Current Affairs Update – 9th June, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 9th June, 2015. These are Important for the upcoming SBI PO 2015 Mains Exam.

• The Finance Ministry on Tuesday reiterated that only air-conditioned or air-heated restaurants are required to pay service tax.
• “Restaurants, eating-joints or messes which do not have the facility of air-conditioning or central air-heating in any part of the establishment are exempt from service tax,” it said in a statement.
• At present, service tax is chargeable on services provided by restaurants, eating-joints or messes which have the facility of air-conditioning or central air-heating in any part of the establishment at any time during the year in relation to serving of food or beverages.
• The statement added that in respect to such air-conditioned or air-heated restaurants which are required to pay service tax, 60 per cent of the value is to be deducted from the total amount charged while applying the rate, and the tax is to be calculated on the balance.
• “With the increase in the rate of service tax to 14 per cent (subsuming the education cesses) with effect from June 1, 2015, the effective rate of tax will be 5.6 per cent of the total amount charged,” it said.
• Prior to June 1, when the rate of service tax was 12.36 per cent (including education cesses), the effective rate was 4.94 per cent.

• In a bid to go paperless, SBI Life Insurance today introduced ‘Connect Life’, a tablet-based service to digitise the entire documentation process.
• It begins with a built-in need analysis calculator that offers a customer the right products to choose from, filling the proposal form with a facility of paying premium and uploading necessary documents from the tablet. Distribution partners from all the sales channels of SBI Life can sell insurance products through this facility.
• Furthermore, SBI Life will give customers the option of registering for e-statements, accessing policy details and making renewal premium payments through technology tools. It has also partnered with all five insurance repositories thereby encouraging insurance digitisation in the country.

• ICICI Bank board has approved the appointment of M K Sharma as the new non-executive Chairman of the Board for a period of 5 years.
• MK Sharma was formerly the Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.
• Sharma will succeed KV Kamath, who would step down from the Board to take on a bigger role as the first President of New Development Bank, established by the BRICS nations.
• Sharma was an independent Director on the Board of ICICI Bank for eight years from 2003 to 2011 and is an independent director of several companies.
• At present, he is an independent Director of two subsidiaries of the Bank, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company and ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company.

• The Department of Financial Services of India has entrusted additional charge of Managing Director & CEO of Bank of India to B.P. Sharma, Executive Director of the bank.
• This appointment, which follows the superannuation of Vijayalakshmi R Iyer as Chairperson & Managing Director on May 31, is for a period of three months with effect from June 8 or till further appointment of regular MD & CEO or until further order, whichever is the earliest.
• The Government has further extended the term of Bank of Baroda’s (BoB) interim MD & CEO Ranjan Dhawan for three months.
• Dhawan, the senior-most Executive Director of BoB, was given this additional charge in February.
• This extension will take effect from June 8 and will be valid till the appointment of a regular MD & CEO or until further orders, BoB said in a BSE filing.
• The post of a full-time MD & CEO at BoB has been lying vacant since July 2014 when the then Chairman and Managing Director S S Mundra was appointed RBI Deputy Governor.

• Jind and Karnal districts of Haryana and Muzaffarnagar of Uttar Pradesh were included in National Capital Region on 9 June 2015.
• This inclusion was announced by Urban Development minister M Venkaiah Naidu after a meet of National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) meeting in New Delhi.
• The meeting was attended by Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and representatives and government officials of other member states. Delhi Health Minister Satyender Jain was representing Delhi government.
• Earlier on 1 July 2013, Bhiwani and Mahendragarh districts of Haryana and Bharatpur district of Rajasthan were included in the National Capital Region.

• Cyclonic storm ASHOBAA was in news on 8 June 2015 after it developed into a cyclonic storm from only a depression that formed over the Arabian Sea.
• The cyclone is centered at 17.9°N and 67.2°E and is lying about 590 km west-southwest of Mumbai and 470 km southwest of Veraval, Gujarat.
• According to Skymet Meteorology Division in India, the cyclone would carry heavy rainfall at most places over coastal Karnataka, Konkan and Goa as well as south Gujarat. It will also carry strong winds ranging 70 to 120 kilometers per hour.
• ASHOBAA is the first tropical storm of the pre-monsoon season in the Indian seas which developed into a cyclone after sustaining strength.

• The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) on 8 June 2015 signed a 5-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a long-term partnership for the involvement of youth in the abatement of pollution and conservation of the river Ganga.
• The MoU aims to involve youth in creating awareness and outreaching public by carrying out afforestation drive for medicinal plants species, promoting sanitation and construction of toilets and educating people for tackling throwing of wastes into the river.
• With the help of strong network of youths of NYKS, National Mission for Clean Ganga seeks to implement activities at local level that will encourage public participation and additionally, assist in restoring the health of Ganga river.

• Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari on 5 June 2015 inaugurated India’s first-of-its-kind Tier-I Oil Spill Response Centre (OSRC) for Mumbai Port Trust (MBT), Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and ONGC’s facilities at Nhava and Uran.
• The objective behind setting up the centre is to develop appropriate and effective systems for the detection and reporting of oil spillage in order to ensure adequate protection to the marine environment and public health.

• The OSRC is equipped with State-of-the-Art equipment in operational readiness for combating Tier-I oil spill up to 700 tones, ensuring adequate protection to the public health and welfare and to the marine environment.
• The facility is funded by Participating Oil Companies (POCs) and Mumbai Port Trust will be responsible for monitoring the centre.
• It will be monitored on 24/7 basis and is also equipped with skilled and trained personnel and wireless communication facilities for immediately responding to any oil spill.

• The country’s low-cost Mars mission, which is in rendezvous with the red planet for an extended period, has been presented with the space pioneer award for 2015 by the U.S. National Space Society.
• Space pioneer award for the year 2015 was presented to Indian Space Research Organisation in the Science and Engineering category during the 34th Annual International Space Development Conference held at Toronto in Canada during May 20-24, 2015, Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO said on its website.
• It said the NSS presented the award in recognition of ISRO’s efforts in accomplishing the Mars Mission in its very first attempt.
• Scripting space history, India on September 24, 2014 successfully placed its low-cost Mars spacecraft in orbit around the red planet in its very first attempt, breaking into an elite club of three — U.S., Russia and Europe — who have successfully undertaken missions to Mars or its orbit.

• Japanese rising star shuttler Kento Momota and Thailand's Ratchanok Intanon won the men’s and women’s singles respectively of the Indonesia Open Badminton tournament.
• Indonesia Open Badminton tournament was held at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, Jakarta, Indonesia. The total prize money at stake was 800000 US dollars.
• Kento Momota defeated Denmark's defending champion and third seed Jan O. Jorgensen 16-21, 21-19, 21-7.  Kento Momota is World No.9. This was the 20-year-old's second victory in a Super series event.

• Anantjeet Singh Naruka beat Lari Pesonen of Finland 12-11 in the skeet match for gold in the 7th International junior shotgun cup that concluded in Orimattila, Finland, on Sunday. After having qualified at the bottom with a modest score of 110, following rounds of 21, 22, 21, 25 and 21, Anantjeet kept getting better, as he wriggled his way through to the gold medal match by winning a three-way tie in the shoot-off to challenge the Finn.
• Compatriot Angadvir Singh Bajwa, who had topped the qualification with 119 following a series of 23, 24, 24, 24 and 24, won the shoot-off for the bronze medal 6-5 against Matteo Chiti of Italy.
• Angadvir and the Italian had shot three each in losing the shoot-off for the gold medal match with Anantjeet who shot 4, after the three were tied on 13 in the semifinals.

• World Ocean Day 2015 was celebrated across the world on 8 June 2015 with the theme Healthy oceans, Healthy planet.
• To mark the occasion, various events were organised across the globe to spread awareness about the importance of oceans in economic, Security and biological spheres and need to protect them from vulnerabilities.
• For the first time, World Ocean day was introduced in 1992 at Rio de Janeiro with a motive of raising awareness of people towards the crucial role that sea plays in our lives. The official designation of World Oceans Day is an opportunity to raise global awareness of the current challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans.

• Booker Prize awardee Amitav Ghosh on 7 June 2015 released his new novel Flood of fire. With the novel, he has concluded the Ibis trilogy, his fictional recreation of the events leading up to the first opium war of 1839-42.
• The Ibis trilogy is a work of historical fiction by Amitav Ghosh. It comprises Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011), and Flood of Fire (2015). The story is set in the first half of the 19th century. It deals with the trade of opium between India and China run by the East India Company and the trafficking of coolies to Mauritius.

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