Current Affairs Update – 7th April, 2015

Hello and welcome to ExamPundit. Here are the important current affairs of 7th April, 2015.

•  Short-term lending
  rate (repo) unchanged at 7.5%
•  Cash Reserve Ratio
  unchanged at 4%
•  Retains Statutory
  Liquidity Ratio at 21.5%
•  Estimates GDP growth
  at 7.8% in FY’16, up from 7.5% in FY’15
•  Forecasts CPI inflation
  at 5.8% by March 2016
•  CPI inflation to dip
  to 4% in August 2015
•  Hailstorms in March
  affected 17% of the rabi crop sown area
•  Future rate cuts will
  depend on interest rate reduction by banks
•  India better prepared
  to deal with volatility post US Federal Reserve rate action
•  State cooperative
  banks to be allowed to set up offsite/ mobile ATMs without prior approval from
  RBI
•  RBI to formulate
  scheme for market making by primary dealers in semi—liquid and illiquid G—Secs
•  Second bi-monthly
  policy statement on June 2

• Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on 6 April 2015
  signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the European Bank for
  Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to deepen partnership between Indian
  companies and the bank in those countries where the bank has operations.
• It was signed by the CII Director General Chandrajit
  Banerjee and EBRD Vice-President Phil Bennett at a session on Inclusive
  Business: The Way Forward as part of the National Conference and Annual Session
  2015 held by the CII in New Delhi.
• Under the MoU, the EBRD countries of operations would
  benefit from the transfer of skills from world-class Indian companies. On the
  other hand, EBRD will be sharing its strong local knowledge with Indian
  companies that are either moving into the EBRD regions for the first time or
  which want to expand their operations in those countries.
• The bank has already made 1 billion US dollar investment
  together with Indian companies and the MoU will help to utilize huge untapped
  potential in the Indian private sector.

• Amendments to the Real Estate (Regulation and Development)
  Bill, 2013, were approved by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday.
• The Bill is pending in the Rajya Sabha. The Bill paves the
  way for the creation of a regulator to protect home buyer interests as well as
  ensure accountability and transparency. With the amendments the provisions of
  the Bill are also applicable to commercial real estate.
• The Bill envisages setting up of one or more Regulatory
  Authorities in each State/UT or one Authority for two or more States/UT by the
  concerned Governments. Developers will be required to register their projects
  with the Regulatory Authorities and promoters will have to disclose all
  information regarding the promoters, project, layout plan, schedule of
  development works, land status, among others.
• The proposed amendments also dilute the provision that
  required the promoter to compulsorily deposit 70 per cent of the amount
  collected from consumers in a separate account in a scheduled bank within a
  period of 15 days to cover the cost of construction. Now, it has been proposed
  that the deposit amount will be 50 per cent of the money collected.
• The Bill provides that a promoter will need the consent of
  2/3rd of consumers of a project to change plans/structural designs. Also, real
  estate agents have been made punishable for non-compliance of the orders of
  Regulatory Authority and Appellate Tribunals to be set up, the statement added.

• Yuvraj Singh, the Indian Premier League’s costliest player
  this season, is starting a new innings as a businessman. He is floating a
  venture fund that aims to support young entrepreneurs by investing in startups
  across sectors.
• Yuvi for millions of his fans, the 34-year-old cricketer
  will put about Rs 50 crore – mostly his own money – over a period of three to
  five years in the fund, YouWeCan Ventures. The fund is expected to raise around
  Rs 300 crore from other investors during the period.
• Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has investments in
  several, mostly sports-related, businesses, but not through such a structured
  fund. Singh’s idol, Sachin Tendulkar, had invested in restaurant business.
  Robin Uthappa has part-funded a startup, a Bengaluru-based tiffin service, but
  Singh’s plan is much more elaborate. YouWeCan Ventures will primarily fund
  startups in healthcare, sports products, services and fashion, travel and
  tourism, hospitality and e-commerce.
• The plan is to offer seed capital ranging from Rs 10 lakh to
  Rs 25 lakh.

• Major Indian Steel Companies on 6 April 2015 signed a
  Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Union Ministry of Steel for setting up of
  Steel Research and Technology Mission of India (SRTMI) in New Delhi.
• The primary objective of SRTMI is to promote collaborative
  Research and Development (R&D) programmes between the ministry and steel
  industries in priority areas of national importance in the steel sector.

• The mission aims at increasing investment on R&D in the
  steel sector from the present level of 0.2-0.3 to the international benchmark
  of 1-2 percent of the industry turnover.
• Under the mission R&D will be carried out in the areas
  including best usage of available raw materials in the country and conservation
  of natural resources, optimum energy conservation and minimum emissions,
  innovations and in-house development of design, engineering and manufacturing
  facilities of key steel plant equipments.
• The mission will be set up with an initial corpus of 200
  crore rupees with equal contributions coming from the Steel Development Fund of
  the Ministry and the participating industries.
• The mission will be formed as a registered society in close
  cooperation amongst the participating steel companies, Union Ministry of Steel,
  academia and other institutions in the country.

• The Reserve Bank of India has allowed cross-holding of
  senior bonds of Indian lenders, subject to certain conditions including that
  the proceeds of such bonds should be used for financing of infrastructure and
  affordable housing.
• The central bank announced the decision in its first
  bi-monthly monetary policy statement today. Detailed guidelines will be issued
  shortly, the RBI said.
• As of today, banks’ investment in these senior bonds will
  not be treated as “assets with the banking system in India”,
  according to the RBI’s policy statement.
• Also, the RBI will limit a bank’s participation in a
  particular senior bond issue by prescribing certain limits. “Its aggregate
  holding of such bonds will also be subject to certain limits in relation to its
  own assets”, the statement said.
• As banks were not allowed to invest in senior bonds, some of
  the early issuances faced investor restrictions and closed without exercise of
  the greenshoe options.

• Senior IAS officer Nilam Sawhney has been appointed as
  secretary, Central Vigilance Commission, replacing Alok Kumar who has been made
  Additional Secretary in Niti Aayog.
• Sawhney, a 1984 batch IAS officer, is presently serving in
  her cadre– Andhra Pradesh.
• She has been appointed in the rank and pay of Additional
  Secretary for a period of four years from the date of assumption of charge of
  the post, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.
• Sawhney replaces her batch-mate Alok Kumar who has been
  appointed as Additional Secretary, NITI Aayog for the balance period of his
  central deputation tenure i.E. Upto December 13, 2016, it said.
• New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) chairperson Jalaj
  Shrivastava has been appointed as Additional Secretary in Department of
  Agriculture and Cooperation.

• National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 7 April 2015 banned all the
  diesel vehicles, heavy or light, over 10 years old from plying on Delhi roads.
• It asked the governments and concerned agencies to ensure
  within 20 hours that all entry points have units to check pollution levels,
  weight and age of vehicle.
• The ruling was given by a bench headed by NGT chairperson
  Justice Swatanter Kumar.
• In the order passed, the bench noted that a number of
  countries in the world are in the process or have prohibited diesel vehicles or
  are in the process of doing away with them by imposing very heavy taxes.  Some of these countries include Denmark,
  Brazil, China and Sri Lanka.

• The Chestnut-breasted Partridge (Arborophila mandellii) was
  photographed by a Bengaluru-based wildlife photographer Gururaj Moorching in
  the first week of April 2015. The bird was spotted in West Kamang district of
  Arunachal Pradesh.
• The click was the first-ever photograph of the bird endemic
  to the Eastern Himalayas whose scientific name was given by an Italian
  naturalist and is classified as hill patridge.
• Partridges are medium-sized ground-nesting birds of the
  pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group. These
  birds are found in about 45 species and is categorised as vulnerable by the
  International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

• Piplantri Village of southern Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district
  was in news in second week of March 2015. This village not only embraces
  daughters but also created a tradition of planting 111 trees every time on the
  birth of a girl child. The plants are planted in her honour.
• The village came into news, at the time when documentary
  India’s Daughters created national debate. The documentary portrayed violence
  against women like rape and abuse in India.
• The tradition was started by village’s former sarpanch Shyam
  Sundar Paliwal in 2006. He started the initiative in the memory of his daughter
  Kiran, who died a few years ago.

• Conservative US Senator Rand Paul announced today that he is
  running for his party’s nomination for the 2016 presidential race, making him
  the second major Republican to join the contest.
• Paul, a conservative libertarian who was elected to the
  Senate in 2010 with strong support from the Tea Party movement, was expected to
  make a more formal announcement later in the day.
• He summoned supporters and reporters to a speech at 1600 GMT
  in Louisville, Kentucky, where he has served as senator since January 2011.
• Paul follows Texan Ted Cruz, who launched his candidacy two
  weeks ago with an appeal to religious right, among others.
• Jeb Bush, brother of former president George W. Bush, leads
  in opinion polls for the primary elections, although he has yet to officially
  announce his candidacy.

• Sri Lanka and Pakistan on 6 April 2015 signed six
  agreements. The signing of the agreement was witnessed by the Pakistan Prime
  Minsiter Nawaz Sharif and Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena at the PM
  House in Islamabad.
• The six agreements pertained to advancing cooperation in
  disaster management, sports, shipping, socio-economic development, education
  and narcotics control.

• Cooperation between Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and
  Atomic Energy Authority of Sri Lanka
• Agreement on cooperation against illicit trafficking in
  narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances
• Academic cooperation agreement on exchange and collaboration
  between National Defence University of Pakistan and Lakshman Kadirgamar
  Institute of International Relations and Strategic Studies of Sri Lanka
• Mutual cooperation in shipping business between Pakistan
  National Shipping Corporation(PNSC) and the Ceylon Shipping Corporation Ltd
  (CSCL)
• Collaboration in the field of Sports
• Cooperation on disaster management

• A 116-year-old American woman, who became the world’s oldest
  person last week, has died after suffering complications from pneumonia.
• Gertrude Weaver from Arkansas became next in line to
  officially earn the title of oldest person when 117-year-old Misao Okawa of
  Japan died on Wednesday.
• Weaver fell sick on Saturday and died yesterday at Silver
  Oaks Health and Rehabilitation Centre. She is survived by her son, Joe Weaver,
  who turns 94 today.
• Weaver was fully aware of her unique place in the world and
  “knew everything”, Washington Post quoted Kathy Langley, administrator at the
  rehabilitation centre, as saying.
• The world’s oldest known person is now Jeralean Talley, who
  was born on May 23, 1899 and will turn 116 next month, according to the group.

• Sumit Mazumder, Chairman and Managing Director of TIL Ltd.,
  succeeded Ajay Shriram as President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
  for 2015-16 here on Tuesday.
• A graduate of St Xavier’s College (Kolkata), Mazumder has a
  Master’s in Business Administration from Sam Houston State University, Texas,
  USA. He also undertook the Advanced Management Program at Harvard University.
  He is also the Executive Chairman of Tractors India Pvt. Ltd. which is a
  distributor for Caterpillar’s earthmoving, construction and mining equipment
  and power systems in India, Nepal and Bhutan.
• Naushad Forbes, Director, Forbes Marshall, takes over as
  President-designate of the industry body. He received his Bachelors, Master’s
  and PhD degrees from Stanford University and has also been a Lecturer and
  Consulting Professor at the university in the Science, Technology and Society
  program from 1987 to 2004.

• Padma Vibhushan Azim Premji was conferred with the CII
  President’s Award at the CII National Conference and Annual Session 2015.
• CII recognized Premji for driving nation building across
  multiple dimensions of business, technology, community and society and shaping
  the human face of Indian industry.
• Wipro Group Chairman Premji, who has been at the helm of the
  company since the 1960s, has been instrumental in turning what was then a USD 2
  million cooking fat company into a USD 7 billion IT/BPO and R&D services
  organisation with a presence in 60 countries.
• He guided Wipro through four decades of diversification and
  growth to emerge as one of the Indian leaders in the software industry, CII
  said, adding that Premji is known for striding into the world stage to deepen
  the global footprint of Indian business.

• World Health Day (WHD) 2015 was observed globally on 7 April
  2015. The theme for the year is From farm to plate, make food safe.
• The theme was selected by the World Health Organisation
  (WHO) to bring focus on growing global burden of food borne diseases and
  underscore the need for coordinated cross-border action across the entire food
  supply chain i.e. from farm to plate.
• To mark the day, the World Health Organisation (WHO)
  conducted various programmes across the world in close cooperation with
  government agencies and civil society to spread awareness on food safety issues
  related to the entire spectrum of food supply chain.

Regards

Team ExamPundit

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