Current Affairs Update – 10th March, 2015


           Today’s Topics

   •  RBI
   •  Business
   •  India
   •  World
   •  Awards
   •  Sports



RBI


RBI’s net dollar
purchases rise to near 7-year high

  • The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) net dollar purchases from
    the spot market rose to a near seven-year high in January 2015 to $12.14
    billion, a level last seen in January 2008 amounting to $13.63 billion.
  • In a bid to keep comfortable liquidity in the system in the
    fourth quarter, RBI had started making dollar purchases more from the spot
    market than what they were doing earlier. Net dollar purchases of RBI stood at $6.74
    billion in December 2014.
  • Under the intervention strategies in the spot market transactions
    the settlement happens in two days which means when dollar is bought from the
    sport market the rupee liquidity flows within two days. When the intervention
    is done through forwards contracts there is no immediate rupee liquidity
    flowing into the system due to dollar purchases.

Business
DLF ties up with
Snapdeal to sell flats online
  • With e-commerce business growing in India, realty major DLF
    has tied-up with online market place Snapdeal to sell its apartments and would
    offer 1 per cent discount to potential home buyers.
  • DLF will offer on Snapdeal about 50 flats in eight housing
    projects across the country in a price range of Rs 34 lakh to Rs 3 crore.
  • Customers of the country’s largest realty player will be
    able to buy flats at Rs 30,000 booking amount on the Snapdeal. The offer is
    likely to start this week.
  • These flats are in projects located at New Chandigarh,
    Panchkula, Lucknow, Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi and Kolkata.
  • This is the first time DLF is having a tie-up with an
    e-commerce firm.
  • Earlier, Tata Housing had tied up with Google, Snapdeal, and
    Housing.com, while Puravankara had tied up with Google and realty portal 99
    acres.com. Godrej Properties, too, had tied up with Snapdeal to offer online
    booking of its projects.

India
Land bill passed in
Lok Sabha
  • The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed far-reaching amendments to
    the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition law, amidst
    walk-out by several opposition parties including Congress, Samajwadi Party,
    Biju Janata Dal and Trinamool Congress.
  • As many as nine significant including some controversial
    amendments were made to the law enacted by the UPA Government in 2013.
  • These changes are widely seen as a U-turn by the Government
    and those expected to serve the interests of the State and the land banks,
    rather than the farmers.
  • The far reaching amendments passed by the lower house today
    include doing away with consent clause and also the requirement of a social
    impact assessments before notification of the acquisition.
  • An amendment that would help remove the bottlenecks faced
    hitherto faced by industry in acquisition of multi-cropped irrigated land was
    also passed by Lok Sabha.
  • In another significant move, the Centre today dropped an
    earlier proposal that talked about government being required to acquire land
    for private hospitals and private educational institutions.
  • The 2013 law stipulates land acquisition for government
    projects and private companies only after securing 80 percent consent from
    farmers (70 percent in case of public private partnerships).
  • With both consent clause and the social impact assessment
    removed out of the way, many critics claimed that both the “heart and soul” of
    the land acquisition law was being removed and this step was totally
    “anti-farmer”.

Maharashtra launched
Bhagyashree scheme for girl child
  • Maharashtra Government on 8 March 2015 launched Bhagyashree
    scheme for girl child. The scheme replaced Sukanya scheme.
  • As per the scheme, the state government will deposit an
    amount of 21200 rupees in bank for a girl child born in a Below the Poverty
    Line (BPL) family.
  • The Bhagyashree scheme aims at providing one lakh rupee on
    maturity after the girl completes 18 years of age.
  • The scheme was launched by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra
    Devendra Fadnavis in the presence of Bollywood actress Bhagyashree.  Bollywood actress Bhagyashree is the brand
    ambassador of the scheme.

Prime Minister
launched India’s first indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine Rotavac
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 9 March 2015 launched the
    first indigenously developed Rotavirus vaccine named Rotavac. This is the third
    such vaccine, besides GSK Rotarix and Merck’s RotaTeq available globally
    against Rotavirus.
  • The vaccine will boost India’s efforts to combat infant
    mortality due to diarrhea. The vaccine will be available at a price of 1 US
    dollar per dose making it the cheapest vaccine available for rotavirus
    globally.
  • Rotavac vaccine was developed under the public-private
    partnership (PPP) model that involved Union Ministry of Science and Technology,
    US’s National Institute of Health (NIH), NGOs in India supported by the Bill
    and Melinda Gates Foundation and Bharat Biotech India Limited (BBIL).

First Kisan Call
Centre of North-East opened in Agartala, Tripura
  • First Kisan Call Centre (KCC) of North-East was opened on 9
    March 2015 in Agartala, Tripura. The KCC was launched by the Tripura Chief
    Minister Manik Sarkar.
  • KCC was financed by the Tripura government. It will be run
    by a private enterprise with experts of agriculture, horticulture, fisheries
    and animal husbandry.
  • The Kisan Call Centre will give immediate solution and real
    time advisory to farmers if they need expert consultation regarding seed
    procurement, agro-metric, fertilizer, soil health, pesticides usage and
    marketing of the produces.

World

Pakistan successfully
test fires Shaheen-III missile

  • Pakistan test-fired its surface-to-surface ballistic missile
    Shaheen III,which is capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads upto
    a range of 2750-kilometers.
  • A Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) release said the
    test launch was aimed at validating various design and technical parameters of
    the weapon system at maximum range.
  • The successful launch was witnessed by senior officers from
    the Strategic Plans Division, strategic forces, scientists and engineers of
    strategic organizations.
  • Director General Strategic Plans Division, Lieutenant General
    Zubair Mahmood Hayat, while congratulating the scientists and engineers on
    achieving yet another milestone of historic significance, termed it a major
    step towards strengthening Pakistan’s deterrence capability.

Awards
Veerappa Moily selected
for Saraswati Samman 2014

  • Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader M. Veerappa
    Moily on 9 March 2015 was selected for the prestigious Saraswati Samman for
    2014 for his Kannada poem Ramayana Mahanveshanam.
  • Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first
    published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English,
    Hindi, Telugu and Tamil.
  • The selection for the award was made by a 13-member panel of
    scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India RC Lahoti.

Sports
Dhoni equals Clive
Lloyd’s record of consecutive wins in World Cup

  • With nine straight World Cup wins under their belt, the
    Mahendra Singh Dhoni—led India stand only second to Ricky Ponting’s Australian
    side that registered 24 consecutive victories in the showpiece event.
  • India now stands second alongside Clive Lloyd’s West Indies
    in terms of consecutive victories in World Cup. The eight-wicket win against
    Ireland here today was India’s ninth in the quadrennial extravaganza, the run
    starting with the victory over the West Indies in the previous edition.
  • They comfortably took the top spot in pool B as Dhoni also
    overtook former captain Sourav Ganguly, who had led the Men in Blue to eight
    consecutive World Cup wins in the mega event.
  • It was against the West Indies on March 6 that Dhoni
    overtook Ganguly for most overseas ODI wins as a captain. Dhoni’s India
    surpassed Ganguly’s record of 58 wins in 110 matches, at the WACA last week.
  • Dhoni is also credited with most wins (12) by an Indian
    captain in World Cups. He has overtaken 1983 World Cup-winning skipper Kapil
    Dev (11), Mohammed Azharuddin (10) and Ganguly (9).

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