Current Affairs Update – 29th March, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the current affairs for 29th march, 2015.

• The Reserve Bank of India has almost finalised the structure
  of Central Fraud Registry and will soon come up with guidelines to enable quick
  sharing of information about unscrupulous borrowers and help banks fight bad
  loans.
• The proposed institution, which will enable quick sharing of
  information on entities found to be defrauding banks, would work under the
  supervision of RBI, he said.
• Banks are advertising the list of wilful defaulters on their
  website and newspapers individually. With setting up of this registry, list of
  all unscrupulous borrowers will be available on a single platform.
• Thus, banks can take advantage of the registry at the time
  of sanctioning loan by checking the credentials of a borrower from the
  registry.
• As per RBI data, the gross NPAs (non-performing assets) of
  the PSU banks stood at Rs. 2,60,531 crore, as on December 2014.
• The top 30 defaulters are sitting on bad loans of Rs. 95,122
  crore, which is more than one-third of the entire non-performing assets (NPAs)
  of public sector banks as on December 2014.
• The total number of borrowers having defaulted on Rs. 10
  crore and above at the end of September 2014, stood at 2,897 with outstanding
  amount of Rs. 1.60 lakh crore.
• The RBI has issued instructions including designing
  framework for revitalising distress assets to improve the health of the
  financial sector, to reduce the NPAs, improve asset quality of the banks and to
  prevent slippages.

• India has been ranked a lowly 83rd on a new index compiled
  by the UN trade body UNCTAD for assessing the readiness of countries for
  electronic commerce and it has the fourth largest number of complaints made against
  companies selling online.
• The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s
  (UNCTAD) new Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce — businesses selling to the
  general public — index, which surveyed 130 economies, covers countries on four
  indicators of internet use, secure servers, credit card penetration and postal delivery
  services.
• The index value is strongly correlated to the variation in
  the share of individuals shopping online.
• India scores 40.6 on index value with 1.8 per cent
  individuals over 15 years owning a credit card (2011 data), 12.6 per cent using
  the internet (2013 data), 48.2 secure servers per million people and 100 per
  cent population having mail delivered at home.
• After the US, China and the UK, India has the fourth largest
  number of complaints made against companies selling online, however, the
  reported incidents in the US in 2013 was 48.7 per cent while in India was much
  smaller and stood at 2.3 per cent.
• Globally, the top four countries with highest readiness for
  electronic commerce are Luxembourg, followed by Norway, Finland and Canada.
• Though China is 63rd in the UNCTAD-formulated index, it is
  already the world’s largest B2C market measured both by the revenue and the
  number of online buyers.

• The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday removed party’s internal
  Lokpal Admiral L. Ramdas and Prashant Bhushan as the chief of National
  Disciplinary Committee, a day after the latter and senior leader Yogendra Yadav
  were expelled from the National Executive (NE).
• At an “emergency” NE meeting in Delhi, the party removed
  former Navy chief Ramdas from the internal Lokpal and set up a new Lokpal
  panel, comprising former IPS officers N. Dilip Kumar and Rakesh Sinha and
  educationist S.P. Verma.
• The AAP National Executive, while sacking Mr. Bhushan from
  the disciplinary committee, decided to replace him by a three-member panel
  headed by Dinesh Waghela. The other members are Arvind Kejriwal loyalist Ashish
  Khetan and national secretary Pankaj Gupta.
• The removal of Mr. Ramdas came a day after he was sent an
  SMS asking him not to attend the National Council meeting to avoid
  “confrontation”.
• This committee comprises Ilyas Azmi, Prem Singh Pahadi,
  Yogesh Dahiya, Somendra Dhaka, Gurnam Singh and Kiran Vissa, which would decide
  on the details of the agitation programme.
• The party has also formed a committee under the leadership
  of senior leader Sanjay Singh to look into expansion of the organisation in
  other States.

• Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao recently laid
  the foundation stone for the Manuguru thermal power plant in Khammam district .
• The Bhadradri thermal power plant, with a 1,080-MW capacity,
  is developed by TS Genco in partnership with BHEL, its EPC contractor, and
  finance from Rural Electrification Corporation and Power Finance Corporation.
• The Chief Minister said the plant will be developed on a
  fast track mode and hoped the State would become a power surplus State within
  next three years.
• He said REC and PFC committed an investment of ₹40,000 crore for development
  of TS Genco projects. The Chief Minister said Telangana will have an installed
  capacity of about 24,000 MW by 2018-19, including various thermal, hydel power
  projects and renewable energy projects including solar PV units, making it a
  power-surplus State, and thus an ideal investment destination for industries.

• CPI today re-elected S Sudhakar Reddy as the general
  secretary for the second three-year term and elected senior leader Gurudas
  Dasgupta as deputy general secretary on the concluding day of its 22nd Congress
  here.
• Veteran communist leader A B Bardhan was unanimously elected
  Chairman of a newly-created Permanent Programme Committee which would review
  the party’s programme regularly on the basis of the emerging national economic
  and political scenario.
• The party also elected a nine-member central secretariat,
  comprising Reddy, Dasgupta, D Raja, Shameem Faizee, Amarjeet Kaur, Atul Kumar
  Anjaan, Ramendrakumar, Pannian Ravindran and K Narayana.
• The 22nd Congress elected a 32-member national executive and
  a 124-member national council during the Congress. A Party Congress is held
  every three years.

• This month has been the “wettest” March in
  northern and central parts of the country in the past 100 years, the Indian
  Meteorological Department (IMD) today said and predicted more rains in the
  coming two weeks.
• IMD DG L S Rathore said due to the rains, there has been
  extensive damage to field and horticulture crops as well as vegetables in
  various parts of the country.
• Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Centre
  will work with state governments to raise the compensation limit for farmers
  affected by unseasonal rains and hailstorms.
• Unseasonal rains and hailstorms during this month have
  damaged Rabi (winter-sown) crops in 106.73 lakh hectares of area across 14
  states as against the earlier estimates of 181 lakh hectares.

• The Eiffel Tower went dark briefly to mark Earth Hour, the
  campaign to raise awareness about climate change.
• The five-minute dark-out on Saturday night was a symbolic
  gesture in the City of Light. Cities around the world also marked the event,
  with other landmarks like the Kremlin and the Empire State Building going dark.
• France has been preparing for months to host an
  international climate conference in Paris at the end of the year, pressing
  nations to set attainable goals for reducing greenhouse gases and mobilizing
  international finances to fight climate change.
• Earth Hour was launched in 2007 by the World Wildlife Fund
  to encourage awareness of environmental issues. The idea is to turn off lights
  for an hour not possible for safety reasons for the Eiffel Tower.

• A Japanese robot that acts as a friendly companion to
  astronauts onboard the International Space Station has set two Guinness World
  Records.
• Kirobo, a small android able to have conversations in
  Japanese, has set records for First Companion Robot in Space and Highest
  altitude for a robot to have a conversation following an 18-month stay onboard
  the ISS.
• Measuring 34 cm tall and weighing 1 kg, Kirobo can recognise
  faces, and has a sophisticated voice recognition system.
• The robot astronaut was developed as part of a five-year,
  joint research project carried out in collaboration between advertising agency
  Dentsu, the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and
  Technology, Robo Garage, Toyota Motor Corporation, and JAXA the Japan Aerospace
  Exploration Agency.
• One of the project’s main aims was to test if a robot could
  provide psychological support to a human subject experiencing severe loneliness
  – such as an astronaut during an extended stay in space.
• Kirobo left Earth on August 4, 2013, to serve as a companion
  robot to the astronaut, Koichi Wakata.

• Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth rounded up a brilliant
  Sunday for Indian badminton winning their respective $275,000 India Open
  Superseries titles at the Siri Fort Sports Complex in New Delhi.
• Women’s singles top seed Saina Nehwal trumped former World
  Champion Ratchanok Intanon in the final to win 21-16, 21-14 in 49 minutes.
  Later, 22-year-old Srikanth had a contrasting victory but made sure that he
  made it a double for Indian badminton by defeating Danish World No. 6 Viktor
  Axelsen 18-21, 21-13, 21-12 in 55 minutes.
• With the victory, Saina took a 6-3 lead in career meetings
  over the World No. 8, who won in New Delhi in 2013. This is the Hyderabadi’s
  second title of the year after winning the India Grand Prix Gold in January in
  Lucknow. She had also reached the All England final earlier this month where
  she lost to reigning World Champion Carolina Marin of Spain.
• The 25-year-old Indian was super confident while taking her
  shots against her Thai opponent, making the third seed run helter-skelter on
  the court and forcing her to commit errors.

• In a dream farewell, Michael Clarke today retired from ODIs
  after leading Australia to their fifth cricket World Cup title, scoring a
  match-winning 74 in his swansong appearance to get a standing ovation from a
  93,000-strong crowd at the MCG here.
• Australia outplayed New Zealand by 7 wickets as Clarke
  became the fourth Australian captain after Allan Border (1987), Steve Waugh
  (1999) and Ricky Ponting (2003, 2007) to win the coveted 50-over prize in world
  cricket.
• Clarke, who is just three days short of his 34th birthday,
  goes out after playing 245 ODIs scoring 7981 runs with eight hundreds and 58
  half-centuries. He will, however, continue to play for Australia in Test
  format.
• The stylish right-hander, who has been under immense
  pressure to hold his place in the ODI side, announced his retirement after the
  semi-final win against India in Sydney.
• ‘Pup’, as he is fondly called, said the time was just right
  to bid adieu to ODIs.

• Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel won the Malaysian Grand Prix
  on Sunday to end Mercedes’ long Formula One winning streak and make the 2015
  season look like a genuine contest between the two teams.
• Vettel elected not to pit during an earlier safety-car period,
  while second-placed Lewis Hamilton and third-placed Nico Rosberg did pit in
  their Mercedes cars, and the clear air at the front of the field enabled Vettel
  to win by 8.5 seconds at the Sepang International Circuit.
• Mercedes had won the previous eight races dating back to
  last season and had been expected to dominate through 2015, but in just the
  second race of this season, Vettel’s win indicated a potential fight for the
  championship ahead.
• It was Ferrari’s first victory since the 2013 Spanish Grand
  Prix.

• Australia beat New Zealand by seven wickets in the final at
  the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday to win the World Cup for the fifth time
  and send their retiring captain Michael Clarke out as a winner.
• Australian bowlers Mitchell Johnson and James Faulkner
  captured three wickets each as the home side skittled New Zealand for 183 in 45
  overs.
• Grant Elliott top scored for the Black Caps with 83 but New
  Zealand’s hopes of winning the World Cup for the first time were dealt a savage
  blow when their captain Brendon McCullum was bowled for a duck in the first
  over of the day.
• Australia reached their victory target in the 34th over for the
  loss of just three wickets.
• Clarke, who announced before the match that he was retiring
  from one-day internationals, guided his team to victory with a sparkling 74,
  departing to a standing ovation with Australia nine runs away from victory.
• Steve Smith, his likely replacement as Australia’s next
  captain, hit the winning runs and finished not out 56 in front of a record
  crowd of 93,013.
• Australia previously won the World Cup in 1987, 1999, 2003
  and 2007. No other country has won the tournament, which was first held in
  1975, more than twice.

• In a surprise move, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is set
  to appoint batsman Azhar Ali as the new captain of the national one-day team
  and name wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed as his deputy tomorrow.
• With Pakistan scheduled to tour Bangladesh for a Test and
  one-day series from mid-April the Chairman of the board Shaharyar Khan held a
  final round of consultations in Karachi on Saturday to reach a final decision
  on the new captain and national selection committee.
• Ironically Azhar has not played an ODI since early 2013 when
  he played in Kolkata but apparently the support he got from captain
  Misbah-ul-Haq and coach Waqar Younis turned the tide in his favour.

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