Current Affairs Update – 22-23 Feb, 2015

Categories:


1. Banking/RBI/Finance
2. MoUs
3. India
4. Appointments
5. World
6. Sports
7. Oscar Awards

• Reserve Bank of India today said it will shortly issue ` 10 denomination
  banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi Series-2005.
• “It will incorporate rupee symbol on the obverse and
  the reverse, with inset letter ‘N’ in both the numbering panels, bearing the
  signature of Raghuram G Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India and the year of
  printing ‘2014’ printed on the reverse of the Banknote,” an RBI release
  said.
• The design of these notes to be issued now is similar in all
  respects to ` 10
  Banknotes in Mahatma Gandhi Series- 2005 issued earlier, it said.
• All the banknotes in the denomination of ` 10 issued by the
  bank in the past will continue to be legal tender, it further said.

• Insurance sector regulator IRDA has given in-principle
  approval for setting up of `
  1,500 crore nuclear liability pool for providing risk cover to nuclear
  reactors.
• “We have given in-principle approval (for setting up
  nuclear liability pool). There was a demand for covering the reactors. The
  corpus for it would be `
  1,500 crore,” Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India
  Chairman T S Vijayan told.
• GIC, the domestic re-insurer, would be the nodal agency for
  creating a nuclear liability pool with a corpus of ` 1,500 crore.
• The re-insurer is in the process of pricing and underwriting
  the policy.
• On fake calls made to customers, he said insurance brokers
  and other intermediaries have to act on this and spread awareness among the
  gullible customers so that they are not cheated.

• Employee unions of public sector banks today withdrew
  their strike call following an agreement with the management on 15 per cent
  wage hike.
• At a meeting today in Mumbai, PSU banks employee unions and bank management,
  Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), agreed on 15 per cent wage hike and entered
  into an agreement for it.
• National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) Vice President
  Ashwini Rana said: “We are not happy as our expectation was that bank
  staff would get what was given to them last time — 17.5 per cent increase in
  wages”.
• The bank employees will now also get holidays on two
  Saturdays in a month.
• The wage revision of public sector bank employees has been
  due since November 2012.
• Earlier, unions had deferred one-day strike scheduled for
  January 7 as IBA improved the wage hike offer to 12.5 per cent from 11 per cent
  earlier.
• There are 27 public sector banks in the country with a
  combined employee strength of about 8 lakh. There are about 50,000 branches of
  these banks across the country.

• The Asian Development Bank has inked two loan agreements
  worth $400 million with India to upgrade district roads in Madhya Pradesh and
  to support improvements to power transmission and distribution systems in
  Assam.
• “The Government of India and ADB signed here recently an
  agreement for a $350 million loan to upgrade district roads in the state of
  Madhya Pradesh,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
• The District Connectivity Sector project will improve about
  1,600 km of major district roads in Madhya Pradesh through lane widening,
  surface improvements, strengthening of culverts and bridges, it added.
• Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance Tarun Bajaj said
  the project will reconstruct and rehabilitate major district roads to
  all-weather standards.

• Tata Power has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
  with Siberian Coal Energy Company (SUEK) to develop opportunities in the energy
  sector.
• As part of the agreement, both the companies will cooperate
  on identifying and targeting opportunities in the energy sector in Russia and
  other geographies of common interest in order to develop mutually beneficial
  transactions, Tata Power said.

• Himachal Pradesh is set to become the country’s first state
  to present a ‘paperless’ budget on March 11. Since the state already has the
  country’s first green assembly, all documents related to budget estimates would
  be made available online and only around 10 budget copies would be printed for
  record.
• Earlier, around 200 copies along with huge volumes of other
  documents used to be published during the budget session. Running the
  proceedings on e-Vidhan would save the state exchequer ` 15 crore annually.
• The state assembly is the first to be selected for e-Vidhan
  programme. National Informatics Centre Services Inc was the implementing agency
  for the project. Ensuring paperless work, the day-to-day functioning of the
  House was done online and it not only saved `
  15 crore annually but also 6,000-odd trees.

• The 29th Surajkund International Crafts Mela was celebrated
  from 1 February 2015 to 15 February 2015 at Surajkund, Faridabad.
• The Mela showcased the richness and diversity of the
  handicrafts, handlooms and the cultural heritage of India.
• The Mela was jointly hosted by Haryana Tourism Corporation
  and Surajkund Mela Authority in collaboration with the Union Ministries of
  Tourism, Textiles, Culture and External Affairs.
• Chhattisgarh was selected as the Theme State while Lebanon
  was Partner Nation for the Surajkund Mela. Sri Lanka was chosen as Partner
  Nation for 28th Surajkund International Crafts Mela-2014 while Goa was the
  Theme State for the Surajkund International Crafts Mela 2014.

• India and Bahrain will soon sign an agreement on internal
  security and launch talks on defence pact amid keenness of the two countries to
  enhance ties in various areas, including counter-terrorism.
• Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid Bin Mohamed Al
  Khalifa, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, conveyed his country’s
  commitment to deepen ties with India in counter-terrorism, security and
  defence.

• Union Government on 20 February 2015 launched an online
  grievances monitoring system called MADAD to redress consular grievances. It
  was launched by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi.
• MADAD seeks to help Indian citizens living abroad to file
  consular grievances online on the services offered by the Indian Missions,
  Posts, Consulates and Embassy abroad.
• The logo of MADAD depicts two persons with a letter M
  in-between them and MADAD is written underneath.
• The tagline is Because You Are Us, means we are helping you
  because you are us.
• All the stakeholders involved in MADAD are tightly linked to
  the portal, including Missions and Posts abroad and MEA’s Branch Secretariats
  in Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

• AAP MLA Ram Niwas Goel was today unanimously elected Speaker
  of the Delhi Assembly on the first day of the two-day session of the House.
• Another ruling party legislator, Bandana Kumari, was elected
  Deputy Speaker of the House where the main and only opposition, BJP, has a
  negligible presence with just three legislators.
• 67-year-old Goel was elected from Shahdara constituency in
  north Delhi where he defeated BJP’s Jitender Singh Shunty by a margin of over
  11,000 votes in the recently-concluded Assembly polls.

• Janatal Dal (United) leader NItish Kumar on 22 February 2015
  was sworn in as the 34th Chief Minister of Bihar.
• He succeeded Jitan Ram Manjhi, who resigned from his office
  on 20 February 2015 before the trust vote wherein he was supposed to prove
  majority in the 243-member Bihar Legislative Assembly.
• Kumar’s oath of the office and secrecy was administered by
  Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi at the Raj Bhawan in Patna.

• Former President of Maldives Mohamed Nasheed was arrested on
  22 February 2015 in Male. He was arrested under anti-terrorism laws after a
  court said that he might flee the country to avoid hearings on terrorism
  charges.
• He is facing criminal charges over his order to arrest a
  Criminal Court judge Abdulla Mohamed in January 2012.

• World Health Organisation (WHO) in the fourth week of
  February 2015 approved the ReEBOV Antigen rapid test kit for Ebola virus
  disease (EVD) which can give the result in 15 minutes.
• The test kit developed by Corgenix in the United States (US)
  has been approved for use in West African nations.
• The key feature of the rapid test kit is that it can
  correctly distinguish Ebola infected patients from non-Ebola infected patients.
  It can identify about 92 percent of Ebola-infected patients and 85 percent of
  those patients not infected with the virus.

• NASA will start a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa in the
  hope of finding signs of life on the frozen planet.
• The agency is reportedly encouraged by the blasts of water
  vapour in the moon’s polar region.
• The research team thinks this could be a way to sample the
  liquid water, which is normally inaccessible through the thick layer of ice
  covering the moon, Inquisitr reported.

• Former India captain Anil Kumble and Australian legend Betty
  Wilson on 22 February 2015 were inducted into the International Cricket Council
  Hall of Fame at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia.
• Kumble and Wilson became the 77th and 78th inductees into
  the Hall of Fame.
• The 44-year-old Kumble is the fourth Indian to be included
  in the elite group other three includes Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Bishan
  Bedi. Wilson is the second Australian woman in the Hall of Fame behind Belinda
  Clark. Wilson was given the honour posthumously.

• Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri on 22 February 2015 won the
  Indian Open title at the Delhi Golf Club. To clinch the title, Lahiri defeated
  SSP Chowrasia on the first playoff hole.
• Chowrasia finished as runner-up for the fourth time in the
  tournament.
• Lahiri who started the final day seven strokes behind
  Chowrasia and five shots off defending champion Bangladesh’s Siddikur Rahman
  found himself tied at seven-under with Chowrasia who bogeyed the 16th hole.
  Pars followed for both players and the tie at seven-under 277 led to a playoff.

• Somdev Devvarman on 22 February 2015 retained the Delhi Open
  title of tennis. The Delhi Open was held in New Delhi.
• He won the title by defeating Yuki Bhambri by 3-6, 6-4, 6-0.
  With this, he won the 100000 US dollar ATP Challenger Delhi Open title for
  second time in a row.

• India scored 307 with the help of Shikhar Dhawan’s century.
• South Africa collapsed in 177 runs.
• South Africa earlier defeated India 3 times in the World
  Cups.

• Hosted by – Neil
  Patrick Harris
• Best Picture Award at
  the 87th Academy Awards: Birdman
• Best Director:
  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
• Best Actor: Eddie
  Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
• Best Actress Award:
  Julianne Moore, Still Alice
• Best Actress
  Supporting Role: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
• Best Supporting
  Actor: JK Simmons, Whiplash
• Best Foreign
  Language: IDA, Poland
• Best Animated Feature
  Film: Big Hero 6
• Academy Honorary
  Awards: Jean-Claude Carrière, Hayao Miyazaki, Maureen O’Hara

Books For 2015 Banking/Insurance Exams