Current Affairs Update – 31st May, 2016

Hello and welcome to exampundit. Here are the important Current Affairs of 31st May, 2016. These are important for the upcoming UIIC AO 2016, SBI Clerk & SBI PO Mains 2016 Exams.

• Reserve Bank has allowed Axis
  Bank to raise foreign shareholding to up to 62%, from the earlier limit of 49%.
• “Foreign institutional
  investors (FIIs)/registered foreign portfolios investors (RFPIs) can now invest
  from the existing 49% up to 62%of the paid-up capital of Axis Bank under the
  Portfolio Investment Scheme (PIS)”, RBI said in a notification.
• RBI said total foreign investment
  from all sources in the bank shall not exceed 62% of the paid-up capital.
• The decision was taken after
  passage of resolutions at the level of the board of directors and through a
  special resolution by the shareholders, agreeing to enhancing the limit for
  purchase of its shares and convertible debentures by FIIs/RFPIs.
• One of the leading private
  lenders, Axis Bank started operations in 1994 and has been promoted by
  financial institutions such as UTI, LIC, GIC and its subsidiaries.

• E-commerce major Flipkart on
  Tuesday introduced “No Cost EMI” option to make online shopping
  affordable for high-end purchases through an attractive financing option of
  equated monthly installments (EMI) where customers will not bear additional
  cost.
• Flipkart’s “No Cost
  EMI” entails zero processing fee, zero down payment and zero interest for
  customers.
• With the introduction of “No
  Cost EMI” option, Flipkart aims to enable more people to get access to
  products they aspire for.
• The company has partnered with
  Bajaj Finserv and key brands to create this offering which is available for
  select products and sellers for now. The offering comes with loan tenures
  starting three months up to 12 months.

• For the first time in the
  country, a division of the Indian Railways has introduced an ‘Auto Vision
  Policy’. The Southern Railway, which caters to the ‘Detroit of India’, the
  Chennai automobile cluster, has introduced the policy and also signed
  memorandums of understanding with two major ports to bring down cost to match
  road transportation.
• The policy was released at a
  seminar ‘Freight on Southern Railway’ by Vashishta Johri, general manager,
  Southern Railway.
• The Auto-Vision statement of the
  Southern Railway will extensively leverage on all five levers of growth,
  including competitive pricing, operational effectiveness, capital expenditure,
  rationalisation of management practices and enhancing teamwork within employees
  and pro active outreach towards customers.
• The vision seeks to generate
  revenues in the auto segment in excess of Rs 500 crore in a 10 year time frame
  and at a compound annual growth rate of 30%.
• The vision also talked about
  enhancing the railways’ share in the export and coastal ro-ro
  (Roll-on/roll-off) segment to 90%, accruing revenues of Rs 90 crore.
• The division has set its sight on
  taking the rail share to 50% in the container based export market, accruing
  annual revenues of Rs 60 crore and running two parcel express trains per day of
  maintenance spares and supplementary goods and leveraging on the warehousing
  business to generate revenues in excess of Rs 150 crore.

• In yet another instance of the
  growing industry and academia connect in the country, Tata Motors has signed a
  Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Automotive Skill Development Council
  (ASDC), a government of India-recognised skill council for a collaborative
  skill development program in the automotive sector.
• This partnership will help Tata
  Motors’ skill development centres across its six plants in India and will
  comply as per competency levels of the NSQF (National Skills Qualification
  Framework).
• Till date, the ASDC has
  contributed to the development this industry by creating 188 Qualification
  Packs (QPs) comprising of 938 National Occupational Standards (NOS) related to
  the automotive sector. Tata Motors’ partnership with ASDC will further enhance
  the expertise in conducting research, developing training course curriculums
  and certification of trainers and students, in consultation with experts from
  the automotive industry and from academia.

• ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the
  overseas arm of state-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC),
  today announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SOCAR
  Trading SA, the trading arm of Azerbaijan’s government-owned energy firm SOCAR,
  for foraying into oil trading business.
• The objective of the MoU, signed
  in Geneva on 27 May, is to explore possibilities of joint marketing of OVL’s
  crude oil portfolio by leveraging SOCAR Trading’s experience in oil trading,
  OVL said in a statement.
• The Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG)
  field is located off the coast of Baku and is said to be the largest oilfield
  in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian basin. OVL had earlier bought a 2.7 per
  cent stake in the field from US-based Hess for $1 billion.

Surajit Kar Purkaystha

• Surajit Kar Purkayastha on 30 May
  2016 was appointed the Director General of West Bengal Police.
• Purkayastha will replace G.M.P
  Reddy, who retires on 31 May 2016.
• Director General of Police,
  Intelligence Branch, Raj Kanojia, three years senior to Purkayastha in the
  service, has been shifted to the post of Commandant General and DG Home Guards.

• Expenditure secretary Ashok
  Lavasa is the new finance secretary.
• The appointments committee of the
  Cabinet has approved the appointment, an official statement said here on
  Tuesday.
• The post of finance secretary has
  been lying vacant since Ratan Watal retired in April. He was also expenditure
  secretary.
• The senior most of  the five secretaries in the finance ministry
  becomes finance secretary.
• The other secretaries in the
  North Block are Shaktikanta Das (economic affairs), Hasmukh Adhia (revenue
  secretary), Anjuly Chhib Duggal (financial services), Neeraj kumar Gupta
  (disinvestment).

• Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba took
  charge as the new Chief of the Naval Staff on Tuesday, as Chief of the Naval
  Staff Admiral R.K. Dhowan superannuated from service.
• Born on 17 July, 1957, Vice
  Admiral Sunil Lanba was commissioned on 1 January, 1978 into the Executive
  Branch of Indian Navy.
• During his long and distinguished
  service spanning nearly 38 years, he has served in a variety of Command,
  operational and staff appointments.
• Vice Admiral Lanba’s Sea Command
  includes commanding the minesweeper INS Kakinada, frigate INS Himgiri and
  Executive Officer of INS Viraat, the aircraft carrier.
• Before taking over as Flag
  Officer Commanding-in-Chief (FOC-in-C), Western Naval Command, he was FOC-in-C,
  Southern Naval Command, Vice Chief of the Naval Staff and Commandant, National
  Defence College.

• Ministry of Railways and PEC
  University of Technology, Chandigarh on 30 May 2016 signed a Memorandum of
  Understanding (MoU) to set up Kalpana Chawla Chair on Geospatial Technology for
  Indian Railways at the University.
• The MoU was signed in the
  backdrop of 2016-17 Railway Minister’s Budget announcement.
• For the purpose, the Indian
  Railways would provide a corpus of 10 Crore rupees to PEC University of
  Technology, for setting and to meet the running expenses of this chair.

• To encourage research activities
  in Geo-spatial Technology.
• To strengthen Indian Railways
  especially Railway projects where use of remote sensing data, global
  positioning system (GPS) and Geographical information System (GIS) is
  predominant.

• This academic chair is being
  instituted in fond memory of Late Kalpana Chawla an Indo–American Astronaut and
  Alumnus of PEC during the year 1978-82.
• To honour her contributions in
  Aerospace Engineering Indian Railways decided to institute the academic chair
  in the area of Geo-spatial Technology in her alma mater.
• Incidentally, Chawla was the
  first woman of Indian origin in space.

• National football team goalkeeper
  Gurpreet Singh Sandhu on 29 May 2016 became the first Indian to play top-tier
  European football league match. He turned out for Norwegian side Stabaek FC in
  Norwegian Premier League (Tippeligaen) .

• Gurpreet Singh Sandhu signed for
  Stabaek FC in 2014.
• He played his first Tippeligaen
  (Norwegian Premier League) for Stabaek FC on 29 may 2016 and helped the team to
  claim a dominant 5-0 triumph over IK Start.
• He made his debut for the Indian
  national team against Turkmenistan in 2013.
• He was trained in the Tata
  Football Academy and represented India at the Under-19 and Under-23 levels.

• England cricket captain Alastair
  Cook on 30 May 2016 became youngest Cricketer to score 10000 test runs.
• Cook, who is 31 years, 5 months,
  5 days old, achieved the fete on the fourth day of the second test against Sri
  Lanka at Chester-le-Street by flicking Nuwan Pradeep to the deep mid wicket
  fence for a boundary. It was his 128th Test.
• Cook went on to make 47 not out
  as England won the Test by nine wickets.
• The previous record was held by
  Indian legend Sachin Tendulkar who reached the landmark score against Pakistan
  at Eden Gardens in 2005. He achieved the same at the age of 31 years, 10 months
  and 20 days.

• Real Madrid on 29 May 2016 won
  the 2015-16 UEFA Champions League title. In the titled clash, Real Madrid defeated
  their city rivals Atletico Madrid via a penalty shoot-out following a 1-1 draw.
• This was Madrid’s 11th European
  Champion title.
• Cristiano Ronaldo scored the
  winning penalty in a 5-3 shootout victory against Atletico Madrid. Atletico
  earlier lost in their two previous finals appearances.

• The World No Tobacco Day (WNTD)
  2016 was observed globally on 31 May 2016.
• To mark this occasion, the World
  Health Organisation (WHO) and the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention
  on Tobacco Control called countries to get ready for plain packaging of tobacco
  products.
• Every year, on 31 May, the WHO
  and its partners in close collaboration with the governmental and non
  governmental agencies organize events, workshops, seminars to raise awareness
  about the ill effects of tobacco processing, trade and usage among the masses
  and the policy makers.

• The 42nd G7 Summit was held at
  Ise-Shima in Japan for 2-days from 26 May to 27 May 2016. During the summit,
  the member countries discussed a wide range of major global economic and
  political challenges and approved the G7 Ise-Shima Leaders’ Declaration.
• The summit assumed significance
  as it was the first one to be held after the adoption of the 2030 Sustainable
  Development Agenda by the United Nations in September 2015.
• During the summit, global economy
  and trade, climate change and energy, development, health and quality
  infrastructure investment were discussed by the leaders.

• Veteran TV and film actor Suresh
  Chatwal passed away on 29 May 2016 following a brief illness in Mumbai. 
• The actor was known for his role
  of Commissioner Suraj Agnihotri in F.I.R .

Regards

Team ExamPundit