GK Power Capsule – August 2014 (The Hindu Review)
1. RBI
has held policy rates at current levels.
However RBI’s move to cut
SLR by 50 bps to 22%
could provide banks an
additional liquidity of
R44,000 crore. Current
fiscal year is expected to go
up to 5.5 per cent from
4.7 per cent in last financial
i. Bank
Rate – 9 % (Unchanged)
ii.
Cash Reserve Ratio – 4 % (Unchanged)
iii. Statutory
Liquidity Ratio – 22 % (Decreased
0.5%)
iv. Repo
Rate – 8 % (Unchanged)
v. Reverse
Repo Rate – 7 % (Unchanged)
vi.
Marginal Standing Rate – 9 % (Unchanged)
2. Union
Government appointed chairman of Joint
Intelligence Committee
(JIC) RN Ravi as Naga
interlocutor. He was also
appointment as Chief of
the Joint Intelligence
Committee.
3. Turkey's
ruling party named Finance Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu as
New Prime Minister of
Turkey.
4. Thailand
coup leader, Army Chief Prayuth Chanocha
was elected as the Prime
Minister of Thailand.
5. Prof. V. K. Thomas was
appointed as Chairman of
Public Accounts Committee.
6. Rajni
Razdan became the new Chairperson of the
Union Public Service
Commission. She replaced
Prof. D P Agrawal.
7. K V Chowdary appointed
as new Chairman of
Central Board of Direct
Taxes (CBDT).
8. Arvind Gupta was
appointed as Deputy National
Security Adviser.
9. US
actor and singer Harry Belafonte was named for
honorary Jean Hersholt
Humanitarian Oscar
Award.
10. Renowned
agriculture Scientist M.S.
Swaminathan was
conferred with an honorary
degree of the Doctor of
Science by the University
of Agriculture in
Faisalabad, Pakistan.
11. Muzaffar Ali, renowned
filmmaker and poet, was
presented the 22nd Rajiv
Gandhi National
Sadbhavana award.
12. Delhi
University professor Dr. Sunil Kumar
received Global South
Award given by
International Political
Science Association (IPSA).
13. Bharatiya
Mahila Bank Ltd bagged the Core
Banking System Initiative
Award for the year 2014
This GK Capsule has been
prepared by Career Power Institute Delhi (Formerly
Known as Bank Power). This has been
prepared on the basis of
news and events appeared in The Hindu Newspaper in the month of August 2014.
at the Asian Banking and
Finance - Retail Banking
Awards 2014.
14. Shah Rukh Khan became
the Ambassador of Turn
Back Crime campaign of
Interpol.
15. Russia
granted a three-year residence permit to
Edward Snowden, the Former
US intelligence
contractor turned
whistleblower.
16. Vinod Kumar Duggal resigned
as Manipur
Governor.
17. Sheila Dikshit submitted
her resignation as
Kerala Governor to
The President of India.
18. President
Pranab Mukherjee conferred the
Outstanding
Parliamentarian Awards.
i.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley received the award for
the year 2010
ii. Congress
Veteran Karan Singh received the
award for the year 2011
iii. JD(U)
leader Sharad Yadav received the award
for the year for 2012
19. Maharashtra
governor K Sankaranarayanan
resigned.
20. Nuri al-Maliki resigned
as the Prime Minister of
Iraq and
accepted the candidacy of Dr. Haider al-
Abadi, who was nominated
by the President of Iraq
Fouad Masoum to form the
new government.
21. Mamta
Sharma, Chairperson of the National
Commission for Women (NCW)
demitted office.
22. Deputy
National Security Adviser Nehchal Sandhu.
23. Syrian
Golan Heights was in news in the fifth week
of August 2014 after
forty-three UN Peacekeepers
from Fiji were held as
hostage by an armed group
of rebels.
24. Indian
Army discovered a tunnel in the Pallanwalla
sector along the Line of
Control in Jammu &
Kashmir.
25. Bipan
Chandra, former professor of history, died.
26. Oscar-winning
British filmmaker and actor Richard
Attenborough died. Richard
Attenborough was
renowned for his
critically-acclaimed biopic on
Mahatma Gandhi.
27. UR Ananthamurthy,
an eminent Kannada writer
died.
28. World-renowned
yoga guru B. K.S Iyengar died.
29. Oscar-winning actor
and comedian Robin
Williams was
found dead at his home.
30. Pran Kumar Sharma,
the eminent cartoonist
who created the comic book
character like Chacha
Chaudhary and Sabu died.
31. Union
Home Minister Rajnath Singh launched a
Plan Scheme of
Mainstreaming Civil Defence in
Disaster Risk Reduction at
a function at Vigyan
Bhawan in New Delhi.
32. Survey
of India the official mapping agency of the
country alleged that
Google continued to pollute
the internet with the map
results of India’s
classified areas even
after being warned against it.
33. The
WHO called for a range of tough regulations
that restricts the use of
e-cigarettes.
34. The
WHO has declared Ebola as Global Health
Emergency. The decision
was taken after a twoday
emergency session held in
Geneva.
35. President
of Sierra Leone Ernest Bai Koroma
declared a public health
emergency in Sierra Leone
to curb the deadly Ebola
outbreak.
36. Former
Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod
Rai authored a book titled
Not Just an
Accountant.
37. A
book titled Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi: An
Inside Job? authored by
Faraz Ahmad was
released.
38. A
book titled Gujarat’s success story in Water
Management was
released. This book was written
by BJP’s National Convener
of Water Management
Cell, Sriram Vedire.
39. A
book Strictly Personal, Manmohan and
Gursharan written by Daman
Singh was
published. The book is the
untold story of
Manmohan Singh, India’s
thirteenth Prime
Minister, and his wife.
40. Sivaramakrishnan
committee constituted by the
Union Government to
suggest the place to build
the capital city of Andhra
Pradesh submitted its
report.
41. Prime
Minister Narendra Modi set up a
Ramanujam committee to
identify obsolete
laws.
42. The
Union Government decided to appoint former
RBI governor Bimal
Jalan as the head of the
Expenditure Management
Commission. He
would be tasked to suggest
ways for managing
public finances by
reducing food, fertiliser and oil
subsidies to include
fiscal deficit.
43. Lok
Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan appointed a
committee under the
chairmanship of former
home secretary RK Singh
to review Parliament
security.
44. The
Union Ministry of Human Resource
Development set up a four
member committee to
review the present
status of Universities Grants
Commission. The committee
will be headed by
former UGC chairman
Hari Gautam.
45. Indian
Air Force and Russian Federation Air Force
started Indo-Russian Air
Force Exercise, Avia
Indra-2014 at
Astrakhan region, near the Caspian
Sea in Russia.
46. India’s
first indigenously-built stealth Anti-
Submarine Warfare INS
Kamorta was
commissioned in Indian
Navy by Union Defence
Minister Arun Jaitley.
47. SEBI
imposed a penalty of Rs.13 crore on Reliance
Industries Ltd. (RIL) for
non-disclosure of a key
earnings ratio.
48. SBI
reported a 3.3 per cent rise in its net profit at
Rs.3,349 crore for the
first quarter of 2014-15.
49. The
Union Home Ministry has recommended the
name of hockey wizard Major
Dhyan Chand for
the highest civilian
honour of Bharat Ratna.
50. Salman
Rushdie has received the Hans Christian
Andersen Literature Award.
51. BCCI
has appointed former Test all-rounder Ravi
Shastri Director of
Cricket in the Indian team
for the five-match ODI
series against England.
52. T. M. Bhasin,
Chairman and Managing Director of
Indian Bank, has been
elected as the Chairman of
Indian Banks’ Association.
53. The
Narendra Modi government is likely to name
Arvind Subramanian as
its Chief Economic
Adviser.
54. President
Pranab Mukherjee appointed Kalyan
Singh, Vajubhai Rudabhai
Vala, Ch. Vidyasagar
Rao and Mridula Sinha
Governors of Rajasthan,
Karnataka, Maharashtra and
Goa, respectively.
55. The
Jan Dhan Yojana provides for a free zerobalance
bank account with a debit
card, Rs 1 lakh
accidental insurance
policy and Rs 30,000 free
medical insurance cover
for those who enroll
before January 26 2015.
Depending on the
performance of the
accounts in the first six
months, banks will later
extend a Rs 5,000
overdraft facility,
thereby turning the debit card
into a kind of credit
card. The debit card is being
issued by RuPay of the
National Payments
Corporation of India.
Accounts will opened with
any one document including
electricity/telephone
bill, marriage/birth
certificate for address proof
and NREGA job card/
identity card of accredited
institutions for identity
proof. Having an Aadhaar
card/number is not
mandatory. These accounts
can be linked to aadhaar
numbers later.
56. Government
plans to hike its stake in IFCI Ltd to 51
per cent by infusing Rs 60
crore in the country's
oldest financial
institution. At present the stake is
nearly 48 per cent.
57. GDP
grew by 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of the
fiscal, marking the fastest
growth since March
2012, according to data
released by the CSO. The
economy grew at 4.6 per
cent in the fourth quarter
of last fiscal.
58. Wholesale
price index (WPI)-based inflation
dipped to a five-month low
of 5.19 per cent in July.
59. State-owned
banks are likely to hit the capital
markets in November in a
bid to meet Basel III
capital adequacy norms,
for which the requirement
has been estimated at
Rs.2.40 lakh crore over a
five-year period.
60. Syndicate Bank
Chairman-cum-Managing
Director (CMD) S.K. Jain
was arrested by the
Central Bureau of
Investigation, along with his
brother-in-law and four
others, for allegedly
receiving a bribe of Rs.
50 lakh.
61. A
Bill to further empower SEBI to check fraudulent
investment schemes was
introduced in the Lok
Sabha.
62. RBI issued draft
guidelines for the
implementation of Bharat
Bill Payment System.
The RBI has invited
comments from stakeholders
by September 5. The
objective of the BBPS is to
implement an integrated
bill payment system
across the country and
offer interoperable and
accessible bill payment
service to customers
through a network of
agents, enabling multiple
payment modes and
providing instant
confirmation of payment.
63. Chaired
by Reserve Bank Governor Raghuram G.
Rajan the Sub-Committee of
the Financial Stability
and Development Council
(FSDC) reviewed the
domestic macro economy and
potential risks
facing the financial
system.
64. SEBI
approved the SEBI (Real Estate Investment
Trusts) Regulations, 2014,
and SEBI
(Infrastructure Investment
Trusts) Regulations,
2014. The SEBI move will
provide a framework for
registration and
regulation for setting up and
listing of Real Estate
Investment Trusts (REITs)
and Infrastructure
Investment Trusts (InvITs) in
India. Once registered,
the REIT will raise funds
through an initial offer.
Subsequent raising of
funds would be through
follow-on offer, rights
issue and qualified
institutional placement. The
minimum subscription size
for units of REIT will
be Rs. 2 lakh.
65. Moody’s said the
country’s GDP would grow by 5
per cent this
year and accelerate further in 2015.
66. On
a Supreme Court directive, SEBI has issued a
public notice asking those
holding bonds issued by
two Sahara Group companies
to apply for refund
by September 30.
67. RBI
asked the State governments to be vigilant
against unauthorised
deposit mobilisation
activities in different
parts of the country.
68. The
Union Rural Development Ministry has
suggested doubling the
amount of financial
assistance offered to
villagers to build homes
saying the current
allocation of Rs 70,000 was
"insufficient".
A paper on National Gramin Awaas
Mission (a
rechristened version of Indira Awas
Yojana) prepared
by the ministry on housing said
the amount should be Rs
1.5 lakh.
69. India
has decided to acquire US Boeing's Chinook
and Apache helicopters, an
Indian defence ministry
official said, in a deal
valued at $2.5 billion. The
deal topped the agenda
during a visit by U.S.
Defence Secretary Chuck
Hagel in August.
70. The
much-awaited minimum monthly pension of
Rs 1,000 and a higher wage
ceiling of Rs 15,000
for social security
schemes run by retirement fund
manager EPFO will be
implemented from
September 1.
71. Govt
lifted the restriction of supply of only one
subsidised cooking gas LPG
cylinder to a
household in a month,
saying consumers can avail
their quota of 12 bottles
at anytime of the year.
72. India
has banned Finmeccanica group of
companies from
bidding in contracts, a defence
ministry source said. In
January, India cancelled a
560-million-euro ($751
million) order with
Finmeccanica’s unit Agusta
Westland for 12 topend
helicopters after Italian
prosecutors alleged
the defence group had paid
bribes to Indian
officials to win the
contract.
73. The
government notified the hike in foreign
investment limit in
defence production to 49%
from 26% approved by the
cabinet recently. It said
even beyond the new limit
of 49%, foreign
investment would be considered
on case to case
basis by the Cabinet
Committee on Security.
74. The
government will spend Rs 20,000 crore to
provide mobile
connectivity in 55,000 villages,
which are still untouched
by wireless telephony, in
the next five years.
75. Gujarat
has grabbed a lion's share, 45 percent, of
the country's total
exports that were made from
Special Economic Zones or
SEZs during the year
2013-14.
76. Government
has started the process for setting up
four new ultra mega power
projects in Bihar,
Jharkhand and Odisha, which
will together add
16,000 MW capacity to the
country's power
generation. UMPP is a
thermal power project of
at least 4,000 MW capacity,
with an approximate
investment of Rs 25,000
crore. So far, four UMPPs
have been awarded. Of
this, Sasan (Madhya
Pradesh), Krishnapatnam
(Andhra Pradesh) and
Tilaiya (Jharkhand) have
been bagged by Reliance
Power. Tata Power is
operating the Mundra UMPP
in Gujarat.
77. Government
hiked the import duty on both raw
and refined sugar to 25
per cent from the
existing 15 per cent.
78. Delhi
has been ranked a dismal 111th out of 140
world cities in a latest
global liveability study,
pointing to the lack of
urban planning across
India's polluted and
chaotic cities.
79. Gujarat followed by
Maharashtra and Karnataka
are the leading states
attracting significant
investment in India’s
hotels and tourism
industry.
80. India
ranked fifth amongst top ten wind power
producers in
the world by adding 1,700 MW
capacity in 2013, a report
said. "China was the
leading wind power
producer by adding 16,100
MW capacity in 2013,
followed by USA, Germany
and Spain," Renewable
2014 Global Status Report
said.
81. The
Defence Ministry has decided against
blacklisting British
aircraft engine manufacturer
Rolls-Royce and allowed
the armed forces to do
business related to
essential requirements with
the firm, which is facing
a CBI investigation for
allegedly paying
commissions and employing
middlemen in contracts
with HAL.
82. In
a bid to end the agitation against the Civil
Services Aptitude Test
(CSAT), the Union
government said the
English comprehension skills
component of Paper II in
the Civil Services
preliminary examination
should not be included
for gradation or merit.
83. Tata-SIA Airlines Limited
announced that the
much-anticipated brand
name of its new airline
will be Vistara or
limitless in Sanskrit with
aubergine and gold its
colours.
84. Prime
Minister Narendra Modi waived off Jammu
and Kashmir’s Rs. 60-crore
liability towards the
Food Corporation of India
and announced Central
assistance of Rs. 8,000
crore for four major road
projects.
85. Prime
Minister Narendra Modi announced the
setting up of a new institution
to replace the
Planning Commission.
86. Asian
Development Bank said it will provide up to
7-9 billion loan to the
country over the next three
years.
87. India
and Singapore decided to scale up ties in key
areas of investment and
trade which has witnessed
a huge surge from USD 4.2
billion to about USD
19.4 billion in the last
one decade. External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj
visited Singapore.
88. China
inaugurated its second railway line in Tibet,
built at a cost of USD
2.16 billion, close to Indian
border in Sikkim,
enhancing mobility of its military
in the remote and
strategic Himalayan region.
89. India's
economy is expected to record stronger
growth momentum of 5.5
per cent in the current
fiscal, according to a UN
report.
90. NASA’s
Mars rover, Opportunity, which landed on
the ‘Red Planet’ in 2004,
is now the record holder
of the off-Earth roving
distance after accruing 40
kilometres of driving, the
American space agency
said.
91. After
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) failed
to agree on a Trade
Facilitation Agreement (TFA)
or global customs rules
following Indian
opposition India has
refused to agree on a TFA
because it wants the WTO
to decide
simultaneously on a higher
limit on stockpiling of
agriculture produce to
feed the poor.
92. Doordarshan programmes
will soon be available
across Asia, Europe, North
Africa and Australia,
courtesy a memorandum of
understanding signed
by Prasar Bharati with
German public service
broadcaster Deutsche
Welle.
93. The
two-day 18th BASIC countries (Brazil, South
Africa, India and China)
Ministerial Meeting held
in New Delhi.
94. Manjul Bhargava and
Subhash Khot,
mathematicians of Indian
origin, are among eight
winners of the International
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