Current Affairs Update – 26th Feb, 2015

In today’s Current Affairs, we have news on:

• Railway Budget 2015-16
• Insurance/Banking/Finance
• India
• World
• Awards
• Obituaries

• The key themes of the Budget were in line with Prime
  Minister Narendra Modi’s initiatives – Swachch Bharat Mission, Make in India
  and Digital India.

• The most-expected part about this year’s railway Budget –
  there is no increase in rail fares.
• Rs.8.5 lakh crore will be invested in Railways in next 5
  years.
• ‘Operation 5 mins’, wherein passengers travellling
  unreserved can purchase a ticket in 5 minutes.
• Bio toilets and airplane-type vaccum toilets in trains.
• Surveillance cameras in select coaches and ladies
  compartments for women’s safety without compromising on privacy.
• Rail tickets can now be booked 120 days in advance.
• Speed on nine railway corridors to go up to 200 km per hour.
• Wi-Fi in more stations, mobile phone charging facilities in
  all train compartments.
• Facility of online booking of wheelchair for senior
  citizens.
• Satellite railway terminals in major cities.
• Centrally managed Rail Display Network is expected to be
  introduced in over 2K stations over the next 2 years.
• All india 24/7 helpline – 138 from March 2015 ; Toll free
  No.182 for security.
• 917 road under-bridges and over-bridges to be constructed to
  replace 3,438 railway crossings; at a cost of Rs. 6,581 crore.
• Four Railway Research Centres to start in four universities.
• No new trains announced in 2015 Railway Budget.
• Kisan Yatra — a special travel scheme for farmers finds
  mention in Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu’s speech

• Mumbai University on 23 February 2015 signed a memorandum of
  understanding (MoU) with the Indian Railways to set up a Rail Innovation and
  Technology Centre to train students for expertise in Railway Engineering.
• Highlights of the MoU
• Indian Railways will allocate 142.89 crore rupees budget for
  the centre over the next five academic years.
• Mumbai University will provide education, distribution of
  facilities for higher education, effective administration and financial
  control.
• The university will impart practical training to candidates
  at university’s Kalina, Ratnagiri and Kalyan sub campus.
• The university will also start specialized courses at the
  Post Graduate level related to rail technology.
• This institute will help the Indian Railways in developing
  cutting-edge indigenous technologies and turn as a net exporter of such
  technologies.

• Additional tax incentives and simple products are key to
  insurance industry, according to a survey of the Confederation of Indian
  Industry (CII).
• The study, India Insurance Vision 2025, done by McKinsey for
  CII, was formally released by TS Vijayan, Chairman of Insurance Regulatory and
  Development Authority of India (IRDA), here on Thursday.
• The industry has a potential to reach $250 billion mark by
  2025, it said.
• Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India
  (IRDA) today said insurance companies can appoint individual agents on their
  own without license from the regulator from April 1.
• IRDA chairman T S Vijayan said the regulator also plans to
  make health insurance, so far considered as part of non-life sector, a
  standalone entity.

• Forbes on 26 February 2015 released Asia’s 50 Power
  Businesswomen 2015 list. The list features six Indian women CEO and Managing
  Director (MD).
• The Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen list showcases a year of
  accomplishments by the region’s female entrepreneurs and executives.

1. Arundhati Bhattacharya, CMD, State Bank of India
2. Chanda Kochchar, CEO, ICICI Bank,
3. Akhila Srinivasan, MD/Non-Executive Director, Shriram Life
   Insurance/Shriram Capital
4. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Founder, Chairman and MD, Biocon
5. Shikha Sharma, CEO and MD, Axis Bank
6. Usha Sangwan, MD, Life Insurance Corp. of India

• The first time entrants to the list include Maggie Wu and
  Lucy Peng, Alibaba’s top female decision-makers.
• For the first time, two women Garamjav Tseden and Win Win
  Tint are included from developing nations Mongolia and Myanmar.

• Union Cabinet on 25 February 2015 approved the creation of
  two additional benches of the Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR). Two
  additional benches of the AAR will be established in New Delhi and Mumbai.
• For these two benches, there will be a creation of two posts
  of Vice-Chairmen in the Apex scale and four posts of Members (two posts of
  Revenue Members and two posts of Law Members) in the Higher Administrative
  Grade (HAG+).
• Moreover, two posts of Secretary at the level of
  Commissioner of Income Tax or Joint Secretary will also be created.

• The creation of two additional benches of the Authority will
  dispose of increased number of cases and pendency of cases will be reduced
  benefitting the tax payer and the Government. 
• This will operationalise the facility of advance ruling for
  resident tax payers. The benches will facilitate the cause of the resident tax
  payers in obtaining tax clarity in certain situations.

• In order to provide the facility of ascertaining the
  Income-tax liability of a non-resident, a scheme of Advance Rulings was
  introduced in the Chapter XIX-B of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 and the Authority
  for Advance Rulings (AAR) was constituted in 1996.

• Self-drive car rental service Zoomcar on 25 February 2015
  tied-up with automaker Tata Motors Limited to add 50 more new Nano cars to its
  fleet. These new cars will be split between Pune and Bengaluru.
• Zoomcar currently offers cars like the Ford Ecosport, Tata
  Safari, Mercedes GLA and Honda City among others which lets customers rent them
  across Bangalore, Pune and the Delhi-NCR region.

• Founded by Greg Morgan and David Back in 2013, Zoomcar is a
  Self-Drive car rental service which allows you to rent cars by the hour, day,
  week or month.

• Andhra Pradesh (AP) Government on 23 February 2015 signed
  Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wipro for building and implementing the
  AP State Enterprise Architecture (APSEA).
• The APSEA is aimed at bringing transformational change in
  the way government services are conceived, designed, delivered and consumed.

• It intends to make the state government future-ready by
  changing from departmental stovepipes to a citizen-centred approach to
  government services achieved through transformation of the front, middle and
  back office operation.
• It would prove to be an essential tool for the development
  of Andhra Pradesh. The vision of the state of Andhra Pradesh is to use
  e-governance as a tool to provide integrated services to its citizens through a
  free flow of information.

• Union Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers on 25 February
  2015 declared the year 2015 as the Year of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients
  (API). It was declared by the Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers
  Ananth Kumar.
• The aim is to bring about self-sufficiency in the field of
  Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) which is also consistent with the
  avowed objective of the Union Government Make in India initiative.

• take measures to facilitate the growth of the sector;
• interact with the industry on a more regular basis to
  improve G2B interactions;
• promote better and more coordinated efforts to achieve the
  objective of Make in India for the API sector

• Dreaded terror group ISIS and all its affiliate
  organisations, responsible for series of savage attacks and killings in Iraq
  and Syria, have been banned in India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention)
  Act.
• Recruitment of youths to the outfit from India and their
  radicalisation is a matter of serious concern for the country especially with
  regard to its likely impact on national security when such youth return to
  India, the Home Ministry said while banning the terrorist group.
• The Islamic State/Islamic State of Iraq and Levant/ Islamic
  State of Iraq and Syria/Daish and all its manifestations have been declared as
  outlawed in India under UAPA, a notification issued by the Ministry said.
• Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said in Parliament on
  December 16, 2014 that the West Asian group had already been declared banned in
  India under a United Nations Schedule.

• The Hindu’s website has won the Website of the Year (WOTY)
  India award for 2014 in the News and Information category.
• The selection of the Website of the Year India is done in an
  online public process that seeks to identify the best and most popular websites
  in 21 categories. It is organised by MetrixLab, a global provider of consumer
  insights and marketing analytics.
• The WOTY awards have been organised for a decade in the
  United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil and China.
• The Hindu has won this award out of 252 websites that were
  nominated in 21 categories. More than 344,000 votes were cast between October
  27 and December 5, 2014. A maximum of 12 nominations were made for each
  category.
• As the winner, The Hindu has been given a trophy and gets to
  display the WOTY winner logo on the website throughout 2015.

• Government will roll out a pilot project to give a digital
  boost to the flagship rural job scheme MNREGA in gram panchayats to ensure its
  better implementation through mobile monitoring system.
• Under the scheme expected to be functional from April this
  year, a total of 35,000 gram panchayats will be covered which would be given a
  mobile/tablet, Minister of State for Rural Development Sudarshan Bhagat said in
  a written reply in Lok Sabha.
• An amount of Rs 35 crore have been sanctioned as each
  mobile/tablet would be costing Rs 10,000.

• The Union Cabinet on 25 February 2015 approved the
  implementation of the scheme for setting up of 15000 Mega Watt (MW) Grid-connected
  Solar Photo Voltaic (SPV) Power projects under the National Solar Mission
  (NSM).
• The scheme will be implemented through National Thermal
  Power Corporation (NTPC) and NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam Limited (VVNL) in three
  tranches. 

• Tranche 1: 3000 MW of SPV plants will be completed under
  mechanism of Bundling of solar power (3000 MW) with Unallocated Coal based
  Thermal Power (1500 MW) in the ration of 2:1.
• Tranche 2: 5000 MW will be completed with some support from
  Government to be decided after getting some experience while implementing
  Tranche-l.
• Tranche 3: remaining 7000 MW will be completed without any
  financial support from the Government.

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 25
  February 2015 issued 6th Amendment to the Telecommunication Mobile Number
  Portability Regulation, 2009. This amendment will facilitate full MNP
  (Pan-India Portability) across India with effect from 3 May 2015.
• With this, subscribers will be able to retain the same
  mobile number on relocating to anywhere in India although they can change their
  service provider.
• At present, number portability within a telecom circle is
  only possible and the subscriber has to pay roaming charges plus applicable STD
  call rates when he carries the number outside the home circle.

• Russia and on 25 February 2015 signed an agreement to give
  Russian navy ships access to Cypriot ports in the Mediterranean Sea. Russian
  ships that will dock at Cypriot ports would mostly be used in counter-terrorism
  and anti-piracy efforts.
• The agreement was signed in Moscow after talks between
  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.
• The military deal also included the possibility of Russia
  using an air base on Cyprus for humanitarian relief missions.

• The international team of scientists led by astronomers from
  Peking University in China and from the University of Arizona discovered the
  brightest quasar SDSS J0 100+2802 with the most massive black hole of 12
  billion solar-mass.
• The findings were published in the journal Nature on 26
  February 2015 and Prof. Xue-Bing Wu at Peking University is the lead author of
  the study.

• Australian researchers unveiled the world’s first 3D-printed
  jet engine on Thursday, a manufacturing breakthrough that could lead to
  cheaper, lighter and more fuel-efficient jets.
• Engineers at Monash University and its commercial arm are
  making top-secret prototypes for Boeing Co, Airbus Group NV, Raytheon Co and
  Safran SA in a development that could be the saviour of Australia’s struggling
  manufacturing sector.
• 3D printing makes products by layering material until a three-dimensional
  object is created. Automotive and aerospace companies use it for producing
  prototypes as well as creating specialized tools, moldings and some end-use
  parts.

• One of the largest public school system in the US is
  planning to introduce Texas’s first Hindi dual language school, a move that
  could benefit the country’s significant Indian-American population.
• With over 200,000 students and 276 schools, Houston Independent
  School District (HISD) will partner with the Consulate General of India (CGI)
  here for the Hindi Dual Language Immersion Programme.
• Consul General Harish Parvathaneni expressed his readiness
  to assist HISD with teaching and curricular materials and with an ongoing
  partnership to provide appropriate cultural milieu to the students of the
  proposed programme.

• Ratan Tata was honoured on 26 February 2015 with an honorary
  Doctorate of Automotive Engineering by the Clemson University at the South
  Carolina Automotive Summit.
• He was awarded for his contributions to the global
  automotive industry. 
• Ratan Tata is the ex-chairman of the Tata Group. He was
  named Chairman of Tata Industries In 1981, where he was responsible for
  transforming it into a group strategy think tank and a promoter of new ventures
  in high technology businesses.

• Activist Irom Sharmila, who has been on an indefinite fast
  since November 4, 2000, demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special
  Powers) Act, has been conferred with the Sthree Shakti award.
• The award is in recognition of her extraordinary courage and
  determination, M.L. George, managing trustee of Smaraks Sthree Trust, Kochi,
  told reporters here on Tuesday.
• She is also known as Iron Lady of Manipur.

• Former Haryana Chief Minister Hukam Singh today passed away
  after a brief illness at a private hospital in Gurgaon. He was 89.
• Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has expressed
  grief over the death of the leader. The state government has declared a holiday
  tomorrow to condole the death.
• Singh was chief minister of the state in 1990-91. He had
  been elected MLA thrice from Charkhi Dadri before 1990.
• The state government has declared three-day mourning
  starting today.

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February 26 Current Affairs
Railway Budget-2015

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