Current Affairs Update – 7th April, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the important current affairs of 7th April, 2015.

•  Short-term lending rate (repo) unchanged at 7.5%
•  Cash Reserve Ratio unchanged at 4%
•  Retains Statutory Liquidity Ratio at 21.5%
•  Estimates GDP growth at 7.8% in FY’16, up from 7.5% in FY’15
•  Forecasts CPI inflation at 5.8% by March 2016
•  CPI inflation to dip to 4% in August 2015
•  Hailstorms in March affected 17% of the rabi crop sown area
•  Future rate cuts will depend on interest rate reduction by banks
•  India better prepared to deal with volatility post US Federal Reserve rate action
•  State cooperative banks to be allowed to set up offsite/ mobile ATMs without prior approval from RBI
•  RBI to formulate scheme for market making by primary dealers in semi—liquid and illiquid G—Secs
•  Second bi-monthly policy statement on June 2

• Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on 6 April 2015 signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to deepen partnership between Indian companies and the bank in those countries where the bank has operations.
• It was signed by the CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee and EBRD Vice-President Phil Bennett at a session on Inclusive Business: The Way Forward as part of the National Conference and Annual Session 2015 held by the CII in New Delhi.
• Under the MoU, the EBRD countries of operations would benefit from the transfer of skills from world-class Indian companies. On the other hand, EBRD will be sharing its strong local knowledge with Indian companies that are either moving into the EBRD regions for the first time or which want to expand their operations in those countries.
• The bank has already made 1 billion US dollar investment together with Indian companies and the MoU will help to utilize huge untapped potential in the Indian private sector.

• Amendments to the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Bill, 2013, were approved by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday.
• The Bill is pending in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill paves the way for the creation of a regulator to protect home buyer interests as well as ensure accountability and transparency. With the amendments the provisions of the Bill are also applicable to commercial real estate.
• The Bill envisages setting up of one or more Regulatory Authorities in each State/UT or one Authority for two or more States/UT by the concerned Governments. Developers will be required to register their projects with the Regulatory Authorities and promoters will have to disclose all information regarding the promoters, project, layout plan, schedule of development works, land status, among others.
• The proposed amendments also dilute the provision that required the promoter to compulsorily deposit 70 per cent of the amount collected from consumers in a separate account in a scheduled bank within a period of 15 days to cover the cost of construction. Now, it has been proposed that the deposit amount will be 50 per cent of the money collected.
• The Bill provides that a promoter will need the consent of 2/3rd of consumers of a project to change plans/structural designs. Also, real estate agents have been made punishable for non-compliance of the orders of Regulatory Authority and Appellate Tribunals to be set up, the statement added.

• Yuvraj Singh, the Indian Premier League's costliest player this season, is starting a new innings as a businessman. He is floating a venture fund that aims to support young entrepreneurs by investing in startups across sectors.
• Yuvi for millions of his fans, the 34-year-old cricketer will put about Rs 50 crore - mostly his own money - over a period of three to five years in the fund, YouWeCan Ventures. The fund is expected to raise around Rs 300 crore from other investors during the period.
• Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has investments in several, mostly sports-related, businesses, but not through such a structured fund. Singh's idol, Sachin Tendulkar, had invested in restaurant business. Robin Uthappa has part-funded a startup, a Bengaluru-based tiffin service, but Singh's plan is much more elaborate. YouWeCan Ventures will primarily fund startups in healthcare, sports products, services and fashion, travel and tourism, hospitality and e-commerce.
• The plan is to offer seed capital ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh.

• Major Indian Steel Companies on 6 April 2015 signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Union Ministry of Steel for setting up of Steel Research and Technology Mission of India (SRTMI) in New Delhi.
• The primary objective of SRTMI is to promote collaborative Research and Development (R&D) programmes between the ministry and steel industries in priority areas of national importance in the steel sector.

• The mission aims at increasing investment on R&D in the steel sector from the present level of 0.2-0.3 to the international benchmark of 1-2 percent of the industry turnover.
• Under the mission R&D will be carried out in the areas including best usage of available raw materials in the country and conservation of natural resources, optimum energy conservation and minimum emissions, innovations and in-house development of design, engineering and manufacturing facilities of key steel plant equipments.
• The mission will be set up with an initial corpus of 200 crore rupees with equal contributions coming from the Steel Development Fund of the Ministry and the participating industries.
• The mission will be formed as a registered society in close cooperation amongst the participating steel companies, Union Ministry of Steel, academia and other institutions in the country.

• The Reserve Bank of India has allowed cross-holding of senior bonds of Indian lenders, subject to certain conditions including that the proceeds of such bonds should be used for financing of infrastructure and affordable housing.
• The central bank announced the decision in its first bi-monthly monetary policy statement today. Detailed guidelines will be issued shortly, the RBI said.
• As of today, banks' investment in these senior bonds will not be treated as "assets with the banking system in India", according to the RBI's policy statement.
• Also, the RBI will limit a bank's participation in a particular senior bond issue by prescribing certain limits. "Its aggregate holding of such bonds will also be subject to certain limits in relation to its own assets", the statement said.
• As banks were not allowed to invest in senior bonds, some of the early issuances faced investor restrictions and closed without exercise of the greenshoe options.

• Senior IAS officer Nilam Sawhney has been appointed as secretary, Central Vigilance Commission, replacing Alok Kumar who has been made Additional Secretary in Niti Aayog.
• Sawhney, a 1984 batch IAS officer, is presently serving in her cadre-- Andhra Pradesh.
• She has been appointed in the rank and pay of Additional Secretary for a period of four years from the date of assumption of charge of the post, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.
• Sawhney replaces her batch-mate Alok Kumar who has been appointed as Additional Secretary, NITI Aayog for the balance period of his central deputation tenure i.E. Upto December 13, 2016, it said.
• New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) chairperson Jalaj Shrivastava has been appointed as Additional Secretary in Department of Agriculture and Cooperation.

• National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 7 April 2015 banned all the diesel vehicles, heavy or light, over 10 years old from plying on Delhi roads.
• It asked the governments and concerned agencies to ensure within 20 hours that all entry points have units to check pollution levels, weight and age of vehicle.
• The ruling was given by a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar.
• In the order passed, the bench noted that a number of countries in the world are in the process or have prohibited diesel vehicles or are in the process of doing away with them by imposing very heavy taxes.  Some of these countries include Denmark, Brazil, China and Sri Lanka.

• The Chestnut-breasted Partridge (Arborophila mandellii) was photographed by a Bengaluru-based wildlife photographer Gururaj Moorching in the first week of April 2015. The bird was spotted in West Kamang district of Arunachal Pradesh.
• The click was the first-ever photograph of the bird endemic to the Eastern Himalayas whose scientific name was given by an Italian naturalist and is classified as hill patridge.
• Partridges are medium-sized ground-nesting birds of the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group. These birds are found in about 45 species and is categorised as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

• Piplantri Village of southern Rajasthan's Rajsamand district was in news in second week of March 2015. This village not only embraces daughters but also created a tradition of planting 111 trees every time on the birth of a girl child. The plants are planted in her honour.
• The village came into news, at the time when documentary India’s Daughters created national debate. The documentary portrayed violence against women like rape and abuse in India.
• The tradition was started by village’s former sarpanch Shyam Sundar Paliwal in 2006. He started the initiative in the memory of his daughter Kiran, who died a few years ago.

• Conservative US Senator Rand Paul announced today that he is running for his party's nomination for the 2016 presidential race, making him the second major Republican to join the contest.
• Paul, a conservative libertarian who was elected to the Senate in 2010 with strong support from the Tea Party movement, was expected to make a more formal announcement later in the day.
• He summoned supporters and reporters to a speech at 1600 GMT in Louisville, Kentucky, where he has served as senator since January 2011.
• Paul follows Texan Ted Cruz, who launched his candidacy two weeks ago with an appeal to religious right, among others.
• Jeb Bush, brother of former president George W. Bush, leads in opinion polls for the primary elections, although he has yet to officially announce his candidacy.

• Sri Lanka and Pakistan on 6 April 2015 signed six agreements. The signing of the agreement was witnessed by the Pakistan Prime Minsiter Nawaz Sharif and Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena at the PM House in Islamabad.
• The six agreements pertained to advancing cooperation in disaster management, sports, shipping, socio-economic development, education and narcotics control.

• Cooperation between Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and Atomic Energy Authority of Sri Lanka
• Agreement on cooperation against illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances
• Academic cooperation agreement on exchange and collaboration between National Defence University of Pakistan and Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies of Sri Lanka
• Mutual cooperation in shipping business between Pakistan National Shipping Corporation(PNSC) and the Ceylon Shipping Corporation Ltd (CSCL)
• Collaboration in the field of Sports
• Cooperation on disaster management

• A 116-year-old American woman, who became the world’s oldest person last week, has died after suffering complications from pneumonia.
• Gertrude Weaver from Arkansas became next in line to officially earn the title of oldest person when 117-year-old Misao Okawa of Japan died on Wednesday.
• Weaver fell sick on Saturday and died yesterday at Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation Centre. She is survived by her son, Joe Weaver, who turns 94 today.
• Weaver was fully aware of her unique place in the world and “knew everything”, Washington Post quoted Kathy Langley, administrator at the rehabilitation centre, as saying.
• The world’s oldest known person is now Jeralean Talley, who was born on May 23, 1899 and will turn 116 next month, according to the group.

• Sumit Mazumder, Chairman and Managing Director of TIL Ltd., succeeded Ajay Shriram as President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2015-16 here on Tuesday.
• A graduate of St Xavier’s College (Kolkata), Mazumder has a Master’s in Business Administration from Sam Houston State University, Texas, USA. He also undertook the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University. He is also the Executive Chairman of Tractors India Pvt. Ltd. which is a distributor for Caterpillar’s earthmoving, construction and mining equipment and power systems in India, Nepal and Bhutan.
• Naushad Forbes, Director, Forbes Marshall, takes over as President-designate of the industry body. He received his Bachelors, Master’s and PhD degrees from Stanford University and has also been a Lecturer and Consulting Professor at the university in the Science, Technology and Society program from 1987 to 2004.

• Padma Vibhushan Azim Premji was conferred with the CII President's Award at the CII National Conference and Annual Session 2015.
• CII recognized Premji for driving nation building across multiple dimensions of business, technology, community and society and shaping the human face of Indian industry.
• Wipro Group Chairman Premji, who has been at the helm of the company since the 1960s, has been instrumental in turning what was then a USD 2 million cooking fat company into a USD 7 billion IT/BPO and R&D services organisation with a presence in 60 countries.
• He guided Wipro through four decades of diversification and growth to emerge as one of the Indian leaders in the software industry, CII said, adding that Premji is known for striding into the world stage to deepen the global footprint of Indian business.

• World Health Day (WHD) 2015 was observed globally on 7 April 2015. The theme for the year is From farm to plate, make food safe.
• The theme was selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to bring focus on growing global burden of food borne diseases and underscore the need for coordinated cross-border action across the entire food supply chain i.e. from farm to plate.
• To mark the day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) conducted various programmes across the world in close cooperation with government agencies and civil society to spread awareness on food safety issues related to the entire spectrum of food supply chain.

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