Current Affairs Update – 10th March, 2015

• 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.

• 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.

• 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 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 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 (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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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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