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Indian Affairs
- Asia’s biggest telescope MAST inaugurated at Udaipur Solar Observatory in Rajasthan
- Lok Sabha passes SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill
- Govt. lists manual scavenging as ‘career option’
- Amitabh, Salman, Akshay are world’s top ten highest paid actors
Uttar Pradesh government decided to rename UPTU as APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University
- Akhilesh Yadav who is Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Government has decided to rename Uttar Pradesh Technical University(UPTU) to Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University as a tribute to former president kalam
- It also decided to construct a grand memorial for kalam in new campus of the university.
- Before in 2010,the UPTU is divided into Gautam Budha Technical University(GBTU) and Mahamaya Technical University(MTU) and got its original name in 2013.
Ministry of Rural Development launches ‘SAMANVAY’ portal for Gram Panchayats
- Rural Development Minister, Chaudhary Birender Singh has launched ‘SAMANVAY’ web portal for Gram Panchayats.
- All schemes of both the Centre and State governments at the gram panchayat level will be compiled under this portal. Around 1800 state schemes from across all states have been documented under SAMANVAY.
- The portal will act as a database in which all the information regarding various gram panchayats will be compiled through various schemes of Central and State governments.
- The main purpose of this portal is to help the Members of Parliament (MPs) so that they can have a clear planning and implementation of Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) which was launched in October 2014 by the government. Under SAGY, MPs were to choose 3 villages (Gram Panchyat) to develop these villages and create these a Model Village.
- Along with this, Chaudhary Birender Singh also launched a magazine Panchayat Darpan in order to monitor the progress of the SAGY. This magazine will tell about all the development activities going in the Gram Panchayats under SAGY.
Haryana Government launches Thari Pension, Thare Pass project
- Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar launched ‘thari pension, thare paas’ facility. The facility has been launched for transferring pensions of July 2015 month amounting to about ‘119 crore directly into the bank accounts or post offices of over 10 lakh beneficiaries.
- The facility is being implemented by state government’s Social Justice and Empowerment Department and has been undertaken by Team Kalyankarini of the department.
Under the first phase of the scheme, over 10 lakh beneficiaries living in 1,744 villages and 81 towns in the state would get pensions through banks and post offices. The residents of other villages would, for the time being, get their pension manually. - Khattar said the state government had decided to disburse pension under various social security schemes, including old age samman allowance, widow and destitute pension, disability pension, financial assistance to destitute children, allowances to eunuchs, dwarfs and disabled children, through banks.
Delhi Government decided to have Old Delhi with tram network
For better connectivity, the Delhi (AAP) Government has decided to run trams in many areas of Old Delhi as a part of augment transport infrastructure.
- The tram network comes as a part of redevelopment of the area which covers Lal Quila, Jama Masjid, Digamber Jain Mandir, Sheeshganj Gurudwara, Old Delhi Railway Station and the New Delhi Railway Station.
- Government has decided to make Shahjahanad Redevelopment Corporation, set up to carry out infrastructure projects in Old Delhi, on the lines of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC).
- Trams, regarded as an eco-friendly and cheap transport option that’s widely used in Europe which survived in Kolkata. In Delhi, trams, started in the British period, ran till 1960s.
International Affairs
- Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) renewed, Benefits Indian exporters
- USFDA hike drug Application by 30%
Bank & Finance
IDFC Bank to start operations from October
- IDFC which is Infrastructure financier that received a universal banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) last year,will start banking operations from October 1st 2015.
- IDFC received in-principle approval for operation in April 2014
- Vinod Rai, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), will be the non-executive chairman of IDFC. IDFC has three finance subsidiaries — IDFC AMC, IDFC Alternatives, and IDFC Securities
HSBC India to launch “green-bonds” in India
NAINA LAL KIDWAI, Chairman of HSBC on August 3, 2015 said in Ficci Event that HSBC India, world’s fourth largest issuer of green bonds is planning to launch “Green bonds” in India to enable fund raising for investments in environmental projects.
- Naina Lal Kidwai, besides green bonds, also announced on creating ‘Yieldcos’ that enable access to low cost liquid and generate predicable cash flows by bundling up renewable assets with long-term power purchase agreements.
- Green Bonds in India was initially launched by Axis Bank and Yes Bank. Globally, the green bonds market has tripled to USD 37 billion in last two years.
- Green bond is a debt instrument with which a bond issuer gets capital while the investors receive fixed income in the form of interest.
Business
Alibaba to invest 4000 crore rupees in Paytm.
- E-commerce giant Alibaba is to invest 4000 crore rupees in m-commerce giant paytm. Paytm has morethan 23 million registered users.
- Paytm started off as a mobile recharge service but recently pivoted to become a full market place along with its recharge and bill payments services.
- Alibaba is looking in investing as much as $575 million(Rs 3,600 cr approx) in paytm for a 25-30 percent stakeBefore they invested in snapdeal,Freecharge .
- The Indian merchants are second biggest sellers on Alibaba portal after the chinese
Awards
Hindi litterateur Kashinath Singh chosen for Bharat Bharti literary award 2014
- Kashinath Singh who is noted Hindi literature has been chosen for UttarPradesh state’s highest literary award,Bharat Bharti.This award is given in list of 2014
- This award is given by UP Hindi Sansthan and its cash prize is 5 lakh.Singh is famous for his novel Kashi Ka Assi .With this novel a moving is coming woith name ‘Mohalla Assi’
- Singh who is 78 penned many novels and short stories.His recent work in 2014 is Upsanhar
National Dairy Development Board won the ESRI Special Achievement in GIS Award 2015
For exemplary work in Dairy Geographical Information System, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) is awarded with ESRI Special Achievement in GIS Award 2015 on August 4, 2015.
- NDDB’s Internet-based Dairy Geographical Information System (i-DGIS) application is the first attempt of its kind in India, where village-level integration of data has been done, at such a large scale, for the dairy sector.
- Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), is an international supplier of Geographic Information System (GIS) software, web GIS and geodatabase management applications.It has its headquartered in Redlands, California.
Appointments
Neeraj Aggarwal, new Managing Director for BCG
World’s leading management consultants, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) India made Neeraj Aggarwal as its new Managing Director, who was working for 16 years to BCG as senior partner from Delhi, replacing incumbent Arindam Bhattacharya.
- Bhattacharya, who has led BCG India over the past six years, helped make India a role model within the BCG network, will move to larger global role as Director of the Bruce Henderson Institute.
- Before joining BCG, Neeraj worked with Cadence Design Systems, the world’s leading company in Electronic Design Automation.
- The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a global management consulting firm with 82 offices in 46 countries.
- BCG advises clients in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors around the world, including more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500.
Science & Technology
Facebook Unveils Solar Drone that can beam the internet down to earth.
- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced the completion of Aquila ,facebook first unmanned plane that beams down internet connectivity from sky which is a part of his project with Internet.org.
- It finally conceived its 1st full scale drone ,which has wingspan of boeing 737 and will provide Internet access to most remote parts of the world.Semi-autonomous drones will fly 17 miles above from earth.
- This is to provide wireless internet access to the four billion people currently unable to get online
Sports
US breaks the world record in World Swimming Championship
United States grabs the world record in the mixed 4×100 meters medley relay by breaking the Russia’s world record which was set by them few minutes before at the world swimming championships in Kazan, Russia.
- The American quartet of Ryan Murphy, Kevin Cordes, Kendyl Stewart and Lia Neal posted a combined time of 3 min 42.33 sec, which wiped out the Russia who made the combined time of 3 min 45.87 sec which was set just a few minutes earlier.
- The mixed medley relay is being held at the world championships for the first time but is not on the Olympic programme.
Obituary
“Voice of Racing” O’Sullevan dies at 97
Commentator and journalist Sir Peter O’Sullevan who was known as “The Voice” throughout five decades at the microphone for the BBC died July 29 at his home in London after a long battle with illness at the age of 97.
- Sir Peter O’Sullevan, known as the “Voice of Racing“, called 14,000 races, among them 50 Grand Nationals.
- Sir Peter O’Sullevan was also an award-winning journalist for the Daily Express.
- He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.
- Sir Peter O’Sullevan’s made commentaries on many of the most famous moments in racing, including Red Rum’s third Grand National success in 1977, Dawn Run’s Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1986 and Desert Orchid’s win in the same race in 1989.
Click here to view: Current Affairs August 2015
