Current Affairs Update – 12th January, 2016

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the important Current Affairs of 12th January, 2016. These are important for the upcoming LIC AAO 2016, Syndicate Manipal PO and SIDBI Assistant Manager Exam.

• SBI today said it is planning to monetise non-core assets
  and list some of its subsidiaries for meeting capital needs as well as global
  risk norms, Basel III, which will kick in from March 2019.
• Public sector banks need Rs 1.80 lakh crore to meet Basel III
  norms, while the government will provide only Rs 70,000 crore, SBI chairperson
  Arundhati Bhattacharya said, adding that the rest will have to be borne by
  banks through profits and non-core assets.
• The bank has already announced plans to lower its stake in
  insurance ventures — SBI Life Insurance and SBI General.
• In its life insurance venture, SBI proposes to sell up to 10
  per cent stake, while it may be about 23 per cent in case of its general
  insurance company. Ms. Bhattacharya said that individual banks are examining
  various ways through which they can raise the capital.
• Basel norms basically provide risk templates for banks and
  amount of capital it is required to keep against lending.

• PwC India has set up a centre of excellence (CoE) for
  forensics in Hyderabad.
• The CoE, with a trained team of over 100 professionals in
  India, plans to hire 150 more due diligence and anti-money laundering professionals
  in the next one year.
• This facility will provide clients with solutions related to
  anti-money laundering compliance, third-party due diligence, e-mail and
  document review, and investigation support.
• This will be first among the Big 4 to have a dedicated
  centre of excellence with capability to handle expertise in anti-money
  laundering, KYC, remediation and third-party due diligence.
• PwC is a network of firms in 157 countries with more than
  208,000 people.

• The Andhra Pradesh (AP) government signed 27 investment MoUs
  worth Rs 5,242 crore in tourism and hospitality sectors on the closing day of
  the CII Partnership Summit here today.
• Of these investment intents, the hotel sector alone
  accounted for MoUs worth of Rs 3,764 crore. Some of the private firms have
  signed MoUs to establish amusement parks, beach resorts, sea and river cruises
  and adventure tourism projects among other proposals.
• Among these projects, UK-based IvorySands has proposed to
  set up 100 hotels and 15 hospitality training academies at an investment of Rs
  2,500 crore in Andhra Pradesh.

• Telangana became the first State in India to introduce
  compulsory gender education at the graduate level.
• In this regard, the state in second week of January 2016
  introduced a bilingual textbook titled, Towards a World of Equals.
• The book was introduced on a pilot basis in engineering
  colleges affiliated to the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University
  (JNTU-Hyderabad).

• Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu on 11 January
  2016 inaugurated implementation of E-enabled Track Management System (TMS) and
  Mobile Application of TMS on Indian Railway at Rail Bhawan in New Delhi.
• Indian Railways brought in these initiatives to bring
  efficiency and effectiveness in management practices which involve handling of
  huge volumes of data statistics as well as dynamic analysis of various
  measurement and defects and planning, deployment of large resources.
• Along with these two initiatives, the minister also
  inaugurated pilot implementation of Track Inventory Management System on
  Northern Railway to track materials inventory, construction and track machines
  organization in entire 225 units of Northern Railway.

• The Nati folk dance of Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh in
  second week of January 2016 was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as
  the largest folk dance in the world.
• Nati entered in the book as the largest folk dance in terms
  of participants’ number. Total 9892 women participated in this folk dance in
  their traditional colourful Kulluvi on 26 October 2015 during International
  Dussehra festival.
• The event, phrased as Pride of Kullu, was dedicated to girl
  child, was recorded in several cameras.

• Scientists at Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes
  (CIRB) in Hisar on 10 January 2016 claimed to have successfully produced a
  cloned buffalo offspring Cirb Gaurav.
• CIRB Director Dr. Inderjeet Singh stated that the scientists
  achieved the success on 11 December 2015.
• The scientists achieved the feat under the project titled,
  Cloning for conservation and multiplication of superior buffalo germplasm.
• With this achievement, CIRB became world’s third and India’s
  second institute to produce cloned buffalo.

• Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping
  Nitin Gadkari on 11 January 2016 unveiled measures to improve road safety
  across the country.
• The measures were announced during the launch of the Road
  Safety Week in New Delhi, which is being organised every year to create
  awareness among general public to improve the safety on road.
• And, the measures announced are part of the Union
  Government’s concerted action plan to reducing road accidents by half by 2019,
  and, they include,
• Constitution of the Road Safety Authority to look after
  overall aspects related to road safety in the county.
• Introduction of the Road Transport and Safety Bill in the
  Parliament for seamless development of a secure, efficient, cost-effective,
  sustainable and inclusive transport system for the movement of passenger and
  freight in the country.

• Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on 11 January 2016
  flagged off a new train service 22127/22128 Lokmanya Tilak(T)-Kazipet Anandwan
  Express by remote flagging from Rail Bhawan.
• The Train will run weekly once and connect Mumbai and
  Kazipet of Telangana, via Chandrapur and Wardha of Maharashtra.

• Barcelona forward Lionel Messi on 11 January 2016 won the
  Ballon d’Or trophy for the world’s best football player for the fifth time
  overall. In the 2014-15 season, Messi had played 61 games in which he scored 52
  goals, and gave 26 assists.
• In the award ceremony in Zurich, the 28-year-old Argentine
  claimed the award with 41.33 percent votes.
• Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo was second with 27.76
  percent votes, while his Barcelona team-mate Neymar stood at the third position
  with 7.86 percent votes.
• On the other hand, US midfielder Carli Lloyd, who scored a
  hat-trick in the World Cup final against Japan, claimed the Women’s player of
  the year award.

• The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has won the
  National Award on e-Governance 2015-16 for launching the Universal Account
  Number (UAN).
• The UAN facility enables workers to transfer their provident
  fund deposits while switching jobs anywhere in India easily.
• The EPFO won the gold award in the ‘innovative use of
  technology in e-governance’ category and the retirement body will get a cash
  prize of Rs 2 lakh.
• The award will be presented by the Ministry of Personnel,
  Public Grievances and Pensions to the EPFO in the 19th National Conference on
  e-governance to be held in Nagpur on January 22.

• National Youth Day was observed across India on 12 January
  2016 to mark the 153rd birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda who was India’s
  foremost social reformer, philosopher and thinker.
• On this occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a
  gathering at the National Youth Festival, which was held in Raipur, through
  video conference from New Delhi.
• The day is celebrated annually since 12 January 1985 in
  recognition of his ideals and teachings and to project him as a role model for
  the Indian youth.

• Illumina, the world’s largest DNA sequencing company, on 10
  January 2015 announced the launch of the startup named GRAIL to develop
  blood-based cancer tests.
• The company was launched in association with Microsoft
  co-founder Bill Gates, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo’s venture fund Bezos Expeditions
  and Arch Venture Partners.

• Additional Secretary in the Steel Ministry Bharathi S Sihag
  has been given the additional charge of Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of
  state-rum iron ore miner NMDC, with effect from January 1, 2016.
• Sihag, who also holds the charge of Financial Adviser in the
  ministry, will remain at the helm of affairs at the National Mineral
  Development Corporation for three months or till a regular incumbent is appointed,
  whichever is earlier.
• The previous CMD of the country’s largest iron ore miner
  Narendra Kothari retired on December 31.
• Government’s head hunter Public Enterprises Selection Board
  (PSEB) recommended Gopal Singh for the top post, but sources said that
  Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has still not given its nod on the same.
• Gopal Singh has been heading Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL)
  since March 2012.

• David Bowie, one of the most influential recording artists
  of all time, passed away on 10 January 2016 due to throat cancer. He was 69.
• Bowie was a legendary singer-songwriter and producer who
  excelled at glam rock, art rock, soul, hard rock, dance pop, punk and
  electronica during his over 40-year career.

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