Current Affairs Update – 14-15th February, 2016

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 14th and 15th February, 2016. These are important for the upcoming LIC AAO 2016.

• Information Technology sector
  employees get the highest pay in India with a median gross hourly salary of Rs.
  346.42, while those in the manufacturing sector get paid the least at Rs.
  254.04, says a report.
• According to Monster Salary Index
  (MSI), the IT sector is the highest paying sector in India, but only 57.4 per
  cent are satisfied with their salary.
• BFSI sector comes in second with
  a median salary of Rs. 300.23. The relatively higher remuneration reflects the
  high level education of workers with 16-17 years of schooling, the report
  noted.
• Notwithstanding, the government’s
  focus towards the sector through its Make in India initiative, manufacturing
  sector is paid the least, as employees in this segment are paid about 9 per
  cent lesser than the median salary for the entire Indian economy taken together
  at Rs. 279.7.
• The findings of the manufacturing
  sector show that irrespective of the education levels, the salaries are still
  very low, even for a Master’s degree holder, the median hourly salary stands at
  Rs. 260.8, the report noted.
• Additionally, foreign owned
  manufacturing companies pay nearly double of what Indian manufacturing firms
  pay their workers.

• Mukesh Ambani-led group firm
  Reliance Jio Infocomm and eight global telecom players MTS, BT, Deutsche
  Telekom, Millicom, Orange, Rogers, TeliaSonera and TIM will build a new
  partnering operator alliance aimed at bringing innovative products and services
  to customers around the world.
• With this collaboration, these
  telcos can reach a potential customer base of around 1 billion in more than 80
  countries, besides allowing partner businesses to more efficiently and quickly
  bring innovative products and services.
• The alliance is an open network
  of ‘like-minded’ operators worldwide with complementary geographical footprints.
• It focuses on exchanging best
  practices on how to bring partner propositions to the market, on joint efforts
  in partner scouting and will also exchange knowledge about upcoming trends and
  services amongst the group.
• The alliance is covering all relevant
  product categories within an operator’s business, mobile as well as fixed, B2C
  as well as B2B.
• Currently, the alliance has
  established relationships with 30 innovative partner businesses including
  AirBnB, Celltick, Disconnect, Idoomoo, and Mojio amongst others and will be
  expanding to additional operators soon.

• Vedanta Limited has reached an
  understanding with the Government of Odisha to commission an aluminum park in
  Jharsuguda. The two sides reached an intention sharing on the sidelines of the
  Make in India Week in Mumbai today and a MoU would be signed in few months.
• Abhijit Pati, CEO — Aluminum,
  Vedanta Limited said the park would attract an investment of Rs 1,000 crore in
  the first phase. The park would have units manufacturing foils, conductors and
  other aluminum users. Vedanta would be supplying molten aluminum metal from its
  adjoining plant in the area.
• It would take 12-18 months to
  come up, Pati said in a teleconference. He said the park would be spread over
  204 acre of government land adjacent to the Vedanta smelter in Jharsuguda.
  Permission for land acquisition was underway.

• Automotive manufacturer Mahindra
  & Mahindra (M&M) plans to invest Rs 8,000 crore in manufacturing plants
  in Maharashtra as part of its expansion plan.
• This investment will be made over
  a period of 7 years and will be utilised towards infrastructure development,
  product development and capacity expansion for vehicles to be rolled out from
  Mahindra’s plants in Maharashtra. The projects will qualify as ‘Ultra Mega
  Project’.
• An MoU to this effect was signed
  by Apurva Chandra, principal secretary (industries), Government of Maharashtra,
  and Dr Pawan Goenka, executive director, Mahindra & Mahindra at the
  on-going Make in India Week event in Mumbai.

• As per the Swachh Survekshan
  results announced by the government on Monday, ​Dhanbad in Bihar was said to be
  the dirtiest city while Mysuru won the crown for the cleanest city.
• Mysuru was judged cleanest among
  73 cities.
• Swachh Survekshan results is a
  cleanliness monitor based on extensive surveys across Indian cities carried out
  by Quality Council of India (QCI).
• On the other hand, Navi Mumbai
  and Greater Mumbai made were grouped in “leader cities”.
• On the other hand, Chandigarh,
  Tiruchirapalli, Delhi (NDMC) and Vishakapatnam came after Mysuru in the top
  five cities which have high levels of sanitation and cleanliness.
• In the Aspiring Leaders category
  Panaji leads the pack while Bihar’s capital Patna was bunched in the group of
  laggards category.
• Best Performing city in
  Information, Education and Behaviour Change Communication (IEBC) activity was
  Tiruchirappalli.
• The best performing city in North
  East was Gangtok and Greater Mumbai got the Best Performing city among Mega
  Cities.

• LAMITYE 2016, the 7th joint
  military training exercise between the Indian Army and the Seychelles People’s
  Defence Forces (SPDF) began on 15 February 2016.
• It will be a 2-week long exercise
  till 28 February 2016 and conducted at Seychelles Defence Academy (SDA) in
  Victoria, Seychelles.
• Lamitye, which means friendship
  in Creole dialect, will be conducted with the aim of enhancing military
  cooperation and interoperability between the two countries.

• A remote nondescript,
  insurgency-ravaged village in Assam along Indo- Bhutan border has earned the
  distinction of being the area’s first smart village.
• Barsimaluguri, about 11 km from
  the Indo-Bhutan border, in Baksa district has been turned into a model smart
  village with 100 per cent toilets, solar power and pure drinking water,
  following an initiative taken by a few individuals under the aegis of Nanda Talukdar
  Foundation (NTF).
• The work to turn Barsimaluguri, a
  hamlet of 234 households of farmers, small traders and daily wage earners, into
  a smart village began on January 15, 2015 and the first step in this direction
  was to set up a model village working committee led by villagers Dinesh Bhuyan
  and Dipu Choudhury.
• The first work initiated by the
  committee was setting up the water purification plant and now this village is
  perhaps the only one in the region to have a reverse osmosis plant.

• 1st Mega Food Park (MFP) of
  Madhya Pradesh was on 12 February 2016 inaugurated at Panwa village in Kasarwad
  tehsil of Khargone district.
• The MFP, named after Indus, was
  inaugurated by Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister of Food Processing
  Industries.

• It was set up by M/s Indus mega
  Food Part Pvt. Ltd at an estimated cost of 127.70 crore rupees in an area of
  53.78 acres.
• It has a Central Processing
  Centre at Khargone and three Primary Processing Centres are being set up at
  Bedia, Ratlam and Ujjain to provide strong backward linkages.

• Jugnoo, leading mobile app that
  offers largest network of auto rickshaws across country, has signed a dual deal
  with popular TV and film actress Saumya Tandon.
• The actress who has been
  appointed ambassador will also invest in the auto rickshaw agregator.
• The association is in alignment
  with the new fad of Indian start-ups being backed by Bollywood. Celebrities are
  either putting in money or endorsing products by becoming their brand
  ambassadors.
• While their monetary investment
  definitely helps, but the popularity factor they induce into the entire
  scenario is commendable.
• Saumya Tandon is currently
  playing ‘Anita’ in popular comedy series ‘Bhabhi Ji Ghar Par Hai’. She also had
  the opportunity to work with Shah Rukh Khan as co-host in ‘Zor Ka Jhatka: Total
  Wipeout’.

• Shoppers Stop-owned hypermarket
  chain HyperCITY today announced appointment of key management executives, key
  among them being Ramesh Menon as chief executive officer. Menon was earlier
  with Reliance Communcations as national head of wireless operations.
• Yogesh Bisht was named vice
  president (human resources). Bisht has 21 years of experience in hospitality,
  retail and real estate.
• Hypercity has named Manoj Jain as
  vice president of marketing, loyalty and visual merchandising.

• The Governing Council of TERI on
  12 February 2016 appointed Ashok Chawla, former Finance Secretary to the
  Government of India and former Chairman of the Competition Commission, as its
  new Chairman.
• Chawla replaced B V Sreekantan,
  who was serving as the Chairman of TERI. Ajay Mathur, who had replaced Rajendra
  Kumar Pachauri as director-general when the latter was made executive
  vice-president, was also included in the governing council.
• On the other hand, the Council
  also announced that Pachauri, who had been the Head of the Institute since 1982
  will be on leave from TERI, TERI Governing Council, and TERI University.

• President Barack Obama plans to
  appoint Ranvir Trehan, an alumnus of the Birla Institute of Technology and
  Science in India, as general trustee on Board of the John F. Kennedy Centre for
  the Performing Arts in the American capital.
• Dedicated to the memory of
  President John F. Kennedy, the Kennedy Centre is the busiest performing arts
  facility in the US and annually hosts about 2,000 music, dance and theatre
  performances for audiences totalling nearly two million.
• It the also supports artists in
  the creation of new work and serves as a leader in arts education.

• The 69th British Academy Films
  Awards (BAFTAs) were announced on 14 February 2016. The award ceremony was  held at the Royal Opera House in London.
• The awards were announced to
  honour the best British and international contributions to film in 2015.
• Wilderness drama The Revenant,
  starring Leonardo DiCaprio, won the Best Film Award. Brooklyn was named the
  Outstanding British Film while Inside Out won the Best Animated Film. Amy won
  the award in Best Documentary category.

1. Leading Actor – Leonardo DiCaprio
   for The Revenant
2. Leading Actress – Brie Larson for
   Room
3. Supporting Actor – Mark Rylance
   for Bridge of Spies
4. Supporting Actress – Kate Winslet
   for Steve Jobs
5. Best Director – Alejandro G.
   Iñárritu for The Revenant

• American publishing company, Time
  Inc on Sunday announced the winners of the inaugural TIME India awards,
  honouring leaders for manufacturing excellence in India, at the Make in India
  week here.
• McKinsey & Company is the
  knowledge partner for the awards. The awards encompassed three categories: Best
  in class manufacturing, manufacturing innovator of the year and young maker of
  the year.
• Tata Steel won the award for best
  in class for manufacturing, while Hero MotoCorp was named the manufacturing
  innovator of the year and Yogesh and Rajesh Agrawal of Ajanta Pharma Limited
  were declared winners of the TIME India Young Maker of the Year.

• Nagaland is changing, But…, a
  film on conservation efforts by villagers, on 13 February 2016 won the Golden
  Beaver Best Film Award in the institutional category at the 6th National
  Science Film Festival and Competition in Mumbai.
• The film also received the
  technical excellence award for best sound design at the festival, organized by
  Vigyan Prasar of the Department of Science and Technology.
• Renowned film maker M S Sathyu
  presented the award to the director of the film, Gurmeet Sapal.

• World Radio Day was observed
  globally on 13 February 2016 with the theme Radio in Times of Emergency and
  Disaster.
• To mark the occasion, various
  activities conducted across India celebrating importance of radio in the day to
  day life.
• In Odisha, a two-day annual
  international event Outreach International Radio Fair 2016 was inaugurated in
  Bhubaneswar.

• Sania Mirza and her Swiss partner
  Martina Hingis on 14 February 2016 won the 2016 St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy in
  St. Petersburg, Russia.
• To win the title, the top-seeded
  Indo-Swiss pair defeated the Russian-Czech team of Vera Dushevina and Barbora Krejcikova
  by 6-3 6-1 in the women’s doubles final.
• For the duo, the victory in the
  final was consequent 40 match win. Also, the title was the fourth in the 2016
  season and the 13th overall.

• The Cameroon Football Federation
  has announced that Belgian coach Hugo Broos was appointed as the new coach of
  the national team.
• The 63-year-old former defender
  of Anderlecht and Club Brugge coached the two Belgian teams and also trained
  Turkey’s Trabzonspor and UAE’s Al-Jazira, among others, reports Efe.
• Broos’s assistant will be his
  compatriot Sven Vandenbroeck, the governing body said on Saturday.

• The West Indies produced an
  outstanding bowling performance to outclass India by five wickets in the final
  match to win their maiden U-19 World Cup cricket tournament at the Sher-e-Bangla
  National Stadium here on Sunday.
• Batting first, India were bundled
  out for a meagre 145 runs in 45.1 overs, thanks to Ryan John (3-38) and Alzarri
  Joseph (3-39).
• In reply, Keacy Carty scored a
  match-winning knock of unbeaten 52 alongside Keemo Paul (40 not out) as the
  Windies chased down the total, reaching the target in 49.3 overs.
• Bangladesh all-rounder Mehedi
  Hasan was awarded the Player of the Series trophy.

• Pakistan’s Sindh Assembly today
  passed the Hindu Marriage Bill making the province the first in the country to
  allow the minority community to register their marriages, amid calls from a
  leading Hindu group to remove a controversial clause in the landmark bill.
• The bill, moved in the assembly
  by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Nisar Khuhro, will apply to entire Sindh
  province, which has a sizeable population of Hindus.
• It was passed after a national
  parliamentary panel last week cleared its draft, paving way for registration of
  marriage and divorce for the Hindu community in Pakistan.
• The bill fixes the minimum age of
  marriage at 18.
• According to the bill, it is
  necessary that a marriage is solemnised after consent of both male and female
  and at least two witnesses must be present at the time of the solemnisation and
  registration of the marriage.
• According to the bill, every
  marriage being solemnised under this act will be registered with the union
  council/ward within 45 days of the solemnisation.

• Biopharma major Biocon has
  received its first generic formulations approval in the regulated markets for a
  drug to reduce cholesterol. The company will begin selling its Rosuvastatin
  Calcium tablets indicated for hyperlipidemia or mixed dyslipidemia in 15
  European countries starting financial year 2017.
• Biocon was the first generic
  company to receive Certificate of Suitability (CEP) for the formulation from
  the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM) and will
  collaborate with regional partners to market the drug. The move will allow the
  company to address a $1.2 billion opportunity that exists in Europe.
• The approval will also make it
  easier for Biocon to get regulatory clearance to sell its drugs in emerging
  markets which follow what US and European regulators say. It will also boost
  Biocon’s generic formulations business which is targeting 20-25 filings over
  the next few years.

• Biraja Prasad, who was posted
  recently as Ambassador to Tajikistan, passed away on Saturday following a
  massive cardiac arrest.
• Mr. Prasad, who belonged to
  Odisha, suffered a heart attack during sleep, family sources said here. Prasad,
  a career diplomat, had joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1998.
• He had held different diplomatic
  assignments such as third secretary and then second secretary (Political) in
  Embassy of India, Moscow (Russian Federation) from 2000 to 2002 and Second
  Secretary (Political and Commercial).

Regards

Team ExamPundit

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