Current Affairs Update – 19th August, 2016

• Indian Oil Corporation (IOCL) and
  the Roads and Highways Department of People’s Republic of Bangladesh signed a
  Memorandum of Understanding in Dhaka.
• The MoU enables IOCL to send its
  trucks carrying Motor Spirit, High Speed Diesel, Superior Kerosene Oil &
  Liquefied Petroleum Gas from Meghalaya to Tripura via territory of Bangladesh.
• The validity of this facility is
  till end September, 2016. Both sides have also agreed to extend the transit
  facility for a further short period on need basis.
• The work on the broad gauging of
  the railway track in the North-Eastern region has shifted the goods vehicle
  traffic on to the roads.
• Further, due to heavy rains in
  the region this Monsoon, the roads, including NH 44, have been affected
  resulting in non-plying of goods trucks, including those carrying petroleum
  goods to Tripura. This resulted into a situation of scarcity of essential petroleum
  goods.

• The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited
  and Microsoft India on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to
  offer telecom & IT solutions for big businesses.
• The MoU will help meet the demand
  foe IT and cloud services, as well as audio and video needs of the BSNL’s
  enterprise customers including government organizations, BSNL said in a
  statement.
• BSNL has large share in landline
  network including leased line connectivity to various enterprises.

• The India Post Payments Bank
  Limited (IPPB) on 17 August 2016 was incorporated. In this regard, it has
  received the Certificate of Incorporation (CI) from the Registrar of Companies,
  Ministry of Corporate Affairs under the Companies Act, 2013.
• With this incorporation, the bank
  has become the first Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Department of
  Posts (DoP).
• The incorporation also paves the
  way for the constitution of the Board of the India Post Payments Bank Limited.

• It will allow all citizens of
  India, especially the 40 percent of the country’s population that is outside
  the ambit of formal banking in the country will benefit from this project.
• Its services will be available
  across the country through 650 payments bank branches, linked post offices and
  alternative channels riding on modern technology including mobiles, ATMs,
  PoS/m-PoS (mobile-Point of Sale) devices etc and simple digital payments.

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• Union Minister of State (IC) for
  Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy and Mines Piyush Goyal on 17 August 2016
  launched TARANG Mobile App, e-Trans and DEEP e-bidding web portals in New
  Delhi.
• They were developed by Rural
  Electrification Corporation Transmission Projects Company Limited (RECTPCL), a
  subsidiary of REC Ltd.
• The initiatives were launched
  keeping in line with the Digital India initiative. The primarily seek to
  enhance transparency in power sector.

• It stands for Transmission App
  for Real Time Monitoring and Growth.
• The mobile application as well as
  the web portal will act as powerful monitoring tool to track upcoming
  transmission projects.
• It will also be utilized to
  monitor the progress of inter-state and intra-state transmission systems in the
  country.

• It is a web platform for
  e-bidding and e-reverse auction for Tariff Based Competitive Bidding (TBCB) in
  transmission projects.
• Till date, transmission sector
  providers have been participating in transmission bids through manual mode.

• DEEP stands for Discovery of
  Efficient Electricity Price.
• It is an e-Bidding portal for
  medium term (1-5 years) purchase of power.
• It will provide a common
  e-bidding platform with e-reverse auction facility to facilitate nation-wide
  power procurement through a wider network.

• India’s pharmaceutical giant
  Cipla and consumer goods conglomerate Godrej have been recognised by Fortune
  magazine in a list of global firms changing the world for the good and having a
  positive social impact through their activities.
• Cipla is ranked 46th in the list
  of 50 followed by Godrej on the 48th spot, the only Indian companies in the
  list.
• The Fortune 2016 ‘Change the
  World’ list recognises companies that have had a positive social impact through
  activities that are part of their core business strategy.
• The list has been topped by
  British pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline and includes Swiss food products major
  Nestle (5), India-born Ajay Banga-led Mastercard (7), US retail giant Walmart
  (15), China’s ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing (30), India-born Indra
  Nooyi-led PepsiCo (38), Dutch beverages giant Heineken (43) and American motor
  company Tesla (50).

• The world’s largest airship,
  Airlander 10, flew for the first time on 17 August 2016 over London’s
  Cardington airfield.
• This flight of the 92-metre ship,
  nicknamed the Flying Bum for its shape, lasted for about 30 minutes. The
  aircraft completed a series of flight manoeuvres and landed safely.
• The Hybrid Air Vehicles HAV 304
  Airlander 10 is a hybrid airship made by Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) in the
  United Kingdom.
• It was originally built for the
  US Army’s Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) project.