Current Affairs Update – 24th February, 2016

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the important Current Affairs of 24th February, 2016. These are Important for the upcoming Bank and Insurance exams as well as the last phase of LIC AAO 2016.

• Origo Commodities India today
  said it has tied up with State Bank of India  
  to offer post-harvest credit facility to farmers across the country
  against warehouse receipts.
• Origo Commodities, which provides
  post-harvest management solution, currently manages 35 lakh tonnes of
  agricultural produce across 15 states in 500 warehouses.
• Origo Commodities is an
  implementation agency mandated by NABARD to promote Negotiable Warehouse
  Receipts (NWR) at farmers’ level through Primary Agricultural Cooperative
  Societies (PACs) and co-operative banks.
• Warehouse receipt financing is an
  essential financial tool for farmers to avail loans by storing crops in
  warehouses.

• Budget hotel aggregator OYO Rooms
  has tied up with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to
  offer standardised accommodation and a convenient booking platform to rail
  travellers, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
• Under the tie-up, OYO Rooms will
  power the IRCTC hotel-booking page, offering their inventory and standardised
  amenities to passengers.
• With this, IRCTC customers will
  have ready access to hotel accommodations under OYO, Abhinav Sinha, COO, OYO
  Rooms said.
• IRCTC-OYO Rooms will offer nearly
  45,000 hotel rooms in over 170 cities in India. The IRCTC portal witnesses 5 to
  5.5 lakh bookings a day.

• The Assam Cabinet on 23 February
  2016 approved the detailed project report (DPR) for a Mass Rapid Transit System
  (MRTS) for Guwahati. The cabinet also gave green signal to setting up of the
  Guwahati Metro Rail Corporation Limited (GMRCL).
• State Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi
  will lay the foundation stone for the Metro project in Khanapara area on 29
  February 2016.

• The 203 kilometres Metro corridor
  will be completed in three phases.
• Phase I will cover a length 61.4
  kilometres, and will have four corridors: Dharapur-Narangi (elevated), M.G.
  Road to Khanapara (underground), Jalukbari to Khanapara (elevated) and ISBT to
  Paltanbazar (elevated).
• There will be 54 stations in the
  first phase.
• The trains will have a carrying
  capacity of up to 975 passengers each.
• The estimated projected cost
  including land is 18020 crore rupees.

• Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail
  (VVPAT), a method of providing feedback to voters using a ballot less voting
  system, was in news on 23 February 2016.
• It came in news, after Assam’s
  Chief Electoral Officer announced that VVPAT will be introduced in 10
  constituencies (around 2400 polling booths) in upcoming assembly polls. He said
  that Dispur and Jalukbari assembly constituencies in Kamrup Metro district will
  be included in the VVPT trial.
• VVPAT is intended as an
  independent verification system for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) that
  allows voters to verify that their votes are cast as intended and can serve as
  an additional barrier to changing or destroying votes.

• The fifth edition of exercise
  IBSAMAR between Brazil, India and South Africa kicked off on 19 February 2016
  in Goa. The exercise will conclude on 29 February 2016.
• This is the first time that
  Exercise IBSAMAR is being conducted in Indian waters. All the previous editions
  were being held off South Africa.
• The primary aim of the exercise
  is to increase interoperability amongst the three navies as well as develop
  common understanding and procedures for maritime security operations.

• A Bill to empower the Election
  Commission to undertake a limited delimitation exercise and grant voting rights
  to certain Indian citizens in the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal was
  introduced in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
• Union Law Minister D V Sadananda
  Gowda introduced the Election Laws (amendment) Bill 2016.
• The introduction of this Bill
  assumes significance as it comes months before West Bengal goes in for
  elections in May 2016.
• The term of the 294-member West Bengal
  Assembly ends on May 29.
• The Centre is likely to push for
  the passage of this Bill in the next few days to enable the Election Commission
  to carry out the limited delimitation exercise. .
• Once enacted, the law would pave
  the way for delimitation exercise to be carried out in those areas that became
  part of Cooch Behar district following the exchange of enclaves with
  Bangladesh.

• Former Chief Justice of India
  (CJI) Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu was selected as the next Chairperson
  of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on 23 February 2016. 65-year-old
  Justice Dattu will have tenure of five years.
• His name was cleared for the post
  by a committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Other members of the
  committee were Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Union Home Minister Rajnath
  Singh, leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and Deputy Chairman
  of Rajya Sabha P J Kurien.
• The post was lying vacant since
  11 May 2015, when KG Balakrishnan demitted office after five-year term. Justice
  Cyriac Joseph had been functioning as the acting chairperson since then.

• Justice Dinesh Maheshwari of
  Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on 24 February 2016 was sworn-in as
  the Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court.
• Maheshwari was administered the
  oath of office by state Governor V. Shanmuganathan.
• Justice Maheshwari succeeds
  Justice Uma Nath Singh who retired as Chief Justice on 14 January 2016. Since
  then, Justice Sudip Ranjan Singh was serving as the acting Chief Justice of the
  state high court.

• The Centre on Wednesday appointed
  three information commissioners in the Central Information Commission (CIC).
• They are Amitava Bhattacharyya,
  Indian Administrative Service, (Gujarat 1980), retired Chairman, Staff
  Selection Commission, Bimal Julka, IAS (Madhya Pradesh:1979), retired
  Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and Divya Prakash Sinha,
  Indian Police Service (Manipur-Tripura: 1979), retired Secretary (Security),
  Cabinet Secretariat.

• Gujarat-cadre IAS officer Atanu
  Chakraborty was today appointed as Director General, Directorate General of
  Hydrocarbons (DGH), Oil Ministry’s technical advisory arm for exploration and
  production.
• 55-year-old Chakraborty has been
  appointed for four-year term in the rank of Additional Secretary as chief of
  DGH, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training said.
• A 1985-batch officer, he is at
  present working as Managing Director of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation
  Ltd, a state-run energy player.

• Jet Airways today said it has
  appointed Rahul Taneja as Chief People Officer and he would be responsible for
  shaping the group’s operations and performance.
• Taneja, who previously headed
  Corporate Human Resources at diversified Essar Group, would be part of the
  airline’s Executive Management Committee.
• In recent times, some companies,
  especially in the e-commerce space, have been roping in executives for the post
  of Chief People Officer.

• 18th Mercer annual Quality of
  Living survey was released on 23 February 2016. The survey of 230 cities helps
  companies and organizations determine compensation and hardship allowances for
  international staff.
• The list compiled by consulting
  firm Mercer said Vienna, Austria’s grand capital on the Danube River offers the
  highest quality of life of all cities in the world. On the other hand, the
  Iraqi capital Baghdad, once more took its place at the bottom of a live ability
  list.

1. Hyderabad – rank 139
2. Pune – rank 144
3. Bangalore – rank 145
4. Chennai – rank150
5. Mumbai – rank 152
6. Kolkata – rank 160
7. New Delhi – rank 161

• India has consolidated its number
  3 position as the biggest producer of billionaires in the world after China and
  the United States. India has produced 111 billionaires, 14 more than last
  year’s 97, as compared to China’s 568 billionaires and 535 billionaires from
  the United States. India is third in the list, overtaking Russia and UK.
• The combined wealth India
  billionaires went up by 25% to $308 billion as compared to last year, as per
  the Rich List compiled by Shanghai-based Hurun Report.
• In a statement, Hurun said
  India’s richest Mukesh Ambani and Cyrus Poonawalla of unlisted Serum Institute
  added $6 billion and $4 billion to their wealth respectively.
• Beijing is the new “Billionaire
  Capital of the World.”
• The Chinese capital has overtaken
  the Big Apple as home to the most billionaires 100 to 95 according to Hurun, a
  Shanghai firm that releases yearly rankings and research about the 1 per cent.
• The study, which comes months
  after reports suggested China now has more billionaires than the United States,
  highlights how China’s elite are continuing to accrue vast wealth despite a
  wobbling stock market and tepid economy.
• Beijing took the title from New
  York after minting 32 new billionaires last year, while New York gained four.
• Moscow came in third place, with
  66 billionaires, while Hong Kong and Shanghai came in fourth and fifth with 64
  and 50, respectively.

• Renowned scriptwriter Sagar
  Sarhadi will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the second
  edition of the International Film Festival of Prayag (IFFP). The festival will
  be held in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh from 26 February to 28 February 2016.
• Sarhadi will be honoured at the
  festival for his contribution to Hindi cinema over the years.

Regards

Team ExamPundit

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