9,000 people and injuring around 23,000.
• The conference was attended by several countries, including China, Britain, Norway, Japan, Sri Lanka, the European Union besides the U.N., World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

• Former Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was voted as the Best Test Player of the 21st century in an online poll titled Top-100 Test players' list since 2000. The result of poll conducted by Cricket Australia’s website, cricket.com.au was released in the fourth week of June 2015.
• Sachin received highest number of votes (23 percent votes) to emerge on the top of list of 100 best Test players since 2000. The survey was participated by more than 16000 fans.

1. 1st Position: Sachin Tendulkar of India with 23 percent votes
2. 2nd position: Kumar Sangakkara of Sri Lanka with 14 percent votes
3. 3rd position: Adam Gilchrist of Australia
4. 4th position: Ricky Ponting of Australia with 11 percent votes
5. 5th position: Jacques Kallis of South Africa with 11 percent votes

• Zaheer Abbas was named as the President of International Cricket Council (ICC) on 24 June 2015 during the ICC Annual Conference in Barbados. He assumed the role of ICC President with immediate effect for one-year term.
• He succeeded Mustafa Kamal of Bangladesh as the 13th ICC President. Kamal resigned from the post of ICC President on 1 April 2015.
• The former Captain of Pakistan Cricket team is the only Asian batsman to score a series of first-class centuries with 108 first-class hundreds who finished his 22-year career with 34843 runs.
• From 1969 to 1985 he played for Pakistan in 78 Tests and 62 ODIs scoring 5062 and 2572 runs respectively.
• Zaheer was also an ICC match referee in the 1993 series between Sri Lanka and the West Indies in Sri Lanka.

• The spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was conferred with the Columbia’s highest civilian award Orden de la Democracia Simon Bolivar en el grado de cruz Caballero (Order of the Democracy Simon Bolivar) by Columbia.
• For this, he was congratulated by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 June 2015.
• Sri Sri Ravi Shankar founded the Art of Living Foundation in 1981, which aims to relieve individual stress, societal problems, and violence.
• In 1997, he also founded the International Association for Human Values (IAHV) to coordinate sustainable development projects, nurture human values and coordinate conflict resolution in association with The Art of Living.

• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on 24 June 2015 released the World Investment Report 2015 (WIR15) titled Reforming International Investment Governance.
• The WIR15 delineated the investment trends at the global, regional and country level during 2014 and offered a comparative perspective across the space and time.
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• FDI flows: While inward FDI was pegged at 34.4 billion US dollars, outward FDI was 9.8 billion US dollars. There was an increase of 6.3 billion US dollars and 10.3 billion US dollars in inward inflows when compared to that of 2013 and 2014 respectively.
• As a percentage of gross fixed capital formation, inward flows and outward flows stood at 5.9 percent and 1.7 percent respectively.
• Though India attracted around 80 percent of total inward FDI inflows of South Asia (41.1 billion US dollars), it was way behind 128.5 billion US dollars attracted by China.
• FDI stock: While total inward FDI stock was 252.3 billion US dollars (12.3 percent of GDP), outward FDI stock was 129.5 billion US dollars (6.3 percent of GDP) during 2014.
• Cross border M&As: While, net sales were pegged at 5.8 billion US dollars, net purchases were 1 billion US dollars during 2014.
• Greenfield investment: While India attracted 24.9 billion US dollars, out of 26.3 billion US dollars in South Asia, as a source it invested 13.2 billion dollars abroad in Greenfield projects during 2014. However, India was way behind China that attracted 77.4 billion US dollars during the same period.

• Veteran journalist, columnist and peace activist Praful Bidwai was on 23 June 2015 passed away in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He was 65.
• Born in Nagpur, he worked in the Times of India for many years as a Senior Assistant Editor before embarking on a freelance career that made his byline a household name across India.
• He wrote a regular column for Frontline and Hindustan Times for several years besides other magazines and newspapers published across India and the World.
• He was also an anti-nuclear activist and a founding member of Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace that was set up after the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests.
• He authored several books, including South Asia on a Short Fuse: Nuclear Politics and the Future of Global Disarmament (1999), New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament (co-authored with Achin Vanaik in 2002) and the Politics of Climate Change and Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future (2012).

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