Current Affairs Update – 16th November, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs Update of 16th November, 2015. These are Important for the upcoming IBPS Clerk 2015 Mains.

• Syed Akbaruddin was on 16 November 2015 appointed as the
  next Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations at New York. He
  will replace Asoke Kumar Mukerji who assumed the office in April 2013.
• In this position, Akbaruddin will head India’s diplomatic
  mission in the UN and articulates the country’s stand on critical issues at the
  global forum.
• Akbaruddin is 1985 batch officer of Indian Foreign Service
  and currently, he is serving as Additional Secretary in the Ministry of
  External Affairs.

• Vishakha Mulye is the new executive director at ICICI Bank.
  She will continue to hold her existing position of managing director and chief
  executive officer of ICICI Venture for the time-being until a successor has
  been found.
• ICICI Bank in a statement said she would be appointed subject
  to necessary approvals.
• A long time ICICI Banker, she was group chief financial
  officer at ICICI Bank from 2005-2007, before moving to ICICI Lombard, the
  group’s general insurance venture. In April 2009, she was appointed as the Managing
  Director & CEO of ICICI Venture Funds Management Company
• Mulye joined the ICICI Group in 1993 and headed the team
  that planned and executed the merger of ICICI and ICICI Bank in 2002. From 2002
  to 2005, she was responsible for the Bank’s structured finance and global
  markets businesses, and its financial institutions relationships. She is
  credited with being a key driver and enabler of the debt securitisation market
  in India, and with building the Bank’s global markets business.

• Former Indian Premier League Chief Operating Officer Sundar
  Raman will join the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) as its Chief Executive
  Officer – Sports, the company announced on Monday.
• Over the course of last few years, RIL has invested in a
  variety of sports properties and is now positioned as one of India’s leading
  sports businesses. RIL is involved in multiple sports (cricket, football,
  basketball, tennis, golf) either on its own or through joint ventures.
• In addition, the Reliance Foundation has several initiatives
  such as basketball and Young Champs.

• The Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on 14 November 2015 handed
  over the Maareech – Advanced Torpedo Defence System – developed by DRDO to the
  Navy Chief Admiral Robin K. Dhowan in Vishakhapatnam.

• Maareech is a joint project of Naval Physical and
  Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), Kochi and NSTL, Visakhapatnam.
• It is a state-of-the-art indigenous system for torpedo
  detection and countermeasures.
• The system provides a complete solution to detect and locate
  the incoming torpedo and to apply countermeasures to protect naval platform
  against torpedo attack.
• The system is capable of detecting, confusing, diverting and
  decoying the incoming torpedoes.
• Two production grade Maareech systems have been developed
  and user evaluation trials completed onboard two Indian Navy ships.
• Besides, Parrikar also dedicated to the nation the
  Seakeeping and Manoeuvring Basin (SMB). It is a one of its kind platform in the
  country set up as a joint effort of DRDO and Indian Navy.

• Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on 15 November
  2015 launched the Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment
  (AMRIT) pharmacy outlet at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)
  in New Delhi.
• The purpose of the first of its kind outlet is to reduce the
  expenditure incurred by patients on treatment of cancer and heart diseases by
  50 to 60 percent and has the following features
• It is a retail pharmacy outlet that sells drugs and implants
  for the two ailments-cancer and heart diseases-at highly discounted rates.
• It would be selling 202 cancer and 186 cardio-vascular drugs
  and 148 types of cardiac implants at very affordable prices.
• It has been floated in a tie-up with government-owned HLL
  Lifecare Ltd (HLL).

• PRASAD and SWADSH DARSHAN schemes of the Union Ministry of
  Tourism were in news in the second week of November 2015.
• The two initiatives, along with Zonal Cultural Centres
  (ZCCs), were launched to achieve 1 per cent share of international tourist
  arrivals by 2016-17 from the present 0.68 per cent.
• Both the schemes are under implementation in mission mode
  and aimed at developing world-class tourism related infrastructure.

• Its objective is to augment religious and spiritual tourism
  in the country as India is a land of many religions like Hinduism, Buddhism,
  Sikhism, Jainism and Sufism.
• As part of mission strategy, religious destinations that
  have potential to be show-cased as world-class tourism products are identified
  and infrastructure is developed on a priority basis.
• In the initial phase, 12 cities, that are part of HRIDAY
  scheme, namely Amritsar, Ajmer, Amaravati, Dwaraka, Gaya, Kanchipuram,
  Kedarnath, Kamakhya, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi and Vellankani have been
  identified for development.

• As part of the scheme, theme based tourism circuits are
  identified for infrastructure development across the country.
• Theme Based Tourist Circuit (TBTC) is defined as a tourist
  circuit around specific themes such as religion, culture, ethnicity, niche,
  etc.
• A TBTC could be confined to a state or could be a regional
  circuit covering more than a state or union territory (UT).

• India and Bangladesh on 15 November 2015 signed the Standard
  Operating Procedure (SOP) in New Delhi, to operationalise the “Agreement on
  Coastal Shipping”. The two nations inked the agreement on 6 June 2015 during
  the visit of Prime Minster Narendra Modi to Bangladesh.
• The SOP will pave the way to promote coastal shipping
  between India and Bangladesh and would enhance bilateral trade between the two
  countries by bringing down the cost of transportation of EXIM cargo.
• The SOP contains provisions which stipulate that India and
  Bangladesh shall render same treatment to the other country’s vessels as it
  would have done to its national vessels used in international sea
  transportation.

• The Shipwright School, a premier technical establishment,
  was on 14 November 2015 commissioned as Indian Naval Ship (INS) Vishwakarma by
  Admiral RK Dhowan, Chief of the Naval Staff at Visakhapatnam.
• Shipwright School is an alma-mater for Naval Architect
  Officers, Shipwright Officers and Shipwright Sailors of the Indian Navy.
• The commissioning of INS Vishwakarma is expected to enhance
  Indian Navy’s in-house design and maintenance capabilities. This will help
  transform the Indian Navy to a designer’s and builder’s Navy in keeping with
  the Make in India vision.

• Ford Motor Company on 15 November 2015 announced that it
  tested driverless cars in Mcity, a 32-acre testing area designed by the
  University of Michigan, using LiDAR technology.
• With this, Ford has joined Californian tech giants Google,
  Apple and Tesla that are developing autonomous cars using using the technology.
• Lidar or LiDAR or LADAR, blend of Light and Radar, is a
  remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with
  a laser and analyzing the reflected light.
• The technology is popularly used in Agriculture (to assess
  crop health and terrain mapping), conservation, remote sensing and meteorology,
  surveying, military, mining, transport, etc.

• The International Day for Tolerance was observed globally on
  16 November 2015 with an aim to educate people about the need for tolerance in
  society and help them understand the negative effects of intolerance.
• In 1996, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) by its
  resolution 51/95 invited UN Member States to observe the International Day for
  Tolerance on 16 November, with activities directed towards both educational
  establishments and the wider public.

• Chinese shuttler Xuerui Li on 15 November 2015 won the
  700000 US dollar Women’s Singles final of China Open Superseries Premier
  Badminton tournament. In the final played at Fuzhou, Li defeated India’s ace
  shuttler Saina Nehwal 21-12, 21-15.
• The top seed and defending champion Saina and Li, the
  reigning Olympic champion, have met 12 times against each other. Saina has won
  just 2 of those games. This was Saina’s fifth final of the year 2015.

• Russia on 13 November 2015 was provisionally suspended from
  track and field events by International Association of Athletics Federations
  (IAAF) due to doping allegations against the country’s athletes, coaches,
  trainers, doctors and officials.
• The IAAF’s council members voted 22-1 in favour of Russia
  being banned from the events.
• The ban will keep Russian athletes out of all sanctioned
  international track and field events worldwide. It could also affect the
  country’s preparations of 2016 Summer Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro,
  Brazil.

• Veteran Bollywood actor Saeed Jaffrey passed away on 15
  November 2015 due to age-related ailments. He was 86.
• Jaffrey appeared in numerous Indian and British movies,
  including Gandhi, Ram Teri Ganga Maili, A Passage to India, Chashme Buddoor, My
  Beautiful Laundrette and many more. He also starred in critically acclaimed
  movie Shatranj ke Khiladi directed by Satyajit Ray.
• The legendary actor also appeared regularly on the British
  soap operas, including Gangsters, The Jewel in the Crown, Common as Muck and
  Coronation Street in which he appeared as Ravi Desai.

• A well-known author of children’s books, Kamala Laxman,
  passed away in Pune on 14 November 2015 due to old age issues. She was 90.
• Widow of legendary cartoonist R.K. Laxman, Kamala was
  commissioned by the India Book House in the 1970s to write stories for
  children, such as Thama and His Missing Mother and tales of Tenali Raman. The
  Tenali Raman stories penned by her were later memorably serialised into 13 and
  telecast on Doordarshan.

Regards

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