Current Affairs Today – May 14 2015

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Brief News

• Cleanliness awards for public health facilities to be launched by the government
• Human Capital Index – India at 100, Finland at number 1
• Indian-American boy wins National Geographic Bee
• RBI relaxes 2-factor authentication norms for contactless cards upto Rs 2,000
• Punjab becomes first state to issue Soil Health Cards to farmers
• International Day of Families – 15 May

Bulletin News

Indian Affairs

India-American sworn in as the chairman of NIGC :

• NIGC- National  Indian gaming commission- it is constituted for regulating gaming activities of the sovereign Indian tribes in order to promote tribal development and ensuring the tribes are the prime beneficiaries of the gaming activities.
• Indian origin Jonodev Osceola Chaudhury has been appointed the chairman after a year and a half stint as the acting chairman and vice chairman of NIGC.
• He was sworn in by the secretary of interior- Sally Jewell, becoming the first Indian American to hold this post.

Negotiable Instruments (Amendments) Bill, 2015 passed:

• NDA govt. passed the Negotiable Instruments(Amendment) Bill, which makes filling cases more convenient for payees in cheque bounce cases.
• It aims at section 138 of the original act because of which large of no. of cases are stuck in courts, as SC had ordered previously that cases against accused could only be filed in courts under whose jurisdiction, the bank account of the accused fall.
• It had to face opposition from its own party members regarding the bill, who fear that it would be used against common man by corporates.
• The bill was later passed by voice vote.

Azure Power commissions a 100MW plant in Rajasthan :

• Azure Power has announced to commission it’s largest solar plant in Jodhpur.
• It had won this project under the National Solar Mission phase II batch I to supply power to Solar Energy Corporation of India for 25 years.
• Inderpreet Wadhwa- Founder and CEO of Azure Power.

International Affairs

Indian- Gagan Toor wins the NASA contest to name a mercury crater:

• NASA conducted a contest to name 5 new craters of mercury.
• Enheduanna, the name suggested by Toor, was one of the five winners. It’s the name of a Sumerian princess, who is first known poet and author.
• The other 4 winning names are Carolan, Karsh, Kuthum, and Rivera.
• The names were selected by public outreach team and approved by IAU, which had prescribed the rules that the names must be of an artist, composer or writer, who was famous for 50 years and died at least 3 years ago.

India way behind WHO health goals:

• According to WHO’s annual world health statistics for 2015 , released in Geneva, India had met merely 4 out of 10 health targets under Millennium Development Goals, and seems to make no progress in the other 4.
• India has increased life expectancy by 8 years during 1990-2013 as against the global increase of 4 years. India has also reduced infant mortality rate but it still contributes for most infant deaths globally.
• India has met it targets in HIV reduction, tuberculosis rates reduction and increase in access to safe water, whereas it has performed poorly in family planning, ante natal care and in immunization of measles.

Banking & Finance 

SBI next after ICICI to launch contact less debit and credit cards:

• SBI country’s largest issuer of debit card and third largest issuer of credit card, has launched contact less debit and credit cards- SbilNTOUCh, with one lakh fraud cover.
• It has tied up with shoppers’ stop, Reliance retail, Big Bazaar and Starbucks. It will come with emergency replacement facility.
• It uses Near Field Technology( NFC ) that enables users to pay by waving or tapping the card near the reader instead of swiping.

IT wing for RBI under planning :

• Raghunath Rajan said that RBI is planning to set up an IT wing to face the rising challenge of the cyber world.
• RBI already has an IT arm – Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology( IDRBT ) but did not embark on how this new IT wing will differ from IDRBT.

Sports

World school chess championship(U -15) : Tejaswini wins gold :

• Winner of national school games championship few months ago, this was Tejaswini Sagar’s maiden world title, defeating Kavanya Rajapaksha of Sri Lanka.
• Barbayenka win silver and Nur Shanti of Indonesia won bronze.
• It was held in Pattaya, Thailand.