Current Affairs Update – 15-16-17th August, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 15th, 16th and 17th August, 2015. These are Important for the IBPS RRB 2015 Exam.

• To boost economic ties, the UAE today agreed to increase
  investments in India to USD 75 billion (about Rs 5 lakh crore) including
  through a dedicated infrastructure fund, while the two nations will raise their
  bilateral trade to nearly USD 100 billion in five years.
• The two countries also agreed for strategic partnership in
  the energy sector, including through UAE’s participation in petroleum sectors
  in India and tie-ups in the third countries.
• While deciding to elevate India-UAE relationship to a
  comprehensive strategic partnership, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Crown
  Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed AI Nahyan also agreed to facilitate participation of
  Indian companies in infrastructure development in the UAE.

• India and Bangladesh on 13 August 2015 signed a Memorandum
  of Understanding (MoU) to tackle the menace of fake Indian currency notes
  (FICN) smuggling. The MoU was signed during a maiden meeting of the Joint Task
  Force on Fake Currency Notes (JTFFC) in Dhaka.
• The MoU was signed by Additional Inspector-General of
  Bangladesh Mohammed Mokhlesur Rahman and Head of National Investigation Agency
  of India IG Sanjeev Kumar Singh.

• Both countries will share intelligence inputs on operatives
  engaged in circulating FICN on real time basis.
• India will provide Advance note sorting machines to
  Bangladesh to detect FICN circulation at international airports, immigration
  points, integrated crossing points, banks and financial institutions in
  Bangladesh.
• India will help Bangladesh to set up Forensic Science
  laboratory for examination of fake notes and maintaining a digital depository
  of forensic reports.
• Both the countries in future will organise capacity building
  training programmes.

• Birla Corporation today said it will acquire two cement
  units from Lafarge India having a capacity of 5.15 million tonnes per annum for
  Rs. 5,000 crore.
• Birla Corporation said in a BSE filing said ,“It has agreed
  to a transaction with Lafarge India Private Ltd, whereby Birla Corp, either
  directly or through its wholly-owned subsidiary, shall acquire both the
  Jojobera and Sonadih cement businesses (Acquisition business) from Lafarge
  India for an Enterprise Value of Rs 5,000 crore.”
• Birla said it will acquire the cement business, comprising
  an integrated cement unit at Sonadih (Chhattisgarh), a cement grinding unit at
  Jojobera (Jharkhand), along with Concreto and PSC brands.

• IndiGo has signed an agreement to purchase 250 Airbus 320
  New Engine Option (NEO) aircraft. The aircraft have a book value of $26.5
  billion although it is not uncommon for both Airbus and Boeing to provide
  discounts from the listed price provided the order size is large.
• IndiGo plans to fund the acquisition through its initial
  public offering. The airline has already filed its draft red herring prospectus
  with the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
• In a statement the airline said the purchase agreement was
  signed on August 15 this year.
• Earlier, in 2005, IndiGo had placed an order for 100 Airbus
  320s, which have all now been delivered. In 2011, IndiGo became the first
  Indian operator to commit to the A320 NEO, bringing its total to 280 Airbus
  aircraft.
• With today’s announcement, IndiGo has ordered 530 A320
  family aircraft with Airbus.

• Leading global investment bank Goldman Sachs will invest US$
  150 million (Rs 900 crore) for a minority stake in Piramal Realty, the real
  estate development arm of the Piramal Group.
• Piramal Realty will use the funds to expand its current real
  estate portfolio and acquire prime properties in and around Mumbai, the company
  said in a statement.

• Mumbai based Real estate listing portal Housing.com on 16
  August 2015 acquired Bengaluru-based customer relationship management software
  company HomeBuy360 in all cash deal of 2 million US dollars.
• This deal will help Housing.com to strive for efficiency in
  the Indian real estate sector. This will help in reduction of property prices
  eventually benefitting the consumers. With this acquisition, Housing.com is now
  the only online real estate listing platform to own a developer CRM company.

• With the launch of Taj Mahal’s twitter account today, the
  17th century mausoleum became the “first historical monument” to have
  an official handle on the micro-blogging site.
• Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today launched
  the official twitter account of the monument– @Taj Mahal at his residence in
  the state capital, Director general of UP Tourism Amrit Abhijat said.
• He said that while visiting the official account, a tourist
  could share his picture on #MyTajMemory, which would be included in the main
  account.
• After launching the account, the Chief Minister also shared
  a picture with his MP wife Dimple Yadav and son in front of Taj Mahal and hash
  tagged it #MyTajMemory.
• In fact immediately after its launch the twitteraties
  started hash tagging pictures of their visit to the monument of love.
• Within an hour of its launch, the Taj Mahal account got more
  than 2000 followers.

• The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 August 2015 launched
  a new campaign Start-up India, Stand up India to promote bank financing for
  start-ups and offer incentives to boost entrepreneurship and job creation.
• The campaign was launched during the celebrations of 69th
  Independence Day at Red Fort, Delhi. The initiative is aimed at encouraging
  entrepreneurship among the youth of India.
• As per the initiative, each of the 1.25 lakh bank branches
  should encourage at least one Dalit or tribal entrepreneur and at least one
  woman entrepreneur.
• Under this initiative, in addition to existing systems to
  facilitate start-ups, loans would also be given to help people. This initiative
  will give a new dimension to entrepreneurship and will help set up a network of
  start-ups in the country.

• Union Agriculture Ministry will now be renamed as
  Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Ministry with a view to take care of the
  farming community’s needs as well as the personal problems faced by them.
• The Prime Minister also announced to replace the current
  practice of interview-based selections for low-skilled government jobs with
  online merit based recruiting.
• Under the Skill India and Digital India initiative,
  government will now work to provide package of incentives to manufacturing
  units for generating jobs.

• Elevating their ties to a comprehensive strategic
  partnership, India and the UAE today came down heavily on countries sponsoring
  terrorism and asked all states to dismantle terror infrastructure, an oblique
  reference to Pakistan.
• Denouncing and opposing terrorism in all forms and
  manifestations and asking all states to abandon the use of terrorism against
  other countries, the two sides called for bringing perpetrators of terrorism to
  justice.
• References to terrorism in all forms including
  state-sponsored were the highlight of a 31-point joint statement issued after
  talks between the UAE Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed AI Nahyan and Narendra
  Modi, the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the strategic Gulf state in 34
  years.
• Agreeing to boost bilateral cooperation in counter-
  terrorism operations, intelligence-sharing and capacity building, Modi and the
  Crown Prince also decided to coordinate efforts to counter radicalisation and
  misuse of religion by groups and countries for inciting hatred and justifying
  terrorism for pursuing political aims.

• Odisha government on 13 August 2015 approved a 1500 crore
  rupees State Capital Region Improvement of Power System (SCRIPS) scheme. The
  scheme will be implemented in five years that is from 2015-16 to 2019-20.
• The approvals in this regard were given during the State
  Cabinet meeting that was chaired by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

• The scheme aims to provide 24×7 quality power supply to the
  people in and around the state capital of Bhubaneswar.
• The scheme will be implemented by the Odisha Power
  Transmission Corporation Limited (OPTCL), that has already chalked out broad
  features for SCRIPS for underground cabling, smart grid and others.
• The project envisages renovation, modernisation and expansion
  of the existing transmission and distribution infrastructure.

• Union Government on 14 August 2015 appointed private sector
  professionals, namely PS Jayakumar and Rakesh Sharma, as Managing Director (MD)
  and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bank of Baroda (BoB) and Canara Bank,
  respectively.
• This is the first time that private sector professionals
  were appointed to head the Public Sector Banks (PSBs). Earlier, the heads of
  PSBs were selected from among the state-run banks or government officers.
• The announcements were made along with appointment of MD and
  CEO of Bank of India (BoI), IDBI Bank and Punjab National Bank (PNB).

• Former Cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth was on 14 August
  2015 appointed as the Chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board
  (PESB). He was appointed for a period of three years or till he attains 65
  years of age.
• Seth succeeded Atul Chaturvedi, who has completed his
  tenure. Prior to this appointment, Seth completed his extended tenure of four
  years at the Cabinet secretariat in June 2015.
• Seth is a 1974-batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre.

• India’s ace shuttler Saina Nehwal on 16 August 2015 became
  the first Indian to win silver in the World Badminton Championship.
• She lost the women’s singles summit clash to Spain’s Carolina
  Marin 16-21, 19-21 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
• Olympic bronze medallist Saina had reached the finals of the
  event on 15 August 2015 by defeating Indonesia’s Lindaweni Fanetri.
• This was India’s fifth medal at the World Championship.  Following are the Indian medal winners at the
  World Badminton Championships which started in 1977. Legendary shuttler Prakash
  Padukone was the first Indian to win a bronze at the 1983 edition.

• India’s Abhishek Verma on 15 August 2015 won the gold medal
  in the compound men’s individual section in the Archery World Cup Stage 3 competition
  at Wroclaw, Poland.
• The Asian Games silver medalist defeated Esmaeil Ebadi of
  Iran 148 -145. At the Incehon 2014 Asian Games, Ebadi defeated Verma 141-145.
• Apart from this, India’s recurve mixed pair of Deepika
  Kumari and Mangal Singh Champia won silver at the World Cup stage 3. The duo
  faced defeat by Mexican pair of Aida Roman and Juan Rene Serrano.

• Briton Andy Murray on 16 August 2015 won the Rogers Cup
  Masters tournament in Montreal, Canada. In the title clash, Murray defeated
  world number one Novak Djokovic 6-4, 4-6, 6-3. It was Murray’s 11th Masters
  Title.
• With this win, Murray was successful in ending an eight
  match losing streak against Djokovic. This was his first victory against the
  world number 1 since 2013 Wimbledon final.
• Djokovic, who lost for just the fourth time in 2015, had won
  12 consecutive Masters Series Finals before this.

• Prof. Mustansir Barma on 14 August 2015 won the prestigious
  Gujar Mal Modi Award for Innovative Science and Technology for the year 2015.
  He was awarded for his commendable contribution in the field of Science and
  Technology.
• He received the award from Vice President of India Hamid
  Ansari at a ceremony in New Delhi.
• Barma, a distinguished Professor and former Director of Tata
  Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, has made immense contribution in the
  field of Statistical Physics in India.
• He has published numerous papers on the topic and is one of
  the best recognized names in the discipline internationally. His personal
  initiative helped in expanding the TIFR campus in Hyderabad.

• The Union Government on 14 August 2015 announced the
  awardees for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and Arjuna Award for the year
  2015.
• The selection of awardees was based  on the recommendations of the Selection
  Committee headed by Justice VK Bali, former Chief Justice of Kerala High Court
  and consisting of eminent sportspersons and sports administrators.

1. Ms. Sania Mirza – Tennis

1. Name of the sportsperson – Discipline
2. Naib Subedar Sandeep Kumar – Archery
3. MR Poovamma – Athletics
4. Kidambi Srikanth Nammalwar – Badminton
5. Mandeep Jangra – Boxing
6. Rohit Sharma – Cricket
7. Dipa Karmakar – Gymnastic
8. Sreejesh PR – Hockey
9. Manjeet Chhillar – Kabaddi
10. Abhilasha Shashikant Mhatre – Kabaddi
11. Sawarn Singh – Rowing
12. Anup Kumar Yama – Roller Skating
13. Jitu Rai – Shooting
14. S Sathish Kumar – Weightlifting
15. Bajrang – Wrestling
16. Babita Kumari – Wrestling
17. Yumnam Sanathoi Devi – Wushu
18. Sharath M Gayakwad  – Para-Swimming

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