Current Affairs Update – 26 October, 2017

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Exampundit.in
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Hello and welcome to exampundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 26 October, 2017. These are very important for the upcoming IBPS PO, IBPS RRB, OICL AO, UIIC Assistant & NICL Assistant Exams.

Banking & Financial News
IDFC Bank launches 100th branch
at Honnali, Karnataka

  • IDFC Bank has launched its 100th
    branch at Honnali, Karnataka and plans to expand its network in the metros in
    the next one year.
  • Of the 100 branches, 17 are in
    the metro cities. The bank plans to expand its branch network in the metros in
    the next one year, for a balanced presence in metro, urban and rural
    geographies. The scale-up will take the bank’s network in metros alone to 100
    branches, it added.
  • This coincides with the
    completion of the bank’s second year of operations.
India imposes anti-dumping duty
on stainless steel from US, EU and China

  • India has imposed anti-dumping
    duty on certain stainless steel products from the European Union and other
    nations including China and Korea, in order to protect the domestic industry
    from cheap imports.
  • The duty was imposed by the
    Revenue department following the recommendation by the Directorate General of
    Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD).
  • The levied duty will range
    between 4.58 per cent and 57.39 per cent of the landed value of cold-rolled
    flat products of stainless steel.
  • The anti-dumping duty will be in
    effect until 10 December 2020.
  • The direction however, exempts
    certain grades of stainless steel from the duty.
  • The duty will be levied on the
    imports of stainless steel products from China, Taiwan, South Korea, South
    Africa, Thailand, the United States and the European Union.
CRISIL launches India’s first
infrastructure investability index

  • CRISIL launched the CRISIL
    InfraInvex, India’s first investability index that tracks, measures and
    assesses the development, maturity and investment attractiveness of
    infrastructure sectors, along with the CRISIL Infrastructure Yearbook 2017, a
    first-of-its-kind annual publication.
  • For years now, the government has
    been doing the heavy lifting in terms of infrastructure investments. However,
    having only the public investment cylinder firing is not good enough.
    Accelerating private sector investments is an essential complementarity, and
    the other cylinder that needs to fire.
  • The CRISIL Infrastructure
    Yearbook 2017 underlines this aspect, and says India needs to spend at least Rs
    50 lakh crore between fiscals 2018 and 2022 to build out its infrastructure
    sustainably.
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News related to India & states
Mumbai To Get India’s First AC
Local Trains

  • The wait for air-conditioned
    train will finally end for passengers of Mumbai’s suburban railway service,
    with Railway Minister Piyush Goyal today saying that the first such train will
    be introduced on January 1.
  • The local train network,
    considered Mumbai’s lifeline, is heavily congested and carries over 65 lakh
    passengers very day, with the Western Line alone accounting for 35 lakh
    passengers. Officials said the plan to introduce AC trains has been on the
    anvil for over a year.
  • For starters, one AC train with
    around seven services daily will run on the Western Line.
  • Officials said that the fares on
    the AC train will be like the Delhi Metro or around 1.5 times the cost of first
    class tickets in the existing local trains.
  • The railways has procured nine
    more electrical multiple unit (EMU) AC rakes for Mumbai so that such services
    can be operated both on the Western railway (WR) and Central railway (CR)
    lines, officials said.
SC asks UP, Haryana, Rajasthan to
ban use of pet coke to curb air pollution

  • The Supreme Court (SC) on 24
    October 2017 directed the governments of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Haryana and
    Rajasthan to ban the use of petroleum (pet) coke and furnace oil in the
    industries with an aim to fight air pollution.
  • The ruling was made by a bench of
    Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta. The bench also clarified that it will
    ban the use of pet coke and furnace oil in these three states from 1 November
    2017, if the respective governments did not prohibit their use in the
    industries by then.
  • Besides ruling this, the court fined
    Union Environment Ministry with Rs 2 lakh for not finalising pollution emission
    standards for industries using pet coke and furnace oil in the National Capital
    Region (NCR).
  • The bench also directed the
    Ministry to notify the standards for Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) and Sulphur Oxides
    (SOx) for the industry sector and the industries need to comply with the
    standards by 31 December 2017.
  • The court was hearing a PIL filed
    by environmentalist MC Mehta in 1985, who had raised the issue of air pollution
    in the Delhi-NCR.
Indian Navy approves new
deployment plan for warships in Indian Ocean

  • The Indian Navy on 25 October
    2017 approved a new mission-based deployment plan that involves deploying
    mission-ready ships and aircraft along critical sea lanes of communications in
    the Indian Ocean region.
  • The Navy in an official release
    stated that Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba had approved the plan on the second day
    of the four-day naval commanders’ conference that was held in New Delhi.
  • The warships have been deployed
    to tackle any possible event ranging from acts of maritime terrorism and piracy
    to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions. The deployments are
    supposed to be maintained round-the-clock.
  • Besides this, the Indian navy
    along with the Ministry of External Affairs has decided to focus efforts on
    developing the capacity and capability of the navy in the region.
  • The move of deploying the
    mission-ready ships and aircraft is also reportedly to counter China’s growing
    presence in the strategically key waters. The threat was one of the key issues
    that was brought up for discussion on the second day of the four-day long naval
    commander’s conference.
Environment Ministry issues
stage-I forest clearance for Kaleswaram project construction

  • The Union Ministry of Environment
    and Forests has given its in-principle stage-I forest clearance for the
    construction of the Kaleswaram project stage-one.
  • The ministry has approved the
    diversion of about 3,200 hectares of forest land for the project construction
    based on the recommendations of the Forest Advisory Committee (FAC).
  • The ministry has allowed
    diversion of the forest land spread over eight forest divisions — Mahadevpur,
    Karimnagar-Sircilla, Siddipet, Yadadri, Medak, Nizamabad, Banswada and Nirmal —
    for taking up the project work.
  • The Kaleshwaram Lift irrigation
    project has been designed to irrigate 7,38,851 hectares of land in the upland
    areas of the former undivided districts of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad,
    Warangal, Medak, Nalgonda and Rangareddy.
  • The project across River Godavari
    near Kaleswaram in Karimnagar district was proposed by the Telangana state
    government at an estimated cost of over Rs 80,500 Cr.
World News
World’s oldest navigational tool
‘Astrolabe’ discovered on shipwreck

  • David Mearns, Britain-based
    shipwreck searcher, on 24 October 2017 revealed that the ‘Astrolabe’ discovered
    by him on a shipwreck off the coast of Oman in 2014 is the world’s oldest
    navigational tool.
  • The astrolabe guided the
    Portuguese explorers on their dangerous expedition to India in the 16th
    century. Besides astrolabe, other items discovered on the shipwreck were a
    bronze bell, gold coins and a rare silver coin known as the ‘ghost coin of Dom
    Manuel.’
  • Mearns’s company Blue Water
    Recoveries found the shipwreck in 1998 after researching it but excavations on
    the site did not begin until 2013, when the excavations began in collaboration
    with Oman’s Culture Ministry. Presently, the astrolabe is with Oman’s National
    Museum.
Days/Weeks
Central Vigilance Commission to
observe vigilance awareness week

  • The Central Vigilance Commission
    would be observing vigilance awareness week from 30 October to 4 November 2017
    with the theme “My Vision Corruption Free India.”
  • The week’s inaugural function
    would have Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu as the Chief Guest, according to
    Central Vigilance Commissioner, K V Choudhary.
  • The Vigilance Commission has
    designed an online pledge system on which any citizen can take pledge against
    corruption.
  • If any citizen comes across any
    sort of corruption then, that person can report the same without unveiling his
    or her identity.
  • The main events of the week
    include seminars, discussions and other outreach events, which have been
    planned involving private sector, professional associations and trade unions for
    wider participation of all sections of civil society.
Awards & Honors
Indian origin activist Gina
Miller named UK’s most influential black person of the year

  • Indian origin campaigner Gina
    Miller was named UK’s most influential black person of the year on 25 October
    2017. Gina won a legal challenge seeking Parliamentary approval for triggering
    Brexit. The Supreme Court ruling came in her favour in January 2017.
  • 52 year old Miller, ranked on top
    in the 2018 ‘Powerlist’ of 100 people of African and African Caribbean
    inheritance published in London by Powerful Media.
  • An investment fund manager and
    philanthropist Gina took a legal action against British Prime Minister Theresa
    May demanding that individual members of the Cabinet have no legal power to
    trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Article 50 states that any member
    state may leave “in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”.
  • Miller has been attacked several
    times on social media for taking her stand against Britain’s exit from the
    European Union. She has been provided 24 hour security for safety reasons.
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Indexes
Global Passport Power Rank 2017
released: Singapore ranks first, India positioned at 75

  • The Global Passport Power Rank
    2017 was released on 25 October 2017 by global financial advisory firm Arton
    Capital.
  • As per the Global Passport Index,
    Singapore fetched the most powerful ranking with a score of 159 in visa free
    category, topping the list. Germany was ranked second, followed jointly by
    Sweden and South Korea in third place.
  • India was ranked at 75th place,
    three places above its earlier rank of 78.
  • Following Paraguay’s removal of
    visa requirements for Singaporeans, Singapore bagged the first rank at the
    Global Passport Index. This was the first time when an Asian nation got the
    most powerful passport in the world.
  • Besides Singapore, the other
    nations on Top 5 were Germany (visa score 158) that bagged second;   Sweden and South Korea (visa core 157)
    together were placed 3rd; Denmark, Finland, Italy, France, Spain, Norway,
    Japan, United Kingdom (156 visa score) were placed at number four and
    Luxemburg, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal (155 visa
    score) were positioned at number 5.
  • South Korea, Japan and Malaysia
    were three Asian nations that were included in Top 20.
  • Earlier the Top 10 ranks were
    held by European countries.

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