Current Affairs Update – 11th August, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 11th August, 2015. These are important for the upcoming OICL Assistant, Insurance Exams and IBPS RRB 2015.

• ICICI Bank has launched its ‘Saral-Rural Housing Loan’ at
  base rate of 9.7 per cent for borrowers from the rural areas.
• “Applicants from rural areas, including women borrowers, can
  now avail of home loans at the ICICI Bank Base Rate (‘I-Base’), which is
  currently at 9.70 per cent. An eligible borrower can take up to Rs. 15 lakh,” ICICI
  Bank said in a statement.
• Customers can avail of loans to purchase or construct or
  renovate a home in the rural areas. The loan would range from Rs. 5-15 lakh for
  a period of 3–20 years and the loan could be up to 90 per cent of the property
  value.
• The offer would be available in 189 cities across the
  country.

• Search engine giant Google Inc on 10 August 2015 launched a
  new parent company called Alphabet Inc that separates its highly profitable search
  and advertising business.
• The new parent company was formed as part of Google’s new
  organisational structure which will help the company to keep tremendous focus
  on the extraordinary opportunities and products.
• With this, Google will be replaced by Alphabet Inc as the
  publicly-traded entity and all its shares will automatically converted into the
  of shares of new parent entity with same rights. Alphabet Inc will comprise of
  the search engine unit and all other subsidiaries.

• Social networking major Facebook has given benefits of
  around $21 million to Indian developers as part of its FbStart initiative. This
  is part of the $50 million worth of benefits the company, which has more than
  70 per cent of its developers outside the U.S., is distributing in the
  Asia-Pacific region.
• FbStart is a programme launched last year to help
  early-stage mobile start-ups build and grow their applications. Under this,
  Facebook runs two tracks called ‘Accelerate companies’ and ‘Bootstrap
  companies’ and for which it will provide software and tools worth $80,000 and
  $30,000 respectively to developers.
• As part of its plan to reach developers across the world,
  FbStart is being organised across 20 cities to meet mobile developers. In the
  Asia-Pacific region, FbStart was organised in countries like Hong Kong, South
  Korea, Taiwan and India.
• In India, the event is being organised in Bengaluru and
  Gurgaon. In Asia, Facebook has more than 1,000 members as part of the FbStart
  programme.

• As the new CEO of a re-organised Google, India-born Sundar
  Pichai has joined an elite league of over a dozen Indian origin persons holding
  top posts at global corporations with collective turnover of about $400
  billion.
• In a significant restructuring at Google, Pichai has been
  named the new CEO of the technology giant after the company co-founder Larry
  Page announced the formation of a new umbrella firm Alphabet, of which Google
  will be a part. Page himself will be Alphabet CEO.
• Pichai, 43, has joined the league of Indra Nooyi, Lakshmi
  Mittal, Ajay Banga, among many other Indian-origin persons at the helm at large
  conglomerates headquartered abroad.
• There are many other Indians heading the businesses at
  relatively smaller companies abroad, especially in IT sector, but at least 12
  large companies have got India-born chief executives.
• These include Microsoft (Satya Nadella), PepsiCo (Indra
  Nooyi), ArcelorMittal (Lakshmi Mittal), Diageo (Ivan Menezes), Reckitt
  Benckiser (Rakesh Kapoor), MasterCard (Ajay Banga), DBS Group Holdings (Piyush
  Gupta), SanDisk (Sanjay Mehrotra), Global Foundries (Sanjay Jha), Cognizant
  (Francisco Dsouza) and Adobe (Shantanu Narayen).

• Larsen and Toubro today said it has appointed former Infosys
  executive Sanjay Jalona as the Managing Director and CEO of its IT arm, L&T
  Infotech.
• Jalona will operate out of L&T Infotech’s office in New
  Jersey, USA.
• His appointment adds thrust to L&T Infotech’s plans to
  boost profitable growth and strengthen its presence in the Americas, Europe,
  GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries and the Far East, the company said in
  a statement.
• Prior to joining the country’s sixth largest IT services
  firm, Jalona was with Infosys as Executive Vice-President and global head of
  High-Tech Manufacturing and Engineering Services.
• During his 15-year stint with Infosys, he has held senior
  leadership positions across the US, Europe and India.

• The indigenous Titanium Sponge Plant at Chavara in Kerala
  has been fully commissioned and has started commercial production required for
  space applications, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said today.
• ISRO took the initiative to set up a Titanium Sponge Plant
  (TSP) in the country to meet the requirements in strategic areas, says the space
  research body’s website.
• The annual requirement of titanium sponge for space
  programme is approximately 200-300 metric tonnes. ISRO’s Vikram Sarabhai Space
  Centre has established a dedicated 500 MT per annum plant at M/s Kerala
  Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML), Chavara, Kollam district, it added.
• The plant is set up to enhance the production capacity to
  1,000 tonnes per annum in future, it said, adding that this is the only
  integrated plant in the world that undertakes all activities right from mining
  of Ti minerals to manufacturing of aerospace grade Ti sponge under one roof.

• Kochi on 10 August 2015 became the first Indian city to be a
  member of Beijing headquartered World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) Council
  and join its league of leading tourism cities across the world.
• The invitation to Kochi to be the member of the council was
  sent to Kerala Tourism Department by WTCF, which was formally accepted by the
  department. The membership acceptance document was handed over to Chinese
  Ambassador to India Le Yucheng by the Kochi Mayor Tony Chammany.
• Kochi became the member of the council on ground of its
  partnerships in culture, sports and tourism. Kochi’s cuisine, martial arts and
  snake and dragon boat races fulfil the set ground for membership.

• The Union Minister for Minority Affairs Najma Heptulla on 8
  August 2015 launched a new Central Sector Scheme Nai Manzil in Patna.
• The scheme will address educational and livelihood needs of
  minority communities in general and muslims in particular as it lags behind
  other minority communities in terms of educational attainments.

• The scheme gives a new direction and a new goal for the all
  out of school or dropped out students and those studying in Madrasas. It is so
  because they will not be getting formal Class XII and Class X Certificates
  rendering them largely un employed in organised sector.
• The Nai Manzil scheme is aimed at this target group as an
  integrated intervention in terms of providing education as well as skill
  development.
• It aims at providing educational intervention by giving the
  bridge courses to the trainees and getting them Certificates for Class XII and
  X from distance medium educational system.
• It will also provide them trade basis skill training in 4
  courses including Manufacturing, Engineering, Services and Soft skills.
• The scheme is intended to cover people in between 17 to 35
  age group from all minority communities as well as Madrasa students.
• It will provide avenues for continuing higher education and
  also open up employment opportunities in the organised sector.

• Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on 10 August 2015 launched
  new train services in the Northeast after the completion of North
  Lakhimpur-Murkongselek and Balipara- Bhalukpong sections into broad-gauge. He
  launched the service through video-conferencing from New Delhi.
• Prabhu described the occasion as a Golden Day in the history
  of Arunachal Pradesh and flagged off few train on the occasion.

• Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on 10 August 2015
  launched a new mobile app named Disha to promote digital literacy in Bihar. The
  app aims to help people learn about computers and Internet through self
  learning modules.
• The app also aims to offer digital literacy to tribal and
  Dalit women in the state. The app can be downloaded for free from the Google
  Play Store.
• The Ministry also launched Disha handbook that has
  pictographic lessons on computers operations. The Disha handbook is framed by
  the Common Service Centres (CSCs) for the purpose of digital literacy.
• The book was composed to ensure that anyone with little or
  no digital literacy can also learn using this book. This initiative is aimed at
  spreading digital literacy in women from tribal and Dalit background in Bihar.

• International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was
  observed on 9 August 2015 with the theme Post 2015 Agenda: Ensuring indigenous
  peoples’ health and well-being.
• This year’s theme puts a spotlight on the issue of
  indigenous peoples’ access to health care services, as improving indigenous
  peoples’ health remains a critical challenge for indigenous peoples, Member
  States and the United Nations.
• The State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Volume II was
  launched at the UN

• The World Bio-Fuel Day was observed across the world on 10
  August 2015. The day is observed every year with an aim to create awareness
  about non fossil-fuels (Green Fuels).
• On 10 August 1893, Sir Rudalph Diesel (inventor of the
  diesel engine) for the first time successfully ran mechanical engine with
  Peanut Oil. His research experiment had predicted that vegetable oil is going
  to replace the fossil fuels in the next century to fuel different mechanical
  engines.
• Thus to mark this extraordinary achievement, World Bio-fuel
  Day is observed every year on 10th August.

• President of India, Pranab Mukherjee on 10 August 2015
  presented the 24th Saraswati Sammaan for the year 2014 to Dr. M Veerappa Moily,
  Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) in New Delhi. He received the award for his
  epic Sri Ramayana Mahanveshanam written in Kannada.
• Divided into five volumes, Ramayana Mahanveshanam was first
  published in 2007 in Kannada. Later the poem was translated into English,
  Hindi, Telugu and Tamil.
• Moily’s work was selected for the award in March 2015 by a
  13-member panel of scholars and writers headed by former Chief Justice of India
  RC Lahoti.

• Senior India hockey player Gurbaj Singh was on 10 August
  2015 suspended for 9 months for indulging in groupism and creating disharmony
  within the team.
• This suspension means that Gurbaj will be unable to play for
  India till 9 May 2016. It may shatter the midfielder’s dream of playing in 2016
  Rio Olympics.
• The decision to suspend Gurbaj was taken after a meeting of
  Hockey India’s disciplinary committee headed by Harbinder Singh with the
  midfielder and former India coach Jude Felix. The coach levelled the charges
  against Gurbaj in his report after July 2015 Hockey World League Semifinals in
  Antwerp, Belgium.

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