Current Affairs Update – 18th December, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 18th December, 2015. These are important for the upcoming IBPS Clerk Mains and LIC AAO 2016 as well as Syndicate Bank Manipal PO 2016.

• The government today lowered its economic growth forecast
  for 2015-16 to 7-7.5 per cent from 8.1-8.5 per cent, but said budget deficit
  target will be met as higher tax revenues offset a shortfall in PSU stake sale.
• In its Mid-Year Economic Analysis presented in Parliament,
  the finance ministry said it will be able to stick to fiscal deficit target of
  3.9 per cent for the current year, but the target of bringing it down to 3.5
  per cent in the next will face pressure from higher outgo on central staff wages
  due to implementation of the 7th Pay Commission and Defence pensions.
• The government, in its Economic Survey in February, had
  projected a growth rate of 8.1-8.5 per cent for 2015-16, but has now lowered it
  to 7-7.5 per cent, mainly on account of deficit rainfall and slowdown in exports
  because of global factors.
• Terming the tax collections in 2015-16 as
  “buoyant”, the analysis said, “The performance in buoyancy is
  likely (reflected in) improved tax administration, especially in relation to
  indirect taxes.”

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 17 December 2015 released
  the final guidelines on computing interest rates on advances based on the
  Marginal Cost of Funds Methodology. The guidelines will come into effect from 1
  April 2016.
• The new methodology is aimed at bringing uniformity among
  BRs of banks so that they will be more sensitive to any changes in policy rates
  of the RBI like Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR), etc.

• All rupee loans sanctioned and credit limits renewed with
  effect from 1 April 2016 will be priced with reference to the Marginal Cost of
  Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR) which will be the internal benchmark for such
  purposes.
• The MCLR will be a tenor linked internal benchmark.
• Actual lending rates will be determined by adding the
  components of spread to the MCLR.
• Banks will review and publish their MCLR of different
  maturities every month on a pre-announced date.
• Banks may specify interest reset dates on their floating
  rate loans. They will have option to offer loans with reset dates linked either
  to date of sanction of the loan or to the date of review of MCLR.
• The periodicity of reset shall be one year or lower.
• The MCLR prevailing on the day loan is sanctioned will be
  applicable till the next reset date, irrespective of the changes in the
  benchmark during the interim period.
• Existing loans and credit limits linked to the Base Rate may
  continue till repayment or renewal, as the case may be. Existing borrowers will
  also have the option to move to the MCLR linked loan.
• Banks will continue to review and publish Base Rate as
  hitherto.

• This new methodology will help improve the transmission of
  policy rates into the lending rates of banks.
• The guidelines are also expected to ensure availability of
  bank credit at interest rates which are fair to the borrowers as well as the
  banks.
• Further, marginal cost pricing of loans will help the banks
  become more competitive and enhance their long run value and contribution to
  economic growth.

• Hindustan Unilever (HUL) on 17 December 2015 announced that
  it signed an agreement with Mosons Group to acquire its flagship brand
  Indulekha for 330 crore rupees.
• The proposed acquisition is in line with HUL’s strategic
  intent to strengthen its leadership position in Personal Care.
• HUL will pay Mosons Group 300 crore rupees upon closing of
  the transaction and a deferred consideration of 10 percent on the domestic
  turnover of the brands each year, payable annually for a five-year period
  commencing Fiscal Year 2018.

• Former Defence Secretary R K Mathur has been appointed as
  Chief Information Commissioner (CIC), breaking away from the convention of
  appointing the head from among the serving Information Commissioners.
• The post had fallen vacant after Vijai Sharma completed his
  tenure on December 1.
• He will have tenure of about three years, till he attains
  the age of 65 years.
• 62-year-old Mathur, a retired IAS officer of Tripura cadre,
  was made Defence Secretary for a fixed two-year term on May 28, 2013.
• Mathur, who did his graduation from Indian Institute of
  Technology, Kanpur and post graduation from IIT, Delhi, has held various
  positions in his cadre state and at the Centre.

• India-born Padmasree Warrior, one of Silicon Valley’s
  high-profile women executives, has been appointed as the US CEO of a Chinese
  firm which is building an electric car to compete with American electric car
  manufacturer Tesla.
• Warrior, 55, will be the Chief Development Officer and CEO
  of the US start-up NextEV.
• A technology industry veteran, Warrior was most recently
  Cisco’s Chief Technology and Strategy Officer and had stepped down from the position
  in June this year.
• Warrior’s track record as a technology visionary is
  “undisputed” and her knowledge of the global markets and business
  acumen are “surpassed only by her ability to lead distributed teams of
  engineers and developers toward a common goal,” NextEV’s Founder and
  Chairman William Li said in a statement.

• UltraTech Cement, India’s largest cement maker, has
  appointed K K Maheshwari as its new managing director with effect from April 1,
  2016.
• Maheshwari replaces O P Puranmalka whose term as MD comes to
  an end on 31st March, 2016. Puranmalka will continue as non-executive director
  from April 2016.

• The Open Government Partnership (OGP) on 16 December 2015
  selected Indian-origin World Bank official Sanjay Pradhan to lead the
  organization.
• Pradhan will help ensure that OGP continues to succeed in
  its mission to promote government transparency, accountability and
  responsiveness to citizens.
• Currently vice president for Change, Leadership and
  Innovation at the World Bank Group, Pradhan will assume the new charge by
  mid-2016.

• The husband-wife duo of Claude and Norma Alvares on 18
  December 2015 were honoured with the 2015 Lifetime Service Award by Sanctuary
  Asia magazine.
• On the other hand, Ashok Kumar, one of the pioneers of the
  fightback against wildlife crimes in India and chairman emeritus of the
  Wildlife Trust of India, was named the Sanctuary Legend. It is a new category
  in the list of Sanctuary Wildlife Awards for 2015.

•  Varad Giri, a
  scientist with the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru for his
  contribution to understand and classify little known species, including
  discovering new species of snakes, geckos, frogs and cecilians.
•  Nandini Velho,
  organiser of the first Arunachal Pradesh Bird Festival.
•  Param Jit Singh, a
  trained geologist and forest officer from Uttarakhand.
•  Yash Veer Bhatnagar,
  director of the Snow Leopard Trust’s India Programme. He also conducted one of
  the first long-term studies on the Asiatic Ibexm and organised a path-breaking
  scientific exploration of Ladakh.

• The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on 15 December
  2015 conferred Industrial Innovation Awards 2015 upon 35 companies. Among them
  10 were start-ups and 25 were big and small companies.
• Delhi-based start-up Right Track Admizzionz Campuz won the
  top award in the start-up category, while the pharma major Zydus Cadila was
  adjudged the Most Innovative Company of the Year.
• Capital Numbers Infotech Pvt. Ltd. was ranked top Start-up.

• The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-ITC Awards 2015
  for Excellence in Sustainable Business were conferred on 15 December 2015 in
  New Delhi. They were conferred on 26 awardees in 4 main categories and 9 sub
  categories.
• The awards are a part of the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence
  for Sustainable Development’s efforts to create awareness, promote policy and
  practices, and create capacity to mainstream sustainability practices.
• The Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu was the special
  guest at the award presentation ceremony.

• World Trade Organisation (WTO) on 17 December 2015
  unanimously approved Afghanistan’s WTO membership at the WTO’s Tenth
  Ministerial Conference (MC10) in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
• With this, Afghanistan will become the 163rd WTO member and
  the ninth least-developed country to become a WTO member since the organization
  was established in 1995.
• The Protocol of Accession (PoA) was officially signed by
  Director General Roberto Azevedo and Afghanistan’s First Deputy Chief Executive
  Mohammad Khan Rahmani.

• The three-day long 2nd World Internet Conference was concluded on 18 December 2015 at Wuzen in China. Wuzen is located in Zhejiang Province in eastern China.
• The conference was held with theme An Interconnected World Shared and Governed by All—Building a Cyberspace Community of Shared Destiny.
• It was jointly organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China and the People’s Government of Zhejiang Province.
• The conference focused on facilitating strategic-level discussions on global Internet governance, cyber security, the Internet industry as the engine of economic growth and social development, technological innovation and philosophy of the Internet.

• United Nations International Labour Organisation (ILO) on 16
  December 2015 released a report titled Global Estimates on Migrant Workers. The
  report is a statistical study that estimates the proportion of labour migrant
  workers among the total number of migrants worldwide.
• It outlines the regions and industries where international
  migrant workers are established and includes a specific focus on migrants in
  domestic work with updated numbers.

• The term “migrant worker” refers to all international
  migrants who are currently employed or are unemployed and seeking employment in
  their present country of residence.
• Migrant workers population account for 150.3 million of the
  world’s approximately 232 million international migrants.
• Among migrant workers, 83.7 million are men and 66.6 million
  are women, corresponding to 55.7 per cent and 44.3 per cent of the total
  respectively.
• Migrants constitute 3.9 percent of the total global
  population (aged 15 years and over), however, migrant workers constitute a
  higher proportion (4.4 percent) of all workers.

• Bollywood actor-singer and former Miss World Priyanka Chopra
  has become the third most followed woman in Asia with 12 million followers on
  Twitter on Friday — a day when her much-awaited film “Bajirao
  Mastani” hit the screens.
• The actor is the most followed woman on Twitter in Asia
  after Indonesian singer-actress Agnez Mo (14.5 million) and Bollywood actress Deepika
  Padukone (12.5 million).
• Priyanka, who has made India proud by first taking her
  musical prowess on international shores, and then landing the lead role in
  American TV series “Quantico”, has had a 50 per cent growth in followers
  over the past year, read an official statement from Twitter.
• Needless to say, her popularity has only grown by notches
  ever since she has stepped foot in foreign showbiz.

• International Migrants Day was observed across the world on
  18 December 2015. Since 2014, more than 5000 women, men and children lost their
  lives in search of protection and a better life while migrating. 
• The year 2015 will be remembered as a year of human
  suffering and migrant tragedies.  Tens of
  thousands have been exploited and abused by human traffickers.  And millions have been made into scapegoats
  and become the targets of xenophobic policies and alarmist rhetoric.
• With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
  world leaders vowed to protect the labour rights of migrant workers, combat
  transnational criminal human trafficking networks and promote well-regulated
  migration and mobility.

• Noorul Huda, veteran leader of Communist Party of India (M)
  of eastern India, passed away on 17 December 2015 following a cardiac arrest in
  Kolkata. He was 86. Huda is survived by his wife.
• Huda, a Muslim Meitei Manipuri, was a member of the Central
  Committee(CC) of the CPI (M) for nearly three decades. He was also member of
  the Assam State Assembly from 1978 to 1983.

• Musician and TV composer Adam Roth has died after prolonged
  battle with cancer at the age of 57.
• Roth was diagnosed with stage four bile duct cancer in
  October and he passed away on December 16, reported New York Daily News.
• The guitarist was considered a staple in the New York City
  music scene since the 1970s, playing with bands such as Del Fuegos and Hoy Boy
  and the Doys.
• He attended Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts where
  he met actor Denis Leary and the two formed a friendship that lead to frequent
  collaborations for nearly four decades.

Regards

Team ExamPundit

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