Current Affairs Update – 2nd March, 2015

• 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.

• 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 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.

• 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 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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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