Current Affairs Update – 6th and 7th March, 2016

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the Important Current Affairs of 6th and 7th March, 2016.

• ICICI Bank has launched
  iWork@home an initiative that allows women employees to work from home for up
  to one year. Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank explained that this could
  be extended for more than one year based on the requirements. This initiative allows
  female employees to have access to their required operating systems in a safe
  and secure manner, that creates a seamless office-like environment.
• The technology platform for this
  programme has been developed in-house by ICICI Bank in partnership with
  students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. Kochhar added that
  women in a particular lifestage that makes them quit the organisation will now
  be enabled to still work with the Bank by creating a work atmosphere and
  ecosystem at their homes as well. To ensure that data security and privacy is
  upheld, there will be a facial recognition technology used that scans the face
  to ascertain there is no intruder into the office system.
• Women in all roles, except those
  in direct customer facing roles, would be eligible for this initiative based on
  their lifestage needs. These would include young mothers, expectant mothers,
  those suffering from medical conditions among others. Kochhar said that the aim
  was to give a stronger support system to manage the challenge.

• Bajaj Power Generation Company
  has signed an agreement with the Railways for electrification of the
  Lalitpur-Udaipura rail section under the public private partnership (PPP).
• The Railways would complete the
  electrification work in a year’s time under its customer funding scheme, which
  would cost nearly Rs 47 crore.
• The electrified rail section is
  expected to facilitate uninterrupted coal supply to its plant and also help
  running of fast passenger trains in the area.
• BPGC is setting up a 1,980
  megawatt (mw) thermal power plant in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh.

• Haryana is likely to become the
  first state to enter into a partnership with the Ministry of Railways to create
  railway infrastructure in the state.
• Union Railway Minister Suresh
  Prabhu, while addressing the state’s maiden investment summit organised in
  Gurgaon today, said that a Special Purpose Vehicle would be formed to tap the
  syneries of states across India for accelerating the growth of railway
  infrastructure. Haryana is the first to give consent to this initiative.
• Inviting both, domestic investors
  and those from countries like China, Japan and 
  Korea, Prabhu said 400 railway stations in India need upgradation and
  the participation of private sector was imperative to achieve the targets of
  infrastructure development.

• Germany will partner with India
  to develop Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Coimbatore as smart cities.
• “Germany would contribute to
  India’s smart city programme and will help develop the cities of Kochi(Kerala),
  Bhubaneswar (Odisha) and Coimbatore(Tamil Nadu) as smart cities,” State
  Secretary in Germany’s Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building
  and Nuclear Safety, Gunther Adler, told reporters here.
• The three cities are among the 20
  cities which are to be developed as smart cities, announced by Urban
  Development Ministry in January this year.
• Germany had earlier set up a
  six-member joint committee with India to identify the cities which it could
  develop as smart cities.
• The committee had two
  representatives of Urban Development Ministry, one from the Ministry of Housing
  and Urban Poverty Alleviation, and three from Germany.
• Germany is India’s second largest
  bilateral donor with a record commitment of €1.5 billion (Rs 11,0000 crore)
  agreed last year, Ney said.
• Meanwhile, India and the US have
  also agreed on formulating action plans for development of smart cities in Allahabad,
  Ajmer and Visakhapatnam.

• The Central Board of Direct Taxes
  (CBDT) has set up a dedicated structure for delivery and monitoring of tax
  payer services in the income tax department.
• Two separate directorates
  –Directorate of Tax Payer Services I (‘TPS-I’) and Directorate of Tax Payer
  Services II(‘TPS-II’) have been set up by the CBDT.
• Member (Revenue and Tax payer
  services) in the CBDT will oversee the delivery and monitoring of taxpayer services
  under the new structure.
• Together, these Directorates will
  be responsible for delivery and monitoring of taxpayers services in the field
  offices and e-services deliverable through various electronic platforms of the
  Department.
• They will oversee and co-ordinate
  all matters relating to grievances of taxpayers and ensure their timely
  redressal.
• These Directorates will report to
  the Member (R and TPS), CBDT through the Principal Director General of Income
  Tax (Administration), an official release said.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
  will share FDI-related information with the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and
  Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) — to check black money from entering the
  country.
• The decision was taken during a
  recent meeting of a government group, headed by Revenue Secretary, to check
  economic crimes. The move comes after Cabinet Secretariat expressed concern
  over companies in tax havens investing in the country, official sources said.
• The Cabinet Secretariat suggested
  that Central Economic Intelligence Bureau (CEIB) under the Finance Ministry
  should maintain a database of such entities and investments, a move which was
  later rejected, they said.
• During the meeting of “Working
  Group on Intelligence Apparatus”, representatives of the IB felt that it is
  important to have the information. It was decided that the RBI should share
  with the IB and Cabinet Secretariat, information on FDI, which actually enters
  the country, the sources said.

• Travel solutions provider Thomas
  Cook India has inked a pact with Western Union Business Solutions and DCB Bank
  to facilitate international trade payments by small-and medium-sized
  enterprises.
• Western Union Business Solutions
  is a business segment of the Western Union Company.
• Thomas Cook India aims to assist
  small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India with their trade payments
  across borders, the company said.

• National carrier Air India today
  said it flew the “world’s longest” all-women operated and supported
  flight from the national capital to San Francisco.
• The flight, which travelled a
  distance of around 14,500 kilometre in close to 17 hours, was operated as part
  of International Women’s Day celebrations.
• The non-stop Delhi-San Francisco
  flight took off from here on March 6.
• The flight was under the command
  of Kshamta Bajpayee and Shubhangi Singh, along with First Officers Ramya Kirti
  Gupta and Amrit Namdhari.
• The carrier has about 3,800 women
  employees, including pilots, cabin crew, engineers, technicians, doctors, security
  personnel and executives.

• A two-day National Conference of
  Women Legislators held in New Delhi from 5 March to 6 March 2016 with theme
  Women Legislators-Building Resurgent India.
• The conference organised by the
  Parliament was inaugurated by the President Pranab Mukherjee. Speaker of
  Bangladesh Shirin Chaudhary attended the conference and was the Chairperson of
  the Plenary Session.

• President of India and the
  Supreme Commander of Indian Armed Forces Pranab Mukherjee on 4 March 2016
  presented President’s Standard to 119 Helicopter Unit (HU) and President’s
  Colours to 28 Equipment Depot (ED) of the Indian Air Force. The awards were given
  away at Air Force Station in Jamnagar, Gujarat. 
• Indian Air Force’s operational
  squadrons become eligible for award of Presidential Standard after completion
  of 18 years of service to the Nation. The selection is based on the unit’s
  performance and achievements during peace as well as hostilities. The honour is
  an acknowledgement of the meritorious service rendered by the units.

• Yes Bank Ltd has informed BSE
  that the Board of Directors of the Bank have on March 5, 2016 approved the
  appointment of Mr. Ashok Chawla as Additional (Non-Executive) Director of the
  Bank with immediate effect.
• The Board of Directors have
  further approved the proposal to seek approval from Reserve Bank of India for
  appointment of Mr. Ashok Chawla as future Non-executive, Part-time Chairman of
  the Bank, upon expiry of term of the current Chairperson in October 2016.

• Indian cricket team led by
  Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the Asia Cup for the record sixth time. 2016 Asia Cup
  was played from 24 February to 6 March 2016.
• To win the trophy, India defeated
  Bangladesh by eight wickets in the final played at Sher-e-Bangla National
  Cricket Stadium in Mirpur, Bangladesh.
• Batting first, Bangladesh made
  120 runs by losing 5 wickets in rain truncated 15 over while India chased down
  the target by losing two wickets and seven balls to spare.
• Shikhar Dhawan was adjudged Man
  of the Match for his 44-balls 60 runs.
• This was the first time that Asia
  Cup was played in T20 format and the countries that played in 2016 Asia Cup
  were India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• Sri Lanka has won the Asia Cup
  title five times including the 2014 Asia Cup and Pakistan has won it two times.

• Renowned Dogri poetess and writer
  Padma Sachdev was 6 March 2016 was awarded Krutitava Smagra Samman for the year
  2015.
• The award was given by
  Bharatiya’s Bhasha Parishad in Kolkata for her outstanding contribution in
  literature and great service to Dogri Language.
• She was presented with the award
  by the West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi. The Award carries an amount
  of one lakh rupees, a shawl and citation.

• Prof. Sirshendu De, Head of the
  Chemical Engineering department of the IIT, Kharagpur on 4 March 2016 was
  selected for the Innovation Award 2016 given by the Indian Desalination
  Association (IDA), South Zone.
• He was selected for the award for
  developing an ultra low-cost eco-friendly laterite based arsenic water filter.
• The cost-effective filter would
  provide safe drinking water in areas contaminated with arsenic. The indigenous
  filter, made from naturally occurring red laterite soil, is capable of
  absorbing arsenic to the extent of 32mg per gram.

• Raymond Samuel Tomlinson, the
  inventor of E-mail and the man who picked @symbol for addresses, passed away in
  Washington on 6 March 2016. He was 74.
• He was an American computer
  scientist who became a cult figure for his invention in 1971 of a program for
  APRANET, the internet predecessor that allowed people to send person to person
  messages to other computer users on other servers.
• He was working at Bolt Beranek
  and Newman – now Raytheon BBN Technologies – when he made his email
  breakthrough

• US novelist Pat Conroy, who wrote
  several acclaimed novels and memoirs, died on 4 March 2016 in Beaufort, South
  Carolina. He was 70.
• He was suffering from pancreatic
  cancer.
• Two of his novels, The Prince of
  Tides and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films. He is
  recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature.

Regards

Team ExamPundit

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