Current Affairs Update – 29th June, 2016

Hello and welcome to exampundit . Here are the Important Current Affairs of 29th June, 2016. These are important for upcoming SBI PO Mains & UBI PO PGDBF 2016.

• The World Bank Board on 21 June
  2016 approved the 63 million US dollar project, Tejaswini: Socioeconomic
  Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Jharkhand.
• Tejaswini is the first World Bank
  project in India that is solely focused on the welfare of adolescent girls and
  young women. 
• The project will support
  adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 14 and 24 to complete
  their secondary level education. It will also help them to acquire relevant
  skills for the job market. 

• The project will support
  market-driven skills training, secondary education and broader socio-economic
  empowerment for adolescent girls and young women in 17 select districts of the
  state.
• It is expected to benefit about
  680000 adolescent girls and young women in the state.
• In the 17 project districts,
  there are about 2.1 million adolescent girls and young women in the 14-24 age
  group, of which 13% belong to Scheduled Castes and 25% to Scheduled Tribes.
• The project will intervene at two
  levels, i.e., at the community and at the institutional level.
• The community-based platforms
  will hold regular counselling and guidance sessions, life skills education,
  livelihood support services and more.
• At the institutional level, it
  will work with partner institutions through performance-based contracts to
  deliver vocational training, business skills training and non-formal education.

• (a) Resilience and soft skills:
  It includes communication and problem-solving skills, goal-setting and
  techniques to maintain psychological wellbeing through adversity.
• (b) Rights and protections: This
  is related to early marriage, child labour, safe migration, gender-based
  violence and more.
• (c) Health and nutrition: It
  includes sanitation and hygiene, nutritional habits for self and children and
  sexual and reproductive health.
• (d) Financial literacy: It will
  help teach numeracy, saving, budgeting and accessing credit and financial
  institutions.

• The World Bank’s Board of
  Executive Directors on 24 June 2016 approved 201.50 million US dollars for
  Technical Education Quality Improvement Project III (TEQIP III) in India to
  improve the quality of engineering education in select Indian states.
• The objective of the project is
  to enhance quality and equity in participating engineering education institutes
  and improve the efficiency of the engineering education system in focus states.
• The maturity period for the
  project if 25 years with an additional 5 years grace period.

• Improving quality and equity in
  engineering institutes in focus states
• It will focus on improving
  engineering education in all government and government-aided colleges including
  the ATUs in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, LIS, states in the North East of India
  and hill states.

• (i) institutional development for
  participating institutes
• (ii) widening impact through ATUs
• (iii) twinning arrangements to
  build capacity and improve performance of participating institutes

• It will support the Ministry of
  Human Resource Development (MHRD) and key apex bodies including the All India
  Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and National Board of Accreditation
  (NBA).
• It will strengthen sector
  governance, management, accountability mechanisms and performance in the
  overall system of engineering education.

• Axis Bank-country’s third largest
  private sector lender- in a bid to ride on the digital wave has decided to open
  an innovation lab where it will tie up with financial technology start-ups.
• This innovation hub that is
  located in Bangalore will focus on curating start-ups and working with them to
  help them develop the value propositions and the bank will look at absorbing
  their technology.
• These start-ups will mainly be
  focusing across lending, digital, payments and artificial intelligence space.
  For this, the bank has also tied up with Zone Start-ups, Nasscom, venture
  capitalist and some global banks. At the moment the lender is also
  experimenting with emerging technologies such as blockchain, mobiolity, cloud
  etc.
• In its annual report released a
  few days ago, the lender had stated that it is planning to focus on start-ups
  and ecommerce as a business segment and has created a new business vertical-the
  New Economy Group within the corporate banking system. 
• The bank said that this
  vertical will focus on improving relationship with e-commerce companies and
  start-ups, through a relationship-driven comprehensive coverage model.

• Union Cabinet on 29 June 2016
  approved the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission. The salaries and
  arrears, effective from 1 January 2016, will be made applicable now.
• The commission recommended 23.55
  percent hike in pay and allowances of government employees.

• The minimum pay for government
  employees is recommended to be set at 18000 rupees per month.
• The maximum pay is recommended to
  be 225000 rupees per month for Apex Scale and 250000 per month for Cabinet
  Secretary and others presently at the same pay level.
• The increase in pay will be 16
  percent, increase in allowances will be 63 percent and increase in pension will
  be 24 percent.
• The present system of pay bands
  and grade pay has been dispensed and a new pay matrix has been designed. Grade
  Pay has been subsumed in the pay matrix. The status of the employee, determined
  by grade pay, will now be determined by the level in the pay matrix.
• The rate of annual increment for
  employees will be 3 percent.
• Abolition of 52 allowances and
  introduction of a Health Insurance Scheme.
• One Rank One Pension proposed for
  civilian government employees on line of OROP for armed forces.
• Increase in Military Service Pay
  and revised pension formula for civil employees including Central Armed Police
  Forces (CAPF) and Defence Personnel retiring before 1 January 2016.
• Military Service Pay (MSP), which
  is a compensation for the various aspects of military service, will be
  admissible to the defence forces personnel only.
• Ceiling of gratuity enhanced from
  10 lakh rupees to 20 lakh rupees and ceiling on gratuity will be raised by 25
  percent whenever DA rises by 50 percent.

• Council of Scientific and
  Industrial Research (CSIR) and Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research
  (CSIR-CIMFR) on 28 June 2016 inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with
  Coal Supplying companies and Power Utilities for quality analysis of coal being
  supplied to power utilities by coal companies.
• Highlights of the MoU
• The CSIR-CIMFR would make use of
  its knowledge base support in maintaining the quality of coal at national level
  for the entire power sector.
• It is estimated that about 300
  million metric tons of coal samples would be analyzed for quality per year.
• The contract value of the project
  is around 250 crore rupees per annum at minimum.

• Majuli was in news on 27 June
  2016 as the Government of Assam approved its up gradation as a district. The
  approval was given by the State Cabinet in its first meeting after the
  formation of the government on 24 May 2016.
• At present, Majuli is a Mohkuma,
  a sub division of the Jorhat District and represented by the Chief Minister
  Sarbananda Sonowal in the Assembly.

• Geographical features: It is a
  fluvial landform (a riverine delta), a unique geographical occurrence and a
  result of the dynamics of the Brahmaputra river system.
• It is bounded by the river
  Subanisri and her tributaries on the North West, the kherkatia Suli (a spill
  channel of the river Brahmaputra) in the northeast and the main Brahmaputra
  River on the South and the South west.
• It is the largest mid river delta
  system in the world. It is also comprised of many islets locally called the
  Chaporis.
• Its area has shrunk from about
  1250 square kilometers in 1891 to about 515 square kilometers due to the
  erosion of river-bank.

• Exercise Jalrahat: a Joint
  Initiative by State Government and Armed Forces for Flood Relief in Assam
• Armed Forces and state government
  of Assam on 28 June 2016 started exercise JALRAHAT at Narangi Cantt of Assam.
  It is an initiative that is being carried on for flood relief in the state.
• The Exercise spread over three
  days terminates on 30 June 2016.
• Exercise Jalrahat, a joint
  initiative led by GAJRAJ Corps with full support from HQ Eastern Command, is
  based on Flood Relief in an urban setting.
• It is a clubbed name of the
  relief works that will be carried by all the three forces of India that is,
  Indian Army, Navy and Air Force.

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) on
  28 June 2016 released the Human Capital Report 2016.
• The WEF prepared the report in
  collaboration with Mercer, an American global human resource and related
  financial services consulting firm.
• The report presents an analysis
  by focusing on a number of key issues that can support better design of
  education policy and future workforce planning.
• The Human Capital Index 2016
  ranks 130 countries on how well they are developing and deploying their human
  capital potential.

• Finland (1)
• Norway (2)
• Switzerland (3)

• Chad (128)
• Yemen (129)
• Mauritania (130)

• India occupied the 105th position
  among the 130 countries surveyed in the Index. In 2015, India’s position was
  100th among the 124 countries surveyed in the Index.
• In the Asia-Pacific region, it is
  placed behind Sri Lanka (50), China (71), Indonesia (72), Iran (85), Bhutan
  (91) and Bangladesh (104).
• India has secured 62nd, 98th,
  106th, 119th and 120th position in the 0 to 14, 15 to 24, 25 to 54, 55 to 64,
  and 65 and Over categories respectively.

• The United Nations Children’s
  Emergency Fund (UNICEF) on 28 June 2016 released the State of the World’s
  Children 2016 report.
• The data in the report show that,
  unless the pace of progress to reach them is accelerated, the futures of
  millions of disadvantaged and vulnerable children will be jeopardized.

• The report mentions that unless
  the world focuses more on the plight of its most disadvantaged children, by
  2030:
• Almost 70 million children may
  die before reaching their fifth birthdays.
• Children in sub-Saharan Africa
  will be 10 times more likely to die before their fifth birthdays than children
  in high-income countries.
• Nine out of 10 children living in
  extreme poverty will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

• The report states that five
  countries will account for more than half of the global burden of under-five
  deaths. These countries are India (17 per cent), Nigeria (15 per cent),
  Pakistan (8 per cent), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (7 per cent) and
  Angola (5 per cent).
• The average annual rate of
  reduction in neonatal mortality required for India to reach the target is
  almost double the current level.

• Food and Beverage multinational
  Nestle SA on 27 June 2016 named Ulf Mark Schneider as its next Chief Executive
  Officer (CEO). He is the CEO of Fresenius, a Germany-based healthcare company.
  He will join Nestle on 1 September 2016 and start as CEO on 1 January 2017.
• He will succeed incumbent CEO
  Paul Bulcke, who will resign from the position on 31 December 2016. Bulcke has
  been named by Nestle board as its next chairman after incumbent Peter
  Brabeck-Letmathe retires in 2017.
• 50-year old Schneider will be the
  first outsider to run 150-year old Nestlé since 1922, when banker Louis Dapples
  was appointed to head the company after its only financial loss.
• The appointment of Schneider
  highlights the increasing importance of health and nutrition for
  Switzerland-based manufacturer of Maggi noodles and Kit Kat candy bars.
• Schneider appointment will expand
  the Nestle’s capability to become one of the pre-eminent players in the
  Nutrition, Health and Wellness sector.

• Suzuki Motor Corp on Wednesday
  said its board has appointed Toshihiro Suzuki, son of Chairman Osamu Suzuki, as
  its next chief executive effective the same day, as the Japanese automaker
  attempts to recover from a vehicle testing scandal.
• The appointment comes after
  patriarch Osamu Suzuki this month said he would decline the CEO position to
  take responsibility for the automaker’s use of incorrect testing methods when
  calculating vehicle mileage.

• Dairy major Amul today announced
  to sponsor the Indian contingent for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, to be held in
  August.
• The Gujarat Cooperative Milk
  Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which sells its product under the brand Amul,
  will pay Rs 1 crore to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for the
  sponsorship.
• The agreement for the official
  sponsorship of the Indian contingent in 2016 Olympic games, was signed by IOA
  Secretary General Rajeev Mehta and GCMMF Managing Director R S Sodhi.

• India’s Ace shooter Sanjeev
  Rajput on 28 June 2016 clinched the silver medal for India in men’s 50-metre
  rifle 3 position event of the ISSF World Cup in Baku, Ajerbaijan.
• To claim the silver medal, Rajput
  shot 456.9 points. This was his third World Cup medal and first in five years
  (he won gold at 2011 Changwon World Cup).
• This was also India’s second
  medal of the competition and of the same colour as well, after pistol ace Jitu
  Rai’s silver winning effort in the men’s 10m air pistol earlier in the
  competition.
• Croatia’s Petar Gorsa won the
  gold medal with 457.5, while Hyeonjun Kim of Korea bagged the bronze after he
  shot 445.5.
• This was the last World Cup
  before the Rio Olympic Games.

• Senior artist K.G. Subramanyan
  (92) passed away in Baroda on Wednesday.
• Subramanyan, who was recovering
  from a recent surgery, was a modernist, having studied art under stalwarts like
  Nandlal Boss, Ramkinkar Baij and Benode Bihari Mukherjee in Shantiniketan.
• When he turned 90, Seagull
  Foundation For The Arts decided to celebrate the occasion with a year-long
  travelling exhibition of the master’s latest works.

• Naga rebel leader Isak Chishi Swu
  died on 28 June 2016 following a prolonged illness at Fortis hospital in Vasant
  Kunj, Delhi. He was 87.
• He was the co-founder and
  chairman of Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) (NSCN-IM).

Regards

Team ExamPundit