Current Affairs Update – 2nd July, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 2nd July, 2015. These are important for the upcoming SBI PO Mains Exam and RBI Assistant Exam 2015.

• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 2 July
  2015 gave its approval for a new scheme called Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee
  Yojana (PMKSY).
• The Yojana was approved with an outlay of 50000 crore rupees
  over a period of five years, that is, from 2015-16 to 2019-20 and the
  allocation for the financial year 2015-16 has been kept at 5300 crore rupees.

• ·        
  To provide convergence to existing schemes of
  water management, thus bringing efficiency to the use of water
• Expand cultivable area under assured irrigation
  (Har Khet ko pani)
• Improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce
  wastage of water
• Enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and
  other water saving technologies (More crop per drop)

• Government has allocated Rs. 200 crore for three years to
  set up an online national agriculture market by integrating 585 wholesale
  markets across India — a move that would help farmers realise better prices.
• The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs had on Wednesday
  approved a Central Sector Scheme for Promotion of National Agricultural Market
  through Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund.
• The Department of Agriculture will set it up by creation of
  a common electronic platform deployable in selected regulated markets across
  the country.
• Under the scheme, 585 selected regulated markets would be
  covered. The plan is to cover 250 mandis in current fiscal, 200 mandis in 2016-17
  and 135 mandis in 2017-18.
• The Rs 200 crore allocations includes provision for
  supplying software free of cost by agriculture department to the states and UTs
  and for cost of related hardware/ infrastructure to be subsidised by the Centre
  up to Rs 30 lakh per Mandi (other than for private mandis).

• The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development on 1 July
  2015 adopted the ‘Digital Guddi-Gudda Board’ as a Best Practice under Beti
  Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme. It was named as the best practice on the
  occasion of Digital India Week that is being observed from 1 July to 7 July
  2015.
• The Digital Guddi-Gudda Board is an innovation of District
  Jalgaon in Maharashtra. It was initiated by its Collector, Rubal Aggarwal with
  the support of Raksha Khadse, Member of Parliament from Raver and AT Nana
  Patil, Member of Parliament from Jalgaon.

• ·        
  It works as a platform for dissemination of
  Information, Education and Communication (IEC) Material on BBBP.
• ·        
  It is also used to update monthly birth
  statistics.
• ·        
  It displays audio video material as well as
  still frames for disseminating information.

• The Haryana Government on 1 July 2015 launched the Mhara
  Gaon- Jagmag Gaon scheme, aimed at providing 24 hour uninterrupted power supply
  to rural domestic consumers in a phased manner with their active participation.
• With this, Haryana became the first state in the country to
  launch such an innovative voluntary scheme. The state will bear an additional
  expenditure of 15 to 20 lakh rupees per village for implementation of this
  scheme.

• The scheme is aimed at strengthening the distribution
  network system for the convenience of the people.
•  In the first phase of
  the scheme, 83 feeders have been identified covering 310 villages having
  minimum line losses and which have made payment of their electricity bills.
  Power supply would be ensured for 15 hours in these villages instead of 12 hour
  power supply they were getting at present.

• Buoyed by growing sales, India will overtake the U.S. to
  become world’s second largest smartphone market by 2017, says a report.
• According to international research firm Strategy Analytics,
  global smartphone sales are forecast to grow from 1.5 billion units in 2015 to
  a record 1.7 billion by 2017.
• India is fast becoming the next major growth wave.
• India will soon overtake the U.S. to become the world’s
  second largest smartphone market by 2017 behind China, selling an impressive
  174 million units.
• According to the report, 118 million smartphones will be
  sold in India this year.
• Nearly 458 million smartphones will be sold in China in
  2015, rising steadily to 505 million in 2017.
• About 164 million smartphones will be sold in the U.S. in
  2015, climbing marginally to 169 million in 2017.

• In a bid to explore national and international opportunities
  for skill development in India, the National Skill Development Corporation of
  India (NSDC) has entered into a partnership with the Centre for Research and
  Industrial Staff Performance (CRISP) that is dedicated to human resource
  development and organisational development.
• CRISP was set up by the Madhya Pradesh government and the
  Federal Republic of Germany under Indo-German Technical Cooperation.
• The duo have decided to collaborate on projects and plans
  for capacity building of NSDC partnering institutions, by offering value-added
  services to the skill development initiative in India. Additionally, they are
  to create suitable interventions for state-level operations, which would offer quality
  oriented skills and services.
• A memorandum of understanding in this regard was signed by
  the CEO of CRISP, Mukesh Sharma, and CEO of NSDC, Dilip Chenoy. Sharma said the
  collaboration would benefit both the organisation as well as help in the growth
  and development of skills in the country.

• Indian-American professor R Paul Singh has been named as the
  2015 Global Confederation for Higher Education Associations for Agriculture and
  Life Sciences World Agriculture Prize laureate.
• The award was announced at the annual GCHERA conference,
  held last week at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon. The
  award will be formally presented on September 20, during a ceremony at Nanjing
  Agricultural University, Jiangsu Province, China.
• Singh earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering
  at India’s Punjab Agricultural University, then a master’s degree and Ph.D. At
  the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan State University,
  respectively.
• He joined the UC Davis faculty one year later in 1975.

• Darshan Jain, an Indian-American teacher from Illinois, US
  in July 2015 was named for prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in
  Mathematics and Science Teaching by President Barack Obama. 
• Along with Jain, President named 108 Mathematics and Science
  teachers as recipients of the Award.
• Jain has taught mathematics at Adlai E. Stevenson High
  School in Lincolnshire, Illinois for eight years. Right now, he is serving the
  school as the director of mathematics. He is a BA in mechanical engineering and
  a MS in secondary mathematics education from the University of Illinois at
  Chicago.

• Sanjeev Galande was on 1 July 2015 selected for G D Birla
  Award for Scientific Research for 2014. The name was announced by the K K Birla
  Foundation and he is the 24th recipient of the award.
• Prof. Galande is a professor of Biology and Team Leader at
  the Centre of Excellence in Epigenetics, Indian Institute of Science Education
  and Research (IISER), Pune.
• He joined IISER in 2010 and his focus area is epigenetics
  and studies regulation of gene expression, and nuclear organization and function.
  Epigenetics is an area of study about changes that influence gene function.

• Union Government on 1 July 2015 notified dates for
  compliance window under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets)
  and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 (‘Black Money Act’).
• It gave three months time (till 30 September 2015) for
  people to declare their undisclosed foreign income and assets to escape
  prosecution under the new Black Money Law.
• The notice says that those making the disclosure during this
  period will have further three-month time till 31 December 2015 to pay the
  taxes and the penalty on their foreign income and assets.
• As per the notice, people availing the one-time compliance
  window would be required to pay a tax of 30 percent and a penalty of a similar
  amount.

• The Maharashtra government on 30 June 2015 signed an
  Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Blackstone and Panchshil SPV for three
  projects worth 4500 crore and generation of some 50000 jobs.
• Blackstone will invest 750 crore rupees in developing EON
  Free Zone SEZ; 1200 crore rupees in developing Hinjewadi Phase-3; 1500 crore
  rupees in IT Park in Central Mumbai and 1050 crore rupees in other IT parks in
  Mumbai.
• Blackstone is a premier global investment and advisory firm
  that strives to provide solutions that create lasting value. Their portfolio
  companies employ more than 600000 people across the globe, making it a major
  factor in economies around the world.

• Chandrasekaran Ramakrishnan was on 1 July 2015 appointed as
  Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of India’s biggest auto maker Tata Motors’ Group
  with immediate effect. With this, he will continue as Chief Financial Officer
  and Key Managerial Personnel for Tata Motors Limited.
• Now, CFOs of all Tata Motors subsidiaries like Jaguar Land
  Rover, Daewoo will report to Ramakrishnan. Chandrasekaran has been the CFO of
  Tata Motors since 2007 and was one of the senior executives to bring Jaguar
  Land Rover under the company’s fold in 2008.

• U P Singh was on 1 July 2015 appointed as the Interim
  Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of state-run Oil India Limited. He
  succeeded S K Srivastava, who superannuated on 1 July 2015.
• U P Singh is a Joint Secretary (Exploration) under Union
  Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
• Normally, in cases where the appointment of a regular
  chairman is delayed, interim charge is handed over to the senior-most director
  on the company’s board. In case of Oil India Ltd, Borah, who is the wife of
  former OIL Chairman and Managing Director B C Borah, is the senior-most
  director.

• Singapore based Jungle Ventures has announced that Ratan
  Tata, Chairman Emeritus of the Indian Conglomerate, Tata Sons, and an iconic
  business leader of modern India, will come on board as a Special Advisor.
  Founded by Anurag Srivastava and Amit Anand, Jungle Ventures, is an early stage
  venture capital fund, with a firm focus on helping build innovative technology
  led companies out of Asia-Pacific
• Jungle has already made investments in 30 leading Asian
  startups, including the likes of Zipdial (recently acquired by Twitter),
  LiveSpace, Tradegecko, CrayonData, Fastacash and travelmob (acquired by Nasdaq
  listed HomeAway). In his role as Special Advisor, Tata has formally committed
  to spend time with Jungle’s portfolio of companies to help them build category
  leadership, while being ethically impregnable and culturally strong, in Asian
  and global markets.
• Jungle Ventures, launched with a $10 million seed-to-early
  stage fund in 2012, is currently raising a second fund with a much bigger
  corpus.

• Dr Anup K Pujari IAS (KN 80) joined as Secretary MSME here
  today. He succeeds Shri Madhav Lal who superannuated on June, 30 2015. Before
  joining the Ministry of MSME, Dr. Pujari was holding the charge of Secretary,
  Mines.
• Born in 1956, Pujari is a post-graduate from the University
  of Boston, and a Doctorate in Economics. Shri Pujari has served the Central and
  Karnataka Govt. in various capacities.

• NASA has unveiled a boomerang-shaped aircraft that could be
  the first to take flight on Mars to look for potential landing sites for future
  manned mission to the red planet.
• A prototype of the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design
  to Land on Mars, or Prandtl-m, which is a flying wing aircraft with a twist, is
  planned to be ready for launch from a high altitude balloon later this year,
  NASA said.
• The Prandtl–m will be released at about at 100,000 feet
  altitude, which will simulate the flight conditions of the Martian atmosphere,
  said Al Bowers, NASA Armstrong chief scientist and Prandtl-m programme manager.
• The tests could validate how the aircraft works, leading to
  modifications that will allow it to fold and deploy from a 3U CubeSat in the aeroshell
  of a future Mars rover.
• A CubeSat is a miniature satellite used for space research
  that is usually about four inches in each dimension, a 3U is three of those
  stacked together.

• Sir Nicholas Winton, who became known as “the British Oskar
  Schindler” after saving hundreds of Jewish children from Nazi tyranny and
  slaughter in Czechoslovakia, has died aged 106, his family said.
• The unassuming hero, who saved the lives of 669 children in
  1939 by sending them from Prague to London by train, died peacefully in his
  sleep at Wexham Park hospital in Slough, his son-in-law, Stephen Watson, said.
• From a German-Jewish family, he received a knighthood in
  2003 and a Hero of the Holocaust medal at Downing Street in 2010. Last year he
  was awarded the Order of the White Lion by the Czech president, Milos Zeman, at
  a ceremony in Prague.

Regards

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