Current Affairs Update – 2nd March, 2015


         Today’s Topics

   •  Banking/Finance
   •  India
   •  Appointments
   •  Sports

Banking/Finance
IFC to invest $50 m
in YES Bank’s Green Bonds
  • International Finance Corporation (IFC), Washington, plans
    to invest up to $50 million in Green Bonds to be issued by YES Bank.
  • In addition, IFC will also give a $50-million long-term
    financing line to the private sector bank for on lending to women-owned small
    and medium-sized enterprises.  In a
    project report, IFC said the financing will flow to target customers of YES
    Bank in different parts of India.

Ranjan Dhawan given
additional charge as MD & CEO of Bank of Baroda

  • The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has entrusted
    Ranjan Dhawan, Executive Director, Bank of Baroda (BoB), additional charge of
    the Managing Director & CEO of the public sector bank for a period of three
    months.
  • Dhawan took additional charge as MD & CEO of BoB on
    February 27. The appointment is for a period of three months with effect from
    the date of issue of the Cabinet’s order (February 26, 2014) or till the date
    of appointment of regular incumbent or till further orders, whichever is the
    earliest.

World Bank Approves
USD 500 Mn Loan for Indian MSMEs
  • World Bank today approved USD 500 million loan for its MSME
    Growth Innovation and Inclusive Finance Project to improve access to finance
    for Indian small and medium enterprises in manufacturing and services sector.
  • The Project will support MSMEs through direct financing by
    the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and Participating
    Financial Institutions (PFIs) across three components. These include support to
    startup debt financing and risk capital as well as support to service and
    manufacturing sector financing models.

Wipro partners World
Economic Forum for quantifying cyber risk
  • Country’s third largest software services firm Wipro has
    partnered with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to develop a cyber value-at-risk
    (VAR) framework that will allow organisations to assess threat landscape, the
    nature of assets needed protection and quality of defences.
  • As per the Forum’s estimates, if the sophistication of
    attacks keeps ahead of defensive capabilities, the resultant new cyber
    regulations and restrictive policies could hurt innovation by about $3 trillion
    by 2020.
  • Consequently, business leaders and policy makers have
    highlighted the need for a framework that would aid them in making better cyber
    security decisions, Wipro said in a statement.

Ola acquires
TaxiForSure for $200 million

  • Ola on Monday acquired TaxiForSure for $200 million in a
    cash and equity deal, signaling consolidation in the $11 billion taxi industry.
  • Ola and TaxiForSure will continue to operate as separate
    entities.
  • Ola has been funded by Tiger Global, Matrix Partners,
    Sequoia Capital, Steadview Capital and most recently, Softbank, over its four
    rounds of fund-raising. Investors in TaxiForSure are Accel Partners, Bessemer
    Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners.
  • Ola, which is already the market leader in the personal
    transportation space with over 1-lakh vehicles on its platform. TaxiForSure is
    currently in 47 cities with over 15,000 vehicles registered on its platform.

India


Defence Acquisition
Council approved buying of 38 Pilatus trainer aircraft for Indian Air Force
  • Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) on 28 February 2015
    approved buying of 38 more Pilatus trainer aircraft from Switzerland at a cost
    of 1500 crore rupees. These trainer aircraft will train Indian Air Force (IAF)
    fighter pilots.
  • Besides, DAC appointed Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) as the
    lead agency to build 12 Mine Counter Measure Vessel (MCMV) for the Navy. The
    decision was taken by DAC meeting chaired by Union Defence Minister Manohar
    Parrikar.

K.K. Sharma to Be the
Next Chief Secretary of Delhi
  • Senior IAS officer K K Sharma will be the next Chief
    Secretary of Delhi, a choice that is also acceptable to the AAP government.
  • Home Minister Rajnath Singh today approved the appointment
    of Sharma, currently serving as Chief Secretary of Delhi, to be the Delhi
    government’s top bureaucrat, a Home Ministry spokesperson said.
  • The proposal for the appointment of Sharma, a 1983 batch
    Union Territory cadre IAS officer, to the top bureaucratic post in the city
    government was as per rules, he said.

Citizenship Bill
Passed by the Lok Sabha
  • A Bill to amend the Citizenship Act, one of the six items on
    which government had issued ordinances, was today passed by the Lok Sabha.
  • The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2015 seeks to remove
    disparity between Persons of Indian Origin cardholders and Overseas Citizens of
    India cardholders.

Appointments
Jagmohan Dalmiya
unanimously elected as President of BCCI

  • Jagmohan Dalmiya on 2 March 2015 was unanimously elected as
    the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at Annual
    General meeting held in Chennai.
  • Besides, five Vice Presidents were also elected. They are
    Andhra’s Gokaraju Gangaraju (south zone), Assam’s Goutam Roy (east), ML Nehru
    of Jammu and Kashmir (north zone), CK Khanna (Delhi, central zone) and TC Matthews
    (Kerala, west zone).

Arun Singh named new
Indian Ambassador to US, to take charge after PM Modi’s visit to France

  • India has named Arun Singh, currently its Ambassador to
    France, as its next top envoy to the US and has send an agrement in this regard
    to the American government.
  • A 1979-batch IFS officer, Singh will be replacing S
    Jaishankar, who was appointed as Foreign Secretary on January 28 this year.
    According to officials, government was looking at Mohan Kumar, Indian
    Ambassador to Bahrain as a possible replacement of Singh.
  • India has already sent an agrement to the US government
    naming Singh as its next Ambassador and was awaiting a response from the Obama
    administration.

Ficci ropes in Arvind
Virmani as Economic Mentor

  • Noted economist, Arvind Virmani, who served as the country’s
    Chief Economic Advisor and Principal Advisor in the Planning Commission, will
    now mentor Ficci’s public policy & economic work.
  • With his illustrious career as an advisor to Government of
    India at the highest levels, including as Principal Advisor, Planning
    Commission and Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Virmani brings with
    him rich and invaluable experience that would help Ficci strengthen its work in
    the area of economic and public policy, he added.

Baldev Sharma
appointed as chairman of National Book Trust
  • The government on Monday appointed former Panchajanya editor
    Baldev Sharma as the new chairman of the National Book Trust, cutting short the
    term of incumbent A. Sethumadhavan — better known by his pen name `Sethu’ — by
    six months.
  • Officially, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD)
    was filling a vacancy that fell open on February 25. According to sources, Mr.
    Sethumadhavan had been called to the Ministry on February 25 and told by a
    joint secretary to put in his papers as the government wanted to appoint
    someone else in his position.

Sports
Rafael Nadal of Spain
won the Argentina Tennis Open
  • Spanish tennis ace, Rafael Nadal on 2 March 2015 won the
    Argentina Open title of Tennis. In the summit clash, Nadal defeated Juan Monaco
    of Argentina in straight sets 6-4, 6-1 in Buenos Aires.
  • This was the 65th career title for Nadal. As a result, Nadal
    moved onto fifth place in the Open era all-time list led by Jimmy Connors of
    the US who had won 109 titles.

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