Current Affairs Update – 30th May, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 30th May, 2015.

Finance/Banking
HP Becomes First
State to Implement ABPS in Country

  • Himachal Pradesh has emerged as first the state in the
    country to start Aadhaar based Payment System (ABPS) and payments amounting Rs
    76.53 crore have been made through this system till date since the scheme was
    launched on October 2, 2014, Rural Development Minister Anil Kumar said today.
  • He said that the workers and vendors whose bank accounts
    were Aadhaar-linked were being paid through ABPS and the wages and cost of
    material was being directly transferred to their latest Aadhaar-linked bank
    accounts.
  • So far, Aadhaar numbers of 7.23 lakh active MNREGA workers
    had been seeded in the MNREGA out of which 5.54 lakh workers’ accounts had been
    linked with the banks.
  • He said that the roadside plantation plan for roads
    constructed under PMGSY had been prepared during the current financial year and
    approximately one lakh plants of different species such as mulberry, Jamun,
    Saru, Shisham, Eucalyptus, Peepal, Cedrus, Neem etc had been planted by the
    Public Works Department.
  • The Minister said that Centre had approved labour budget for
    generating 258.29 lakh mandays during the current financial year.
  • The Central Government imposed a cut in the labour budget
    this year, which resulted in liabilities amounting to Rs 87 crore to the state
    government.
  • He said that the Centre had released Rs 119.2 crore whereas
    state had released its share of Rs 12.42 crore during current financial year.

Cabinet clears
signing of pact between India, Sweden on MSMEs
  • The government on Saturday approved signing of an agreement
    between India and Sweden to promote cooperation in the MSME sector.
  • The cooperation opens up doors of new opportunities for the
    domestic MSME sector by way of new markets, joint ventures, sharing of best
    practices and technology collaborations, among others.
  • The objective of the MoU is to promote cooperation between
    the MSMEs of the two countries.
  • It provides a structured framework and enabling environment
    to the MSME sector in the two countries to understand each other’s strengths,
    markets, technologies and policies.
  • The MoU also contains an agreement to enable respective
    MSMEs to participate in each other’s trade fairs/exhibitions and to exchange
    business delegations, to understand policy and explore markets so that joint
    ventures, tie-ups and technology transfer among others could take place.
  • The agreement, however, does not contain or involve any
    financial, legal or political commitment on the part of either party. In no
    case does it attract any financial liability on the part of the government.
  • The MSME Ministry has so far entered into long-term
    agreements for cooperation in the MSME sector with ministries or organisations
    of 17 countries namely, Tunisia, Romania, Rwanda, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Lesotho,
    Sri Lanka, Algeria, Sudan, Cote d’lvoire, Egypt, Botswana, South Korea,
    Mozambique, Indonesia, Vietnam and Mauritius.

Finance Minister
inaugurated New Bank Note Paper Line unit in Hoshangabad, MP

  • Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on 30 May 2015
    inaugurated the New Bank Note Paper Line unit of 6000 metric tonne capacity at
    Security Paper Mill in Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh.
  • With opening of this, India will become self-reliant in
    producing Bank Note Paper for big denominations. Earlier, India was
    considerably dependent on import of bank note paper for currency of big
    denominations.
  • He also flagged off the first consignment of one thousand
    rupees bank note paper made indigenously to Currency Note Press Nashik.
  • It is part of the indigenisation of the Bank Note paper
    under taken by Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited. The
    project has been completed at a cost of 495 crore rupees within the time
    schedule.
  • The plant is capable of incorporating the advanced security
    features into the Bank Note paper. It is also capable of manufacturing all
    denominations of Bank Note paper including 1000 rupees.

India
Cabinet approves
India, Bangladesh coastal shipping pact

  • The Government today approved a pact on coastal shipping
    between India and Bangladesh to facilitate faster and cheaper cargo movement
    between both the nations.
  • The benefit of this agreement is that freight charges will
    come down and improve the utilisation of port capabilities between the two
    countries, the Communication and IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said while
    briefing the media.
  • It will also help in decongestion of roads, especially at
    the land custom stations/integrated check posts at the India-Bangladesh
    boarder, the statement said.
  • India and Bangladesh shall render the same treatment to the
    other country’s vessels as it would have done to its national vessels used in
    international sea transportation.
  • The commencement of coastal shipping between India and
    Bangladesh will increase bilateral trade between the two countries and lower
    down the cost of transportation of Exim cargo.
  • India’s trade with Bangladesh has grown rapidly during the
    past few years and Bangladesh is now India’s largest trade partner in South
    Asia.
  • Therefore, to reduce the cost of shipping operation, a lower
    but pragmatic standard of vessel known as River Sea Vessel (RSV) has been prescribed
    for coastal shipping and the RSV category of vessel has been agreed upon by
    both the countries.

Cabinet Nod For
Indo-Bangla Pact on Human Trafficking

  • Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka, the
    Union Cabinet today approved signing of a pact between the two countries to
    prevent human trafficking and ways to reintegrate the victims with their
    families.
  • The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Modi, has
    approved signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on prevention of human
    trafficking especially trafficking in women and children: rescue, recovery,
    repatriation and reintegration of victims of human trafficking.
  • An official statement said the MoU will help strengthen
    cooperation to prevent all forms of the human trafficking, especially that of
    women and children and ensure the speedy investigation and prosecution of
    traffickers and organised crime syndicates in both the neighbouring nations.
  • The pact will also ensure repatriation of victims as
    expeditiously as possible. After repatriation, the home country will undertake
    the safe and effective reintegration of the victims with their families.

Appointments
G R Aloria named
chief secretary of Gujarat
  • Gujarat government on Saturday appointed 1981-batch IAS, G R
    Aloria as the new chief secretary to the state. Aloria, who is currently
    serving as the additional chief secretary of Urban Development Department,
    succeeded the incumbent chief secretary D J Pandian, who retires from the
    service on May 31.
  • In a notification issued on Saturday, the general
    administration department of the state government announced appointment of
    Aloria as the chief secretary to Government of Gujarat with effect from May 31,
    2015.
  • Aloria is the senior most bureaucrat in the state
    administration and had served in several key positions including heading the
    Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited during the land acquisition for the for
    canal network. He was also secretary in the revenue department, which fell
    under Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.

Veena Jain appointed
as Director General of Doordarshan News

  • Veena Jain was on 29 May 2015 appointed as Director General
    (news) in Doordarshan. She succeeded senior Indian Information Service (IIS)
    officer Akshay Rout. Her appointment was approved by the Union Ministry of information
    and broadcasting (I&B).
  • Jain will also hold the charge as Officer on Special Duty
    (OSD) and will oversee the ministry’s new media wing and social media cell. She
    will report to the ministry for all purposes.
  • She is currently posted as Additional Director General in
    the News Services Division of All India Radio (AIR). Earlier, she has also
    served as director of Publications Division of AIR.

NITI Aayog Gets Two
New Advisers, 10 New JS Appointed
  • Alok Kumar and Jitendra Kumar have been appointed as
    advisers in NITI Aayog for five years as part of a minor bureaucratic reshuffle
    effected by the government today.
  • Alok is a 1993 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre while
    Jitendra (1987 batch) is Indian Forest Service officer of Uttarakhand cadre.
  • Also, Anna Roy has been appointed as Joint Secretary (JS) in
    the Department of Financial Services, an order issued by Department of
    Personnel and Training said.
  • Roy, a 1992 batch officer of Indian Economic Service, will
    have tenure till October 31, 2017. She is working as a Director in the same
    department.
  • IAS officer Sanjay Prasad has been appointed as Joint
    Secretary in Department of Science and Technology for five-year term, it said.
  • Jitendra Kumar Sinha, a 1996 batch IAS officer of Manipur
    Tripura cadre, is new Joint Secretary in Ministry of Development of North
    Eastern Region. He will hold the charge for five years, the order said.
  • Md Shahbaz Ali, Indian Post and Telecommunication Accounts
    and Finance Service officer, has been appointed as Managing Director (JS-level)
    in National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation under the Ministry
    of Minority Affairs.
  • Rajiv Kumar, an Indian Forest Service officer, has been
    appointed as JS in Department of Electronics and Information Technology.
    Jagmohan Gupta, a 1987 batch officer of Indian Railway Accounts Service, is new
    Joint Secretary and Financial Adviser in Ministry of Water Resources, River
    Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, it said.
  • Venugopal Reddy Gaddam, officer of Indian Railway Service of
    Electrical Engineers, has been made JS in Ministry of Labour and Employment for
    five years, the order said.
  • Navneet Soni, a 1988 batch officer of Indian Revenue Service
    (Income Tax cadre), has been appointed as Member Secretary (Joint Secretary
    level) in National Monuments Authority under the Culture Ministry, it said.

Sepp Blatter wins
re-election as FIFA president
  • Sepp Blatter was re-elected as FIFA president for a fifth
    term on Friday, chosen to lead world soccer despite separate U.S. and Swiss
    criminal investigations into corruption.
  • The 209 FIFA member federations gave the 79-year-old Blatter
    another four-year term after Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan conceded
    defeat after losing 133-73 in the first round.
  • Prince Ali’s promise of a clean break from FIFA’s tarnished
    recent history was rejected despite the worst scandal in the organization’s
    111-year history.
  • Senior FIFA officials were among seven men arrested at the
    request of American federal prosecutors investigating bribery, money-laundering
    and wire fraud. The 2018 and 2022 World Cups awarded to Russia and Qatar,
    respectively are the focus of a separate Swiss federal probe of suspected
    financial wrongdoing.
  • Last November, Blatter and FIFA filed a criminal complaint
    with the Swiss attorney general’s office against non-Swiss nationals.

World
Google working with
Levi Strauss to make smart fabric

  • Google has announced that it is working with iconic US jean
    maker Levi Strauss to make clothing from specially woven fabric with touch-screen
    control capabilities.
  • The Internet titan used its annual developers conference in
    San Francisco to reveal its so-called Project Jacquard and to spotlight Levi
    Strauss as its first partner.
  • Named after a Frenchman who invented a type of loom, Project
    Jacquard is in the hands of a small Google team called Advanced Technology and
    Projects (ATAP), which is different from the Google (x) lab that develops
    big-vision innovations such as self-driving cars.
  • Project Jacquard makes it possible to weave touch and
    gesture interactivity into any textile using standard, industrial looms,
    according to Google.
  • Anything involving fabric, from suits or dresses to
    furniture or carpet, could potentially have computer touch-pad style control
    capabilities woven.

Silk Road creator
gets life term for drug plot

  • The accused mastermind behind the Silk Road underground
    website was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for orchestrating a scheme
    that enabled more than $200 million of anonymous online drug sales using the
    digital currency bitcoin.
  • Ross Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge
    Katherine Forrest in Manhattan after a federal jury in February found him
    guilty of charges including distributing drugs through the Internet and
    conspiring to commit computer hacking and money laundering.
  • Silk Road operated for more than two years, allowing users
    to anonymously buy drugs and other illicit goods and generating over $214
    million in sales in the process, prosecutors said.
  • They said Ulbricht ran Silk Road under the alias Dread
    Pirate Roberts, a reference to a character in the 1987 movie The Princess
    Bride.
  • The website relied on the Tor network, which lets users
    communicate anonymously, and accepted bitcoin as payment, which prosecutors
    said allowed users to conceal their identities and locations.

Books
& Authors –
Book titled
Ahmedabad: A City in the World by Amrita Shah released
  • Ahmedabad: A City in the World authored by Amrita Shah was
    released 28 May 2015. The book is a biography of India’s seventh-largest city
    Ahmedabad and its all too frequent complicity in communal violence.
  • The author in the book has described the six-hundred year
    old former textile town in Kaka-style development and sketches Mahatma Gandhi
    and his struggle against British rule.

Book titled Super
Economies by Raghav Bahl released
  • The book Super Economies: America, India, China & The
    Future Of The World written by Raghav Bahl published in May 2015. He is an
    Indian businessman best known for his ownership of several television channels,
    including TV18.
  • The book explains the vastly changed nature of the world
    since the Cold War and predicts what will be the likely changes in the 21st
    century.

Days
International Day of
United Nations Peacekeepers observed across the world

  • The international Day of United Nations Peacekeepers was
    observed on 29 May 2015 with the theme Together for Peace.
  • To mark the occasion, various events were organised across
    the globe to commemorate all brave men and women who have contributed towards
    establishing peace and security in the war torn countries and ravaged societies
    across the world.

Awards
& Honors –
Anand Kumar, Founder
of Super 30, honoured in Canada

  • Super 30 founder and mathematician Anand Kumar on 29 May
    2015 was honoured by Legislature of British Columbia in Canada at Toronto
    University for his pioneering work in the field of education.
  • The Speaker Linda Reid honoured Kumar with a memento and
    also appreciated his endeavour at a proposal initiated by Marc Dalton, an MLA.
    The 42-year-old Kumar was honoured for his rare achievements for the students
    from India’s underprivileged sections.
  • Kumar was invited by the British Columbia Government in
    recognition of his work through globally acclaimed Super 30, which has mentors
    30 students mostly from the underprivileged sections of the society for IITs
    free of cost for the last 14 years.

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This post was last modified on July 20, 2019 10:23 am