Current Affairs Update – 11th March, 2015

• Just within fifteen days of presenting the Railway Budget
  2015-16, the Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu fulfilled yet another
  commitment of his Budget announcement by achieving the highest ever funding of Rs
  1.5 lakh crore for Railways.
• A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the
  Ministry of Railways and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). Under this MoU, LIC
  will make available to the Ministry of Railways/its entities a Financial
  Assistance with a limit of 1,50,000 crore over the next five years for
  implementing Railway projects. The Financial Assistance will be available from
  the Financial Year 2015-16.
• In his Budget Speech, Suresh Prabhu had announced his
  intention of meeting a part of the total Plan Budget of Rs 1,00,011 crore for
  the financial year 2015-16, through extra budgetary resources, such as market
  borrowings by tapping low cost long-term funds. The challenge has been
  successfully met in a substantial measure by the signing of this MoU for
  mobilizing resources.
• There would be a five-year moratorium on interest and loan
  repayment and the rest of the terms would be negotiated while signing the
  finance assistance agreement.

• Terming Indian economy a “bright spot” on the
  global economic landscape, IMF today raised its growth forecast for the current
  fiscal to 7.2 per cent, even as it called for steps to revitalise the
  investment cycle and accelerate structural reforms in the country.
• In its annual assessment report for the country, the
  International Monetary Fund (IMF) also said India has emerged as one of the
  fastest-growing big emerging market economies and the growth rate would further
  accelerate to 7.5 per cent in the next fiscal, 2015-16.
• The new forecasts have taken into account a revised methodology
  adopted by India earlier this year for calculating the GDP figures, about which
  IMF said that the country has “improved the way it measures economic
  output”.
• The new methodology, however, has been termed as ‘puzzling’
  initially by some including Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and RBI
  Governor Raghuram Rajan. Incidentally, both Subramanian and Rajan have been
  with IMF in the past.
• Last year, IMF had forecasted a growth rate of 5.6 per cent
  for the current fiscal, and 6.4 per cent for the next.

• Union Ministry of Corporate Affairs on 10 March 2015 released
  data of top ten Corporate of 2014. The pack of top ten corporate comprises of
  eight public sector undertakings and two private sector undertakings.
• In term of assets, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is the
  largest corporate with assets worth 3.68 lakh crore rupees. RIL is followed by
  state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) with assets worth 2.52 lakh crore
  rupees and mortgage lender Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) with assets
  worth 2.25 lakh crore rupees.
• Other entities in the top ten are Power Finance Corporation
  (4), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) (5), Rural Electrification
  Corporation (devil), Power Grid Corporation (7), LIC Housing Finance (music),
  Steel Authority of India Limited (9) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (10).

• Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, industrialist Kumar
  Mangalam Birla, ex-coal secretary P C Parakh and three others were today
  summoned as accused by a special court in a coal scam case pertaining to the
  allocation of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 and asked to appear
  before it on April 8.
• Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar summoned the six accused
  on April 8 for the alleged offences punishable under Sections 120-B (criminal
  conspiracy) and 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker,
  merchant or agent) of the IPC and under the provisions of the Prevention of
  Corruption Act (PCA).
• The court also summoned Hindalco, its officials Shubhendu
  Amitabh and D Bhattacharya as accused in the case.
• If convicted, the accused are liable to be sentenced for a
  maximum of life imprisonment.
• The case pertains to the allocation of Talabira-II coal
  block in Odisha to Hindalco in 2005, when the then Prime Minister Singh was
  holding the coal portfolio.

• Seeking to expand its footprint in the strategic Indian
  Ocean, India today agreed to help Seychelles in mapping its hydrology reserves
  under four agreements signed during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
  who launched a coastal surveillance radar project to boost security cooperation
  with the island nation.
• The Prime Minister also announced that India will give a
  second Dronier aircraft to Seychelles and provide free of cost visas for three
  months for its citizens and making it available to them on arrival.
• After one-to-one and delegation-level talks with Seychelles
  President James Alix Michel, Modi, the first Indian Prime Minister to visit
  Seychelles in 34 years, also said they underlined the importance of
  comprehensive cooperation in the Indian Ocean region.

• Parliament today gave nod to a Bill seeking to pave the way
  for plying of e-rickshaws on the roads of the national capital region, with the
  government considering a proposal to provide credit to buy these battery-
  operated vehicles.
• The Rajya Sabha passed the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill,
  2015 to amend the 1988 Act by a voice vote. The measure was adopted by the Lok
  Sabha on March 3.
• Replying to the debate on the Motor Vehicles (Amendment)
  Bill, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said not only would
  the poor benefit from it but it would give a boost to ‘Make in India’
  initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the battery-operated vehicle was
  now being manufactured indigenously.
• The vehicle, which was at one point being shipped in from
  China, would not be imported any longer as a “Pune-based company is now
  manufacturing the vehicles. It will be made in India as part of the ‘Make in
  India’ initiative.”

• ​WWF India and Tata Capital Housing Finance Ltd have
  announced a partnership to support conservation programmes for three critically
  endangered species — the great Indian bustard, greater one-horned rhinoceros,
  and red panda.
• Both the organisations will jointly raise awareness, conduct
  biological surveys, and work with local communities to reduce their dependence
  on forest resources, Tata Capital said in a release.
• The target areas include the Desert National Park in
  Jaisalmer and Barmer (Rajasthan) for the great Indian bustard,
  Laokhowa-Borachapori Wildlife Sanctuary (Assam) for the greater one-horned
  rhinoceros and Shergaon (Arunachal Pradesh) for the red panda.​

• U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated veteran diplomat
  David Hale as the next ambassador to Pakistan.
• A career foreign service official, Mr.Hale is currently the
  U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, a position he has held since 2013.
• Mr. Obama named him for the post on Tuesday and if confirmed
  by the Senate, Mr. Hale would replace Cameron Munter.
• Mr. Hale previously served as the Special Envoy for Middle
  East Peace from 2011 to 2013, and as Deputy Special Envoy for Middle East Peace
  from 2009 to 2011.
• Hale served as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan from 2005 to 2008.

• Three Indian-Americans have won medals at the prestigious
  Intel Science Talent Search for the year 2015, and alongside other winners,
  today they will get a chance to meet President Barack Obama at the White House.
• The trio, Saran Prembabu, Shashwat Kishore and Anvita Gupta
  yesterday won medals at the competition, however none of the three could get
  the top award, which has been dominated in previous years by Indian-Americans.
• Noah Golowich, Andrew Jin and Michael Hofmann Winer, each
  received the first-place award of USD 150,000 at the Intel science competition,
  a program of Society for Science & the Public, the organisers said.
• The top winners and other finalists from across the US took
  home awards totalling over USD 1 million.

• Visit Britain, the National tourism agency of Britain on 10
  March 2015 roped in Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan to promote an India-centric
  campaign, Bollywood Britain.
• The agency through this campaign wants to focus on locations
  featured in Hindi films to attract more Indian visitors. It also wants to
  popularise Wales, Scotland and other destinations, which are not so popular
  among Indian tourists.
• With this, Khan has joined the list of Indian celebrities
  promoting tourist destinations. Other Bollywood actors promoting tourist
  destinations include Amitabh Bachchan (Gujarat), Akshay Kumar (Canada) and Dia
  Mirza (Japan).

• Sri Lanka’s batsman Kumar Sangakkara on 11 March 2015
  entered the record books by scoring four consecutive centuries in a Cricket
  World Cup. He achieved the feat when he scored 124 runs against Scotland in the
  Pool A match of the 2015 Cricket World Cup in Hobart, New Zealand.
• With this, he became the first cricketer to achieve this
  feat in the One Day Internationals (ODI) history.
• The 37 year old left-hander’s 124 runs in the match helped
  Sri Lanka to post 364 runs victory target for Scotland.
• With five World Cup centuries, Sangakarra is second only to
  the record of six centuries held by Sachin Tendulkar.

• Pramod Kumar Gupta has been appointed as Officer on Special
  Duty (OSD) to Minister of State for Textiles, Santosh Kumar Gangwar.
• Gupta is presently serving as a Senior Manager in Engineers
  India Limited.
• He has been appointed for a period of about one year and six
  months or on coterminous basis with the minister’s tenure, said an order issued
  by the Department of Personnel and Training.
• Officer on Special Duty (OSD) is an IAS officer who in on
  central deputation and works in a particular ministry.

• 1998 Asian Games gold-medallist Dingko Singh on 10 March
  2015 was included in National Boxing Selection panel. The goal of the panel
  will be to pick a bunch that can deliver medals at the Olympics.
• Currently, Dingko Singh is working as a coach at the Imphal
  centre of the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
• The 10-member selection panel will be headed by Arjuna awardee
  Gopal N Devang and it comprises of few Boxing India officials and all the
  national coaches as additional invitees. The selection panel will remain in
  office till 2016.

• Veteran sports journalist K Baskaran, who had carved a niche
  for himself in covering Indian football for four decades, died here today after
  a bout of illness.
• He was 80 and is survived by his wife, a son and three
  daughters.
• Baskaran, a dedicated sports scribe, had reported on most
  games in his long career working for Free Press Journal, Indian Express,
  Newsday (defunct) and then the Times of India where he spent the better part of
  his career — lasting more than 25 years — before being superannuated.
• He also authored a book on football, Wills Book of Football.

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