Current Affairs Update – 10th July, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 10th July, 2015. These are important for the upcoming SBI PO Mains and RBI Assistant 2015 Exam.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 9 July 2015 released the
  final guidelines on Prepaid Payment Instruments for Mass Transit System
  (PPI-MTS). The issued guidelines enable the issuance of a separate category of
  semi-closed prepaid payment instruments for mass transit systems.
• The PPI-MTS will enhance commuter convenience and will also
  facilitate the migration to electronic payments in line with the country’s
  vision of moving to a less-cash society.
• The PPI-MTS can be used within the mass transit systems and
  will have a minimum validity of six months from date of issue. Such PPIs will
  be reloadable instruments subject to an outstanding limit of 2000 rupees at any
  point of time.
• Apart from the mass transit system, such PPI-MTS can be used
  at other merchants whose activities are allied to or are carried on within the
  premises of the transit system.

• Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) today said it has
  signed a multilateral agreement to cooperate with New Development Bank (NDB)
  along with other member development banks of BRICS nations.
• New Development Bank (NDB) is promoted by the BRICS nations
  — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
• The agreement was signed between Exim Bank Chairman and
  Managing Director Yaduvendra Mathur and Chairpersons or Presidents of other
  member development banks of BRICS in Ufa, Russia during the BRICS Summit 2015,
  a bank release said.
• Exim Bank also signed a cooperation agreement with Brazilian
  Development Bank (BNDES).
• This MoU is aimed at sharing of knowledge, information and
  best practices; capacity building of personnel, including project development
  skills; promotion of joint events, research and programmes; development of
  effective and sustainable financing solutions for projects of mutual interest.

• E-commerce has overtaken banking and financial services
  (BFSI) as the second largest occupier of office space in India after
  information technology (IT), said global property consultants CBRE.
• A key development witnessed in the second quarter (Q2) is
  the spurt in office space leasing by online retail companies – Amazon, Flipkart
  and Snapdeal – particularly in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Bengaluru.
• “This led to the sector emerging as the second-largest
  occupier of office space during Q2 with a share of about 17 per cent, followed
  by banking and financial services at around 16 per cent. With a share of
  approximately 36 per cent, IT/ITeS remained the largest occupier of office
  space across the leading cities – Chennai, NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkatta
  and Bengaluru,” said Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and Managing Director of CBRE,
  South Asia.
• The total office space absorption for the January-June
  period stood at about 13 million square feet, a decline of 12 per cent when
  compared to H1 2014.
• As for transaction activity, it was mostly led by office
  leasing in Bengaluru (28 per cent), Delhi NCR (23 per cent) and Mumbai (20 per
  cent); while smaller cities such as Chennai and Pune contributed around 25 per
  cent in their transaction market shares.
• Leasing activity rebounded in Q2 with more than 8 million
  square feet of office space absorbed across the seven cities – Chennai, NCR,
  Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata and Bengaluru. Quarter-on-quarter basis it has
  risen 70 per cent.

• Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) today decided to
  include India as a full member, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to offer
  to work with the six-member grouping to enhance connectivity, combat terror and
  create an environment for boosting trade by easing barriers.
• India, which has an Observer status for the past 10 years,
  will technically become the member by next year after completion of certain
  procedures.
• Beijing-based SCO currently has China, Russia, Kazakhstan,
  Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan as members.
• Along with India, the process to include Pakistan as a
  member was also initiated here today.
• India was made an Observer in the SCO in 2005 and it made an
  application last year for full membership of the grouping whose focus is on
  connectivity, counter-terrorism cooperation, bolstering cooperation in energy
  sector, enhancing trade and dealing with drug trafficking.

• Defence PSU Bharat Electronics made Akash inducted into
  Indian Air Force.
• BEL, the nodal agency and supplies major sub-systems, today
  at a ceremony held at Air Force Station, Gwalior, handed over the missile
  system.
• Akash is a great success story of the ‘Make in India’
  initiative and Bharat Electronics Limited is proud to be a part of it. Barring
  a few electronic components, every bit of Akash has the ‘Made in India’ tag.
  Almost 92 per cent of the total cost of inputs is sourced within India.
• The induction of Akash into the Indian Air Force was marked
  by the symbolic handing over of the ‘key’ of the weapon system by S K Sharma,
  Chairman and Managing Director, BEL, to the Defence Minister, Manohar Parrikar,
  who in turn handed over the key to Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, Chief of the
  Air Staff.
• S Christopher, Director General, DRDO, was present. The
  ceremony was also attended by senior dignitaries of the Ministry of Defence,
  Indian Air Force, DRDO and Defence PSUs.

• An Earthquake Warning System (EWS) was successfully
  installed in Uttarakhand, Dehradun in the first week of July 2015. With this,
  Uttarakhand became first Indian state to install a system that can detect
  earthquakes and disseminate warnings.
• The system was designed and manufactured by Italian firm
  Space Dynamics which already installed this system in Japan, Italy and US. The
  system will issue warnings 1-40 seconds before the occurrence of earthquakes of
  magnitude 5 or more.
• According to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS),
  Uttarakhand falls under Seismic Zone –V, which is a zone of high seismic
  activity with magnitude of 6.9 or greater on Richter scale. Apart from it,
  Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Rann of Kutch (Gujarat), Northern Bihar
  and Andaman & Nicobar Islands also fall under this seismic zone.

• India and the USA on 30 June 2015 signed a Memorandum of
  Understanding (MoU) on cooperation to establish the PACESetter Fund in New
  Delhi.
• The agreement was signed by Upendra Tripathy, Secretary,
  Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and Richard Verma, United States
  Ambassador to India.
• The PACESetter Fund is meant to support the Promoting Energy
  Access Through Clean Energy (PEACE) track of the USA-India Partnership to
  Advance Clean Energy (PACE).
• It was established with a corpus of about 50 crore rupees
  with both the countries contributing equally.
• To oversee the fund, a steering Committee comprising the
  Secretary of the MNRE and the United States Ambassador to India, and three
  representatives from each side has been constituted.

• It is a flagship initiative on clean energy that combines
  the resources of several U.S. agencies and GOI Ministries.
• It is aimed accelerating the commercialization of off-grid
  clean energy through early-stage grant funding grants to develop and test innovative
  products, systems and business models.

• The seventh BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
  Africa) summit was held from 8 to 9 July 2015 in the Russian city of Ufa in
  Bashkortostan. It was held under the theme BRICS Partnership – a Powerful
  Factor of Global Development.
• The summit was attended by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi
  and Dilma Rousseff, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Jacob Zuma president of
  Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa respectively.
• At the end of the summit, Ufa Declaration was released by
  the leaders that called for enhanced coordinated efforts in responding to
  emerging challenges, ensuring peace and security, promoting development in a
  sustainable way among the member countries.
• Besides the BRICS summit level meeting, the leaders held a
  summit with the members of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the
  Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 9 July 2015 proposed a 10
  point initiative named as ‘Dus Kadam: 10 Steps for the Future’ to boost
  cooperation within the members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and
  South Africa).
• He proposed the initiative while addressing the 7th BRICS
  summit in Ufa, Russia.

1. BRICS Trade Fair (to be held during India’s chairmanship in
   2016)
2. BRICS Railway Research Centre
3. Cooperation among Supreme Audit Institutions
4. BRICS Digital Initiative
5. BRICS Agricultural Research Centre
6. BRICS state/Local Government’s Forum
7. Cooperation among cities in field of Urbanisation
8. BRICS Sports Council and Annual BRICS Sports Meet
9. First Major Project of NDB to be in field of Clean Energy
10. BRICS Film Festival

• Bandhan Bank Ltd on 9 July 2015 appointed its Chairman and
  Board of Directors. The bank will commence its operations in India from 23
  August 2015. It will be the first bank to be established in Eastern India post
  Independence.
• Ashok Kumar Lahiri, former Chief Economic Adviser to the
  Union Government, was appointed as the Chairman of the bank. While, Chandra
  Shekhar Ghosh, Founder of Bandhan Financial Services Ltd, was appointed as the
  Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank. They both will be in
  the board of directors as well.

• B. Sambamurthy, former Chairman and Managing Director of
  Corporation Bank
• C M Dixit, Senior Partner at GD Apte & Co
• Prof Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Associate Professor of
  Finance at Indian School of Business
• Snehomoy Bhattacharya, Former Executive Director (Corporate
  Affairs) of Axis Bank
• Pradip Kumar Saha, former Chief General Manager at Small
  Industries Development Bank of India
• Sisir Kumar Chakrabarti, former Dy. Managing Director of
  Axis Bank
• Bhaskar Sen, former Chairman and Managing Director of United
  Bank of India
• TS Raji Gain, Chief General Manager of National Bank for
  Agriculture and Rural Development

• Realty portal Housing.Com has appointed Rishabh Gupta as
  interim CEO after it sacked co-founder and ex-CEO Rahul Yadav last week.
• Gupta, who is currently Chief Operating Officer (COO) in the
  SoftBank-backed portal, has been named as interim CEO with immediate effect,
  sources said.
• Rishabh Gupta, Haresh Chawla and Abhishek Anand (Chief
  Technical Officer) will be joining the company’s operating committee, they
  added.
• On July 1, Housing.Com’s board had sacked Yadav with
  immediate effect, saying that his behaviour towards investors and media was not
  “befitting” of a CEO.
• The company had also said that Yadav would not be an
  employee or part of the portal in any manner.
• The board had unanimously agreed to bring Yadav’s tenure to
  a close, with reference to “his behaviour towards investors, ecosystem and
  the media”.

• Mumbai City FC were successful with a 1.20-crore-bid for
  Sunil Chetri, resulting in a pairing of India’s leading striker with French ace
  Nicolas Anelka, the IS franchise player-manager in Hero ISL 2015.
• Chetri, commanding the highest base price of Rs. 80 lakh in
  the 10-player auction at a city hotel on Friday, was a Free Agent and will be
  playing the ISL for the first time. He starred in the Bengaluru FC forwardline
  last season in the I-League.
• Midfielder Eugeneson Lyngdoh got the next best bid, Rs. 1.05
  crore against a base price Rs. 27.50 lakh and will represent FC Pune City. He
  was loaned to the ISL from Bengaluru FC.
• Athletico de Kolkata, the ISL 2014 champion side, signed up
  defender Rino Anto, bidding Rs. 90 lakh against a base price of Rs 17.5 lakh,
  the lowest priced among Indian internationals put up for auction. He was loaned
  by Bengaluru FC.

• Noted Urdu poet and critic Bashar Navaaz passed away on 9
  July 2015 following a brief illness in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. He was 80. He
  was known as an Indo Pak shayar as his poetry is popular in India as well as in
  Pakistan.
• Born on 18 August 1935 at Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Navaaz
  was famous for his writings that were regularly published in various Urdu
  literary journals magazines in India and abroad. His books Rayagan, Ajanabee
  samandar were very popular among gazal lovers.

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