Current Affairs Update – 17th September, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 17th September, 2015. These are Important for the upcoming IBPS PO V Exam.

Finance/Banking/Industry
CAD to be around 1.5%
of GDP this fiscal: RBI

  • RBI Deputy Governor Urjit Patel today said the central bank
    expected Current Account Deficit (CAD) around 1.5 per cent of the Gross
    Domestic Product (GDP) in the current fiscal.
  • “This year, our current account deficit would be in the
    region of 1.5 per cent of GDP,” he said at an event organised by Ficci
    here.
  • For the first quarter ended June, CAD narrowed to 1.2 per
    cent of GDP at $6.2 billion following contraction in trade deficit and higher earnings
    from services exports.
  • He noted that higher cost of restructuring pushes the cost
    of capital and RBI is trying to address this issue.

Govt mulls raising
FDI limit in private banks to 100%

  • Seeking to further relax foreign investment norms, the
    government is considering increasing the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit
    in private banks to 100%, from the existing 74%.
  • The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has
    sent a proposal to hike the FDI limit in the private banking industry to the
    Department of Financial Services for its comments, sources said.
  • Currently, 74% FDI is permitted in the private sector
    banking, of which up to 49% is allowed under the automatic route and beyond
    that through the approval of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).
  • However, portfolio investments in the banking sector can go
    up to 49%.
  • The move will help the existing private sector banks,
    payments banks and small finance banks tap overseas markets to enhance their
    capital base. RBI has recently given in-principle approval to 11 entities to
    set up payments banks and 10 for small banks.

Sun Pharma entered
into an agreement to acquire InSite Vision
  • The largest Indian drugmaker, Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries
    Ltd, on 16 September 2015 entered into a deal to acquire US-based InSite Vision
    Inc. for about 300 crore rupees.
  • As per the terms of the agreement and merger plan, an
    indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Sun Pharma will make a tender offer for all
    of the issued and outstanding common stock of InSite Vision at 0.35 US dollars
    per share in cash.

Blackstone Group LP
acquired UK’s Serco Group Plc
  • Private equity (PE) investor Blackstone Group LP repurchased
    the India-based Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) operations of the UK’s
    Serco Group Plc for about 2558 crore rupees. The deal is a combination of
    equity and debt.
  • The acquisition is the largest deal by Blackstone in India
    in terms of enterprise value. The deal also marked the re-entry of the PE firm
    in the BPO business.
  • Earlier in 2011, Blackstone had sold the BPO business,
    formerly known as Intel net, to Serco for 383 million US dollars.

Apus Group tied-up
with mobile advertising network InMobi
  • Apus Group, one of the world’s biggest Android application
    development companies, on 15 September 2015 tied-up with the Indian mobile
    advertising network InMobi.
  • With this tie-up, Bengaluru-based InMobi will share its
    expertise to help Apus establish a larger footprint in India and increase its
    user base. In return, the Beijing-based Apus will help InMobi monetise its
    platform by giving access to over 200 million users across the Apus user
    system.
  • The cooperation will include local brand building, user base
    growth, monetization and relevant product technology.

India
Nana Patekar
established Naam Foundation to fund drought relief for farmers
  • To provide aid to farmers to overcome drought conditions,
    Actor Nana Patekar in third week of September 2015 established an organization
    named Naam Foundation.
  • The Naam Foundation, a brain child of Nana Patekar and
    fellow Marathi actor Makrand Anaspure, was set up for donating money to drought
    affected farmers. The foundation will collect the contributions from people and
    for this purpose Nana Patekar has opened a bank account with State Bank of
    India, where people can deposit money for the cause.
  • Money collected by Naam Foundation would also be used to
    provide gainful employment to youth in villages facing drought.

Godavari, Krishna
Rivers formally linked at Ibrahimpatnam Ferry village in Andhra Pradesh
  • To manage Godavari’s flood waters which goes waste into the
    sea every year, two Rivers namely Godavari and Krishna were formally linked on
    16 September 2015 in Andhra Pradesh.
  • The two rivers were formally linked by Chief Minister N.
    Chandrababu Naidu who released waters from Godavari at Ibrahimpatnam Ferry
    village near Vijayawada.
  • To mark the occasion Krishna-Godavari confluence was named
    as Krishna – Godavari Pavitra Sangamam meaning holy confluence in Telugu.

India, Cambodia
signed two MoUs on Tourism & Mekong Ganga Cooperation Initiative
  • India and Cambodia on 16 September 2015 signed two MoUs on
    Tourism and Mekong-Ganga Cooperation Initiative. The MoUs were signed in the
    presence of Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun
    Sen at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh.
  • Vice-President Ansari is on three-day visit to Cambodia from
    15 September to 17 September 2015.
  • On the one hand, the tourism MoU is aimed at boosting
    tourist movement between the two countries. 

On the other hand, the MoU on
Mekong-Ganga relates to five ‘quick impact projects’ undertaken by India and
these are:
  1. 50000 US dollars grant to Cambodia for the upgradation of an
    Entrepreneurship Development Centre in existence since 2004
  2. Two projects in healthcare, especially to do with malaria
  3. One project on agriculture
  4. One on women’s empowerment

Sports
Union Finance
Ministry launched NXT DIGITAL-Headend In The Sky platform
  • The Union Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley on 15 September
    2015 launched the Headend In The Sky (HITS) digital platform initiative, under
    the brand name NXT DIGITAL promoted by Hinduja Group.
  • The platform will provide viewers access to over 500
    television channels of their choice be it international, national, regional and
    local; besides a host of other services like e-applications and TV everywhere.
  • Customers in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Punjab
    and Karnataka will now have greater access to channels of their choice with
    other states soon joining in. The customers will now pay for what they want to
    see and it will also enable increase in revenues to the government due to full
    transparency.

5 cities officially
named as candidates to host 2024 Summer Olympics
  • International Olympic Committee (IOC) on 16 September 2015
    announced name of five cities namely Los Angeles, Hamburg, Paris, Rome and
    Budapest as candidates to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
  • The final list of bidders was declared after the deadline
    for submissions ended on 15 September 2015. 
    IOC will elect the winning bid at its session in Peru in 2017.
  • Out of the five cities, Los Angeles and Paris has hosted the
    games twice. Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 while Paris
    hosted the 1900 and 1924 Olympics.
  • If any one of the two cities wins the bid to host the game,
    then they will join London to host the prestigious games three times. London
    hosted the Olympic Games in 1908, 1948 and 2012.

India Cements won
Moin-ud Dowlah Gold Cup Tournament 2015-16
  • India Cements on 16 September 2015 won the Moin-ud Dowlah
    Gold Cup Tournament 2015-16 by defeating Hyderabad XI. This was the third title
    for the winning team.
  • The final match was held at the Rajiv Gandhi International
    Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad.
  • India Cements stood victorious by virtue of taking the
    first-innings lead against Hyderabad XI in the three-day final match.
  • For India Cements, while bowlers Vignesh and L Balaji played
    a crucial role by picking up three wickets each, its captain and
    player-of-the-final Abhinav Mukund stood for the team with a centuary.
  • B Anirudh, Hyderabad President’s XI batsman, was declared as
    the player of the tournament for scoring three centuries in the tournament.
  • The trophy and the awards were handed over by the ICC
    President Zaheer Abbas.

Shot putter Manpreet
Kaur shattered 18-year-old national record
  • Railways shot putter Manpreet Kaur on 16 September 2015
    shattered an 18-year-old national record en route to a sixth title at the 55th
    National Open Athletics Championship at Kolkata.
  • Patiala-based shot putter broke the record of Harbans Kaur
    of 17.43 metres that came in 1997 by throwing 17.96 metres in her second
    attempt to claim the gold medal, a hat-trick of titles at the National Open.
  • With this, Manpreet Kaur (25) also qualified for the Rio
    2016 Olympics that is scheduled to be held from 5 August to 21 August 2016.
  • The IAAF entry standard for 2016 Rio Olympics in women’s
    shot put is 17.80m, while the top three in London 2012 Olympics threw 20m plus.

Appointments
Jet Airways’ Krishnan
Balakrishnan joins GoAir as CFO

  • In another senior-level executive exit at full service
    carrier Jet Airways, Krishnan Balakrishnan, its Vice President (fleet and
    management control) has joined GoAir as the chief financial officer (CFO) on
    Wednesday.
  • Balakrishnan replaces Siddhartha Datta, who quit the airline
    some time back to pursue other “interests”, according to the
    Mumbai-based airline GoAir.
  • Before joining GoAir, Balakrishnan, a chartered and cost
    accountant, was looking at aircraft acquisition and leasing, legal compliances,
    tax issues and negotiations at Jet Airways.

Awards
& Honors –
Afghan refugee
teacher Aqeela Asifi awarded with 2015 Nansen Refugee Award by UNHCR
  • Afghan refugee teacher Aqeela Asifi was on 15 September 2015
    awarded with the 2015 Nansen Refugee Award by United Nations High Commissioner
    for Refugees (UNHCR). Asifi dedicated her life to bring education to refugee
    girls in Pakistan.
  • Aqeela Asifi was awarded for her brave and tireless
    dedication to education for Afghan refugee girls in the Kot Chandana refugee
    village in Mianwali, Pakistan. Despite minimal resources and significant
    cultural challenges, Asifi guided a thousand refugee girls through their
    primary education.
  • Asifi is a former teacher who fled from Kabul with her
    family in 1992, finding safety in the remote refugee settlement of Kot
    Chandana. She was dismayed by the lack of schooling for girls in the village.
    But she was determined to give these girls a chance to learn and with time she
    convinced the community and began teaching just a handful of pupils in a
    makeshift school tent.

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Daily Expected Questions on Stock GK
Pazhaya
Sreekanteswaram Temple is located in which state?
– Kerala
Which of the
following city is the capital of Columbia?
– Bogotá
Kaimur Wildlife
Sanctuary is located in which state?
– Bihar
Vidarbha Cricket
Association Stadium is located in which city/state?
– Nagpur, Maharasthra
Barauni Thermal Power
Station is located in which state?
– Bihar



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