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Indian Affairs
Adilabad Police officer became first Indian woman to mount Kun
- 7,077-metre Kun Mountain, the twin of Nun, located in the inhospitable Zanskar range of Himalayas in Jammu and Kashmir has been conquered by G.R. Radhika who works as Additional Superintendent of Police of Adilabad, Telangana. With this she became first Indian woman to climb Kun Mountain.
- The record has been declared by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
- Kun is considered more difficult because of its vertical climb having numerous crevasses and the walls.
Six waste-to-energy plants to be set up under Swachh Bharat Mission
Government has launched waste-to-wealth scheme for generating power from garbage under the Swachh Bharat Mission. As a part of this scheme six waste-to-energy plants will set up with a capacity of about 74 MW which are expecting to start their operations in 2016.(Union Minister of power – Piyush Goyal)
LOCATIONS WHERE PLANT TO BE SET UP
- Two plants will set up in New Delhi – One at Ghazipur to produce 12 MW power by processing 2,000 tonnes waste per day and another at Narela-Bawana to generate 24 MW power from waste
- 11 MW each in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
- 11 MW plant in Hyderabad
- 12.6 MW plant at Nalgonda in Telangana
- 3 MW plant in Chennai
Power ministry is in process to amend Electricity Act-2003 by including a provision for State Electricity to mandatorily purchase all power generated from municipal solid waste. This provision will improve the scope of waste-to-wealth scheme.
International Affairs
Indo-US trade policy forum meet on October 28-29
The Indo-US will kick off the 9th round of Trade Policy Forum (Trade dialogue body) meet October 28 in America where India is expected to put the Agro-products issue in front which needs greater market access and removal of non-trade barriers.
The TPF has five focused groups – Agriculture Investment, intellectual property rights, Services, and Tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers.
PARTICIPANTS
- Indian Commerce and Industry MinisterNirmala Sitharaman
- US Trade RepresentativeMichael Froman
OBJECTIVE
- To promote investments, intellectual property rights (IPR), increasing cooperation in services sector
- Between April 2000 and June 2015, India has received USD 14.37 billion in FDI from the US.
Banking & Finance
SBI to charge around 10% for home loans
One the sidelines of RBI rate reduce the State Bank of India has also cut down its lending rate by 40 basis points to 9.3% but it will not relax the pockets of home loan customers as they have to pay 0.7% above base rate i.e. nearly 10% for their loans.
- There is reduction in the home loan rate only by 20bp and with higher margins which reflects that on home loans above Rs. 1 crore customers will have to pay the same rate of interest.
- The new home loan is fixed at55% while women borrowers it would be charged at 9.50%.
UCO Bank lodged with highest number of NPAs
As per RBI Kolkata headquartered UCO Bank named as the worst performer in public sector banks with highest number of non-performing assets (NPAs) recorded against it with gross advances ratio raised to 8.05% from 4.47% followed by Indian Overseas Bank and Bank of Maharashtra
OTHER BAD PERFORMER PSBs DURING 2014-15
- Chennai headquartered Indian Overseas Bank(IOB) with 8.30% from 3.46%
- Pune headquartered Bank of Maharashtra(BoM) with 6.18% from 3.02%
- Mumbai headquartered Dena Bankincreased to 5.29% from 3.33 per cent
- Mangalore headquartered Corporation Bank’srose from 3.42% to 4.80%
Increase in NPA affected the base of the banks and they are provided with Rs 25,000 capital support by government in this fiscal.
Business
Infosys overtook HDFC Bank as 3rd most valued company in m-cap
- India’s major IT CompanyInfosys became the third most valued Indian firm in terms of market valuation by overhauling the private sector lender HDFC Bank while TCS remained topper in chart with valuation of Rs 5,17,045.42 crore.
- Infosys market valuation is market with Rs 2,69,489.03 crore which is led by Rs 432.68 crore as compared to HDFC Bank’s m-cap of Rs 2,69,056.35 crore.
There are also companies who are suffered with drop downs
- SBI‘s valuation dropped by Rs 2,837.34 crore to Rs 1, 78,108.76 crore
- Sun Pharmacame down to Rs 2, 14,353.31 crore with a loss of Rs 132.36 crore
TCS is followed by RIL, Infosys, HDFC Bank, ITC, Sun Pharma, CIL, ONGC, HDFC and SBI.
Awards
Delhi Metro’s bagged with best in-train information system
According to the survey conducted by Railway and Transport Strategic (RTSC) Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has been ranked first in“information during travel” and holds second position in “train cleanliness and comfort”.
TIME DURATION OF SURVEY –
- April 13 to May 10, 2015 with “Customer Satisfaction Survey” (CSS) from August 24 to September 1, 2015 and this covered 96,466 respondents
- It was conducted on the basisinternational standards EN 13816 (a European survey system used widely to assess the performance of the public transportation systems in Europe) by RTSC which manages the ‘NOVA’ and ‘CoMET’ benchmarking groups of Metro networks.
Appointments
Ashish Bahuguna given additional charge of FSSAI CEO
Chairman of the food regulator FSSAI (Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) Ashish Bahuguna has been given an additional charge of its CEO as a successor of Yudhvir Singh Malik who shifted to Niti Aayog as its Additional Secretary. Bhauguna will continue as CEO till the new appointment.
- Malik was the man behind the ban of Nestle’s brand Maggi. He was an IAS officer of 1983 batch
- Bhauguna was 1978-batch retired IAS officer and former Agriculture Secretary was appointed as Chairman of FSSAI in July this year.
- 11 organisations of food and pharma sectors that formed National Joint Action Committee requested CBI to check the functioning of FSSAI irregularities and refund of Rs 80 crore collected by the authority for product approval.
Flipkart appoints Sriram Venkataraman as CFO
With 19 years of experience former Unilever executive Sriram Venkataraman has designated as the ecommerce giant Flipkart’s Chief Financial officer (CFO) for its commerce platform along with Pramod Jain of Indus Towers Limited as Vice President and Head of Taxation.
- Sriram was the Head of Sales Finance in Hindustan Unilever.
- Pramod Jain served Telecom Tower Company Indus Towers Limited (JV of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea) as the vice president of taxation at for 5 years.
Acquisitions & Mergers
Apollo Hospital launches Homecare services
Healthcare services Apollo Hospitals instigated its homecare realm with the launch of services in Hyderabad, New Delhi and Chennai which aims at to reduce the average stay of patients in hospitals and reduce the outlay for health insurance companies.
Apollo Homecare will expand its operations to all tier-I cities by the end of this year and spread to 13 tier-II cities by 2016.
FEATURES
- Provide end-to-end professional home healthcare through home visits, home partnerships and home nursing programmes.
- It also provide services like elderly care, chronic illness care, post-surgery care, post-hospital discharge care and home specialty care to its home-based patients.
Apollo Hospitals invest Rs 1,400 crore for expansion which includes 4 hospitals, clinics and homecare services.
Science & Technology
Sports
Manohar returns as BCCI President, Srinivasan era ends
Lawyer-turned-administrator Shashank Manohar was elected as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) till 2017as succeedor of Jagmohan Dalmiya, who was elected as interim President replacing N Srinivasan during spot fixing scandal 2013. His candidature was elected by all the 6 units of East Zone.
- Manohar earlier served BBCI for three years between 2008 -09 and 2010-11.
- His name was proposed bySourav Ganguly from Bengal, Sourav Dasgupta from Tripura, Gautam Roy from Assam, Ashirbad Behera of Odisha, Sanjay Singh of Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) and Manohar was Dalmiya’s son Avishek from National Cricket Club (NCC).
To tackle the issues BCCI will appoint an Ombudsman and would lay down norms and take measures and actions against corruption in the game.
Portuguese Cyclist Pinto Titled with Hero MTB Himalayan
34 year old Portuguese Lawyer turned rider Luis Leao Pinto have won the 11th Hero MTB Himalayan Edition 2015, a 600 km long 7- stage race, for the second time with a timing of 27:29:22. The race was ended at Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Earlier he was crowned with this title in 2013. He was followed by Andi Seewald of Germany at second and Pau Zamora of Spain at third position.
Race was started out with 88 cyclists including seven women, out of which only 54 riders completed the race of 12,000m (39,370 feet) with highest altitude of 3,250 m (10,662 feet).
WINNERS
- King of the Himalayasand the open men solo category won by Luis Leao Pinto.
- In theopen women solo category Catherine Williamson (UK) topped the position followed by Ilda Periera of Portugal andLaxmi Magar from Nepal at third.
- In themaster’s solo category Veteran pro-rider Reimund Dietzen of Germany was declared winner.
