News Roundup - 28 November 2014

• France to process tourist and business visas within two days of application from December 1. Currently visas take five to 10 days. A mobile application — ‘Chalo Paris’ — was also launched. Eight new visa application centres at Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Pune, Panjim, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Hyderabad and Jaipur would also be opened from December 1.
• Union government rolled out the much-awaited electronic visa system for visitors from 43 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Germany, Japan and Russia. The implementation of Tourist Visa on Arrival enabled with electronic travel authorisation will send a clear and powerful message that India is serious in making travel to the country easy. A tourist from these countries can now apply for an e-visa through the designated website and pay the fee online to get an electronic travel authorisation within 72 hours. The facility will be available initially at nine airports — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Goa. It will be extended to citizens of more countries soon. An e-visa will be valid for 30 days and a tourist can take it twice a year.
• P D James, author of classic British Detective stories, died.
• Of the 7.64 crore bank accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) so far, 5.74 crore have no deposits. A total of Rs. 6,015 crore is held in the remaining 1.9 crore accounts. Thus, the average deposit in each of these is Rs. 3165.78. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has raised the target for opening of PMJDY bank accounts by the next Republic Day to 10 crore, according to an official release. The new target will amount to opening of one account for each household in the country. The target was originally set at 7.5 crore bank accounts. The Finance Minister also asked the officers that Aadhar card numbers may be seeded with bank accounts so that the subsidies payments can be made into them through the Direct Benefit Transfer scheme, the release said.
• West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi was on Thursday sworn in as the Governor of Bihar. The term of the former Bihar Governor, D.Y. Patil, expired on Wednesday.
• Tapan Raychaudhuri, a distinguished historian of modern India’s economic and intellectual history, passed away at his home in Oxford on November 26. 
• Net migration to the United Kingdom has jumped by a substantial 40 per cent to 260,000 from the previous year, despite efforts by the David Cameron government to control the number of people arriving in Britain.
• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended a reserve price of Rs.3,104 crore per megahertz for CDMA spectrum, which is 15 per cent more than the Rs.2,685 per megahertz rate it had proposed in February. TRAI had proposed a reserve price of around Rs.1,800 crore for 800 Mhz for the auction in March, 2013, wherein Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) was the only bidder, and it won radio waves to operate in eight circles for Rs.3,639 crore. The new reserve price of Rs.3,104 crore is 72 per cent higher than the Rs.1,800 crore rate in 2013 auction.
• RBI said banks could extend loans to individuals against long-term bonds issued by them. This would “provide liquidity to retail investors who are invested in long-term bonds issued by banks for financing infrastructure and affordable housing”, RBI said in a notification to banks. Further, such loans should be subject to a ceiling, say, Rs.10 lakh per borrower. 
• Corporation Bank has decided to allow unlimited free transactions on its ATMs for savings bank account holders of the bank. The bank at present has 2,776 ATMs across the country. 
• Henkel Adhesive Technologies India along with the Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) has inaugurated the Henkel-FDDI Shoe Academy in the Noida campus. Henkel has also announced a three-day certified training programme on shoe manufacturing to improve the manufacturing process, says a company release. 
• RBI issued final guidelines for small finance banks and payments banks, paving the way for mobile firms and supermarket chains, among others, to enter the banking arena to cater to individuals and small businesses. The minimum paid-up capital for these banks will be Rs.100 crore each. The foreign shareholding will be in line with the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy for private sector banks. According to the RBI, the objective of setting up of small finance banks will be to further financial inclusion by provision of savings vehicles and supply of credit to small business units, small and marginal farmers, micro and small industries and other unorganised sector entities, through high technology-low cost operations. Individuals/professionals with 10 years of experience in banking and finance and companies and societies will be eligible to set up small finance banks. Existing non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), micro finance institutions (MFIs), and local area banks (LABs) can also opt for conversion into small finance banks. The small finance banks will primarily undertake basic banking activities of acceptance of deposits and lending to un-served and underserved sections, including small business units, small and marginal farmers, micro and small industries and unorganised sector entities. The small finance banks will be subject to all prudential norms and regulations of RBI as applicable to existing commercial banks, including requirement of maintenance of Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR). The small finance banks will be required to extend 75 per cent of its adjusted net bank credit (ANBC) to the sectors eligible for classification as priority sector lending (PSL) by the RBI. “At least 50 per cent of its loan portfolio should constitute loans and advances of up to Rs. 25 lakh.” RBI also said that if the small finance bank aspired to transit into a universal bank, such transition would not be automatic, but would be subject to fulfilling minimum paid-up capital / net worth requirement as applicable to universal banks, among others. Existing non-bank pre-paid payment instrument (PPI) issuers and other entities such as individuals / professionals, non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), corporate business correspondents(BCs), mobile telephone companies, super-market chains, companies, real sector cooperatives and public sector entities can apply to set up payments banks. A promoter/promoter group can have a joint venture with an existing scheduled commercial bank to set up a payments banks. However, scheduled commercial bank can take equity stake in a payments bank to the extent permitted under Section 19 (2) of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, said RBI. On acceptance of demand deposits, the RBI said that payments bank would initially be restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs. 100,000 per individual customer. Payments banks, however, cannot issue credit cards. These banks would be allowed to distribute non-risk sharing simple financial products like mutual fund unitsdertake lending activities,” said RBI. It also stated that apart from amounts maintained as Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), it will be required to invest minimum 75 per cent of its “demand deposit balances” in Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR).
• Phil Hughes, 25, fell victim to a delivery that did not quite have the pace he had anticipated. He swung and missed, and collapsed in a heap, never to rise.

 Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 20 November 2014

1. First Amma Pharmacy opened at Tiruchi with the aim of selling medicines and drugs at a discount.
2. The 2002 post-Godhra riots were “purely communal” in nature and erupted specifically as a reaction to the Sabarmati train burning incident. The Gujarat government and the police took all necessary steps to control the incidents, Justice (retd.) G.T. Nanavati, Chairman of the Nanavati Commission of Inquiry.
3. Intelligence agencies in Bangladesh and India have exchanged lists of suspected fugitives believed to be hiding in each other’s countries to evade trials.
4. Indian Space Research Organisation won the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2014.
5. Medileaks, a website that will allow stakeholders to register complaints, point out irregularities in healthcare and generate information about malpractices in the medical care sector, was launched in Delhi. The website, inspired by Wikileaks, will allow whistleblowers to post information anonymously. It will be vetted by a team of volunteers before being shared on the portal, advised the website’s founders Sunil Nandraj and Alam Singh. The founders asserted that the aim was to offer useful information to patients, care-givers, journalists, researchers and policy-makers to help them make informed choices.
6. The collaboration for the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider discovered two new subatomic particles belonging to the baryon family. A baryon is a composite subatomic particle made up of three quarks. The particles were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been seen before.  A related particle was found by the CMS experiment at CERN in 2012. Like the well-known protons that the LHC accelerates, the new particles are baryons made from three quarks bound together by the strong force. The types of quarks are different, though: the new particles both contain one beauty (b), one strange (s), and one down (d) quark, CERN said in a statement. Thanks to the heavyweight b quarks, they are more than six times as massive as the proton. But the particles are more than just the sum of their parts: their mass also depends on how they are configured. The results match up with predictions based on the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), researchers said. QCD is part of the Standard Model of particle physics, the theory that describes the fundamental particles of matter, how they interact and the forces between them.
7. Modi announced slew of lines of credit and development assistance totalling $ 80 million for Fiji and a visa-on-arrival for all the 14 island countries in the Pacific region. He also announced a $ one million Special Adaptation Fund for the Pacific nations and a proposal to develop Pan Pacific Islands Project for tele-medicine and tele-education. His trip is the first by an Indian Prime Minister to Fiji in 33 years after Indira Gandhi in 1981. India and Fiji also agreed to expand their security and defence cooperation during Mr. Modi’s day-long visit to Fiji, considered as hub in the Pacific Ocean region, as Suva rolled out the red carpet with billboards “Vula Modi” (Welcome Modi) dotting various traffic intersections. 
8. Kottarapattu Chattu Kuttan, the legendary hotel doorman who served world leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Richard Nixon at the famous Galle Face Hotel here, died at 94. Mr. Kuttan, from Thrissur district in Kerala, served the hotel for 72 years. Mr. Kuttan virtually became the symbol of Sri Lanka’s booming hospitality industry as well as the Galle Face Hotel as his photograph has adorned the covers pages of many travel magazines all over the world.
9. The 45th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) will open on 20^th November: Amitabh Bachchan (Chief Guest) and film directors Jeon Soo-il (South Korea), Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran) and Krzysztof Zanussi (Poland) are the guests of honour. Film star Rajinikanth will be bestowed the Centenary Award for Indian Film Personality of the Year at the opening ceremony to be held at Shama Prasad Mukherjee indoor stadium at Taleigao. The award was instituted last year to commemorate 100 years of Indian cinema. Actor Waheeda Rehman was the first recipient of the award. Chinese film-maker Wong Kar Wai will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. The 11-day festival will open with The President , directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and close on November 30 with The Grandmaster by Wong Kar Wai. IFFI 2014 will screen 178 films from 79 countries.
10. A Christian has been sworn in as Governor of Indonesia’s capital for the first time in 50 years despite protests from Islamic hardliners. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also the first ethnic Chinese person to become an Indonesian Governor, took the oath of office on Wednesday in a ceremony led by President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo. Mr. Widodo was Governor until becoming President in August. Mr. Purnama had served as his deputy. Mr. Purnama has a reputation for outspokenness and has a track record of combating graft and cutting red tape. 
11. Police found the bodies of the reigning Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado, and her sister dumped beside a river. She had planned to fly to London to compete in the Miss World contest. Honduras, a poor Central American country of eight million people, has the world’s highest homicide rate: 90.4 per 100,000 inhabitants.
12. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Wednesday revamped the ‘Prohibition of Insider Trading’ regulations with more stringent measures, aligning its norms with international practices. The new rules, based on the Justice Sodhi Committee report, would replace the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations 1992. The definition of ‘insider’ has been made wider by including persons connected on the basis of being in any contractual, fiduciary or employment relationship that allows such person access to unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI). However, SEBI said that directors, employees and all other persons in the deeming category covered under 1992 regulations would continue to be covered. Insider will also include a person who is in possession or has access to UPSI. Now, “immediate relatives will be presumed to be connected persons, with a right to rebut the presumption.” In 1992 regulations, definition of connected person was largely position based. Further in the case of connected persons the onus of establishing, that they were not in possession of UPSI, “shall be on such connected persons.” A provision of ‘Trading Plans’ on the lines of the U.S. has been introduced for insiders with necessary safeguards. “Such a plan has to be for bonafide transactions and has to be disclosed on stock exchange platform in advance.” Amending the SEBI (Delisting of Equity Shares) Regulations, 2009, the capital market regulator said delisting would be considered successful only when the shareholding of the acquirer together with the shares tendered by public shareholders reaches 90 per cent of the total share capital of the company. It also needs to get at least 25 per cent of the number of public shareholders  — holding shares in de-materialised  mode as on the date of the board meeting which approves the delisting proposal — tender in the reverse book building process. Further, the promoter/promoter group would be prohibited from making a delisting offer if any entity belonging to the group has sold shares of the company during a period of six months prior to the date of the board meeting which approves the delisting proposal. It also said that companies, whose paid-up capital does not exceed Rs.10 crore and net worth does not exceed Rs.25 crore as on the last day of the previous financial year,  are exempted from following the reverse book building process. Timeline for completing the delisting process has been reduced from 137 calendar days (about 117 working days) to 76 working days. However, if the delisting attempt fails, the acquirer would be required to complete the mandatory open offer process under the Takeover Regulations and pay interest at 10 per cent per annum for the delayed open offer. 
13. New York Stock Exchange-listed SunEdison, a globally known developer of solar farms, has signalled its entry into the wind power business. It has taken the acquisition route to enter the wind power field. SunEdison and its 64 per cent owned publicly-traded power plant subsidiary TerraForm Power have said that they would acquire First Wind, a leading developer and operator of wind farms in the U.S. The total cost of acquisition is estimated at $2.4 billion. It comprises two components. There will be an upfront payment of $1.9 billion. And, the reminder $510 million will be in the form of ‘earn out’, that is, it will be paid if First Wind completes projects in its backlog. SunEdison’s portion of the consideration will be $1.5 billion, comprising an upfront payment and the ‘earn out’. SunEdison said it had secured $1.5 billion of non-recourse capital from six global banking institutions. SunEdison said the acquisition of First Wind would make it a leading renewable energy development company in the world.
14. The OECD has upped its 2015-16 growth projection for India to 6.6 per cent. The Paris-based think tank had pegged it at 5.7 per cent in May. The growth had remained sub-5 per cent in the last two financial years. The OECD projects it to be 5.4 per cent this financial year.
15. IBM launched its new e-mail application for businesses that integrates social media and analytics to help organisations and employees increase productivity. The new e-mail, ‘IBM Verse’, which is part of the company’s strategy to shift from hardware services to cloud computing and data analytics, is the first application to come out from the company’s $100 million investment in design innovation.
16. Online furniture and home decor marketplace Pepperfry.com is planning to raise $40-50 million in a fresh round of funding.
17. Online restaurant search and discovery firm Zomato has raised $60 million from its biggest shareholder Info Edge (India) Ltd. and Vy Capital. Existing investor Sequoia Capital also participated in the latest round, which values the firm at $660 million.
18. Chennai-based Zoho Corporation launched Zoho.in, a suite of application for the domestic businesses. In a move to attract more customers, the company will offer various software packages for free for the first 25 users in any business.
19. NTPC hit the overseas debt market with a benchmark dollar-denominated bond sale issue to raise about $500 million as a part of its $2 billion medium-term note programme. The 10-year fixed-rate unsecured bonds are being sold to global investors except resident Americans (Regulation S notes).
20. PepsiCo India has divested its four plants in the North to its bottling partner Varun Beverages, a part of RJ Corp, as part of a franchise agreement.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 19 November 2014

1. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Communication Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad re-launched the Kisan Vikas Patra investment scheme on Tuesday to tap household savings for funding infrastructure development in the country and to lure them away from ponzi schemes. The savings instrument will be available in the denomination of Rs. 1,000, Rs. 5,000, Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 50,000. There will be no upper ceiling on investments. No tax benefits would be available on these investments. Banks will accept these certificates as pledged security for loans. To begin with, the certificates will be available only at post offices. Later, designated branches of nationalised banks will also sell them. The certificates will carry a lock-in period of 2 years and 6 months after which they will become encashable on pre-determined maturity value. Investments made in the certificate will double in 8 years 4 months.
2. The world’s first zero-gravity 3D printer has been installed by NASA on the International Space Station (ISS), which will help astronauts to experiment with additive manufacturing in microgravity. NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore installed the 3D printer, designed and built by Made In Space for NASA, inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) aboard the ISS.
3. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday gifted to his Australian counterpart Tony Abbott Australian lawyer John Lang’s 1854 petition against the East India Company on behalf of Rani Lakshmibai.
4. Legendary Japanese actor Ken Takakura, a craggy-faced, quiet star known for playing outlaws and stoic heroes in scores of Japanese films, has died of lymphoma.
5. The Andhra Pradesh Cabinet has decided to cancel barytes mining leases issued in Mangampeta, Kadapa district in 2004 and institute an inquiry into their allotment. Fresh leases will be allotted by floating global tenders.
6. Mankind’s first-ever probe of a comet found traces of organic molecules and a surface much harder than imagined, scientists said on Tuesday of initial sample data from robot lab Philae.
7. Neha Gupta (18), an Indian-American from Philadelphia, has won the prestigious International Children’s Peace Prize for her work to help orphans in India and other vulnerable children. She became the first ever American to be awarded the prize in The Hague, Netherlands. Last year, the winner was Malala Yousufzai, who went on to win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Gupta was awarded the prize on Tuesday by Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu at a ceremony in The Hague. The prize is awarded annually to a child, anywhere in the world, for his or her dedication to children’s rights. 
8. The Bombay High Court, on Tuesday, ruled in favour of the Indian unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc in a multi-million dollar tax dispute, the latest verdict against the tax department, which has been vigorously pursing claims against foreign firms in India.
9. Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and S. D. Shibulal have joined hands once again to set up business incubator Axilor Ventures to nurture entrepreneurs and early-stage companies.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 18 November 2014

1. The Justice Mukul Mudgal panel found former BCCI president N. Srinivasan not guilty of match-fixing nor of having tried to prevent the investigation but stated that he and four other BCCI officials knew about a player violating the Indian Premier League (IPL) code of conduct, but took no action. However, the panel has held that Raj Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, was guilty of betting and he violated the IPL anti-corruption code.
2. Pure honey, from the dense forests of Chamarajanagar district, has now hit the shelves in sachets. These honey sachets are being packaged and marketed by the Soliga tribal community, who are traditional experts in collecting honey from forests. University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore trained them on the techniques of processing, quality standards and packaging of honey under the National Agricultural Technology project. They were also given processing and packaging machinery at subsidised prices, besides being taught the basics of accounting.
3. Hasan Ali Khan and Vaishali Neotia (Hyderabad) won the ‘Aegis Graham Bell Award’, constituted by Aegis Graham Bell Business School and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). Their work has also been nominated in best innovation in IT category of The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Innovation Awards, London, scheduled to be held on November 19. They have developed a product in which by focusing on a electronic gadget while wearing google glass, one would see the manual instructions on how to use the gadget. This is done with the help of Augmented Reality (AR). The techies can be reached at www.merxius.in
4. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured Australia a visa-on-arrival facility for tourists, and announced a two–month deadline for the long–pending merger of OCI and PIO status to woo the Indian diaspora from whom he sought support for his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.
5. The Adani group’s proposed plan to build a $7 billion coal mine was cleared by Australia’s Queensland state, which also announced a major investment in rail infrastructure to support the Indian conglomerate’s mega project.
6. With the aim of getting acquainted with each other’s operating procedures in counter-terrorism, Indian and Chinese armies began their fourth joint training exercise, Hand-in-Hand, in Pune. The 12-day schedule is focused on training in crossing obstacles, special heliborne operations, firing of weapons, handling and neutralisation of improvised explosive devices and conducting cordon and search operations in the environment facing insurgency and terrorism. The exercise will end on November 25.
7. Government employees with autistic children have also been exempted from transfers. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), reviewing the transfer policy for employees, who are also caregivers for disabled children, included autism in the list of disabilities meriting concession.
8. An Indian Air Force (IAF) team successfully flight-tested the surface-to-air missile, Akash, from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur near Balasore in Odisha. The missile flew at a supersonic speed over a distance of 14 km before destroying a target called “para flare” at a low altitude of 1.2 km. The para-flare was dropped by a MiG-27 aircraft of the IAF. It was an Air Force version of Akash that was launched and the mission met its objectives, said Mr. Chandramouli, who belongs to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). It was the DRDO which developed the Akash and its system.
9. Happy New Year’s script has been included into the Oscars library.
10. The Church of England’s governing body on Monday rubber-stamped an historic measure allowing women to become bishops, paving the way for the first ordinations next year.
11. Japan’s economy unexpectedly slid into recession as housing and business investment declined following a sales tax hike, further clouding the outlook for the global economy. The world’s third-largest economy contracted at a 1.6 per cent pace in the July-September quarter, the government said on Monday, contrary to predictions it would grow after a big drop the previous quarter. An economy is generally considered to be in recession when it fails to grow for two consecutive quarters. This is not just bad news for Japan. It deepens global uncertainty as growth slows in China and remains nearly flat in the 18-country eurozone. Japan’s weakness could be a drag on growth elsewhere if its companies cut investment and buy fewer imports such as machinery, electronics, raw materials and food.
12. India’s exports shrunk first time this fiscal in October, declining minus - 5.04 per cent to $26.09 billion. September’s exports were $28.90 billion. A nearly four-fold surge to $4.17 billion in gold imports during the Diwali month of October against $1.09 billion in the same month last year widened the trade deficit to $13.36 billion. The trade deficit was $14.25 billion in September.
13. India has a larger proportion of youth population than the rest of the world, and while Africa is younger, northern Europe is substantially older — the United Kingdom’s youth population is 10 percentage point lower than that of India’s according to the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) State of the World’s Population Report. This unique position for India, however, will not last long. India is aging faster than the global average and by 2050, the world will have a larger proportion of youth population than India, the United Nations’ population projections show. By 2065, the absolute number of young people will begin to decline. 

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 17 November 2014

1. German Chancellor Angela Merkel utilised a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to raise the move to drop German as third language in Kendriya Vidyalayas and was assured it would be looked into within the confines of the Indian system.
2. Connaught Place, Central Park is now a Wi-Fi zone. Member of Parliament from New Delhi constituency Meenakshi Lekhi launched the service. The project has been taken up by Tata Teleservices Limited as part of their corporate social responsibility in association with the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC).
3. K. Srikanth and Saina Nehwal won the men’s and women’s titles in the China Open Super Series Premier badminton tournament in Fuzhou on Sunday. Srikanth is the first Indian male shuttler to win a Super Series Premier event. He defeated the formidable Lin ‘Super’ Dan of China in the final.
4. A birder from Bangalore has not just spotted a Sooty Gull ( Larus hemprichii ) at Kodi village near Kundapur in Udupi district but also managed to get a few snaps of it. It is said to be the first sighting of the Sooty gull on the State’s coast.
5. AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) university is likely to open next year in Shimoga.
6. The Islamic State (IS) group released a video claiming the beheading of U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig in a warning to Washington as it prepares to send more troops to Iraq. The same video showed the gruesome simultaneous beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel, the latest in a series of mass executions and other atrocities carried out by IS. In the undated video, a man who appears to be the same British-accented jihadist who beheaded previous Western hostages stands above a severed head. “This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen of your country,” the black-clad masked executioner says, daring U.S. President Barack Obama to send more troops back to the region to confront IS. “Here we are burying the first American crusader in Dabiq.”
7. International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is undertaking the construction of a 210-metre-high Chandrodaya Mandir. The temple would be three times taller than the Qutub Minar. Expected to be completed in five years, the Rs.300-crore project has been conceived by Akshaya Patra Foundation chairman Madhu Pandit Dasa. The temple’s foundation stone was laid on March 16.
8. RBI announced new stipulations for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) in what is seen as an attempt to drive convergence among various players in the financial services sphere. RBI said that the NBFCs should raise their net-owned funds to Rs.2 crore by 2016, and reduce the NPA (non-performing assets) recognition time to 90 days by 2018. Also, the NBFCs are told to increase the provisioning for standard assets to 0.4 per cent by March, 2018. After March, 2016, rating becomes mandatory for all asset financing firms that take public deposits. Further, the apex bank stipulated that all systematically important NBFCs have a Tier-I capital of 10 per cent by 2017.

Credits: The Hindu, Google. 

News Roundup - 16 November 2014

1. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday shared with his Australian counterpart, Tony Abbott, and U.S. President Barack Obama the story of an architect who made a name in their three nations and is buried in Lucknow. Walter Burley Griffin, who died on February 11, 1937, at the age of 61, was a landscape architect. He is known for designing Canberra and had been credited with the development of the L-shaped floor plan, the carport and an innovative use of reinforced concrete. He also won a contract in 1935 to design the library at the University of Lucknow. Although he had planned to be in India only to complete the drawings for the library, he soon received more than 40 commissions, including those for the University of Lucknow Student Union building; a museum and library for the Raja of Mahmudabad; a zenana (women’s quarters) for the Raja of Jahangirabad; Pioneer Press building; a bank; municipal offices; many private houses; and a memorial to King George V. Griffin won complete design responsibility for the 1936-37 United Provinces Exhibition of Industry and Agriculture. He was inspired by the architecture and culture of India, modifying forms as “he sought to create a modern Indian architecture.”
2. The Singapore International Foundation on Saturday awarded seed fund to four winning teams of social entrepreneurs who could find innovative ways to do business. Among them was 'Jugnu', the Indian team that worked on a mobile application to enhance language skills for school students in non urban areas. Team members — Ankita Gupta, Priya. A and Pramodh Rai — from Delhi, completed their graduate education from NTU to chase the social entrepreneurship dream.
3. A nesting site of the extremely rare white-bellied heron has been discovered in a remote part of the Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh. It is estimated that there are only 250 white-bellied herons ( Ardea insignis ) left in the world and only about 50 left in India. This is the first nesting site of the white- bellied heron to be discovered in India. Before the discovery of this site, Bhutan was (thought to be) the only country in the world to have a breeding population of the white-bellied heron. Declared a critically endangered species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), it is an “extremely shy” bird which feeds on fish in clear fast flowing rivers. The confluence of Noa-Dihing and Namdapha rivers in the Namdapha Tiger Reserve supports a few individuals of white-bellied heron by providing them with freshwater fish. The nest of the bird was found about 18 metres above ground on an East Indian almond ( Terminalia myriocarpa ) tree adjacent to a dry river bed covered in tall grass and small shrubs.
4. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis has been honoured with a knighthood by the Duke of Cambridge. He has become the only person to win the Academy Award for best actor three times

 Credits: Google, The Hindu

News Roundup - 7 November 2014

1. Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that nuclear energy offered potential but the government would remain “cautious” about tapping it for power generation. Speaking at the India Economic Summit here, Mr. Goyal reiterated the government’s aim of providing 24x7 power supply to all citizens by 2019, adding that the sector was likely to attract investments of around $250 billion in the next four to five years. Mr. Goyal’s comments seemed to be at odds with the current negotiations by the government, particularly in the field of nuclear technology, where India is negotiating with France and the U.S. for the latest “cutting edge technology.” On nuclear energy, Mr. Goyal pointed out that the U.S. and many European nations had stopped setting up nuclear plants.
2. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into IM operations has revealed that key members of the banned terror outfit have established contact with the al-Qaeda to carry out terror attacks in India.
3. Sangita Awhale, from Saikkhed village in Washim district of Vidarbha, Maharashtra sold her gold mangalsutra to raise money to construct a toilet in her remote village home has earned kudos from people, and a felicitation by Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde.
4. A few days after Datsun GO failed the crash test conducted by Global NCAP, the consumer car safety testing body has asked Japanese car maker Nissan to withdraw the model from the Indian market, saying it was ‘sub-standard’.
5. Financial Technologies will fully exit IEX by selling its entire stake to a clutch of investors, including TVS Shriram Growth Fund, for Rs.576.84 crore.
6. A decorated ex-Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill has been unmasked as the man who pumped three shots to the head of elusive al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden during a top-secret 2011 raid on his hideout in Pakistan. Mr. O’Neill (38) is the SEAL Team Six member who fired the three shots to the head of the al-Qaeda leader during the raid, according to SOFREP, a website dedicated to military news.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup- 6 November 2014

1. In the first six months of 2014, Facebook has restricted access to nearly 5,000 pieces of information from India on its website, the highest for any country. India is the social networking site’s largest user base outside the U.S. with over 100 million users.
2. The Union government reconstituted the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change on Wednesday to coordinate the National Action Plan for Assessment, Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change. The UPA constituted the council first in 2007, but it had not met for over three years. Official sources said the attempt was to revive and streamline the council and set the agenda to deal with climate change. The new council will coordinate the action plan and advise the government on proactive measures that can be taken by India to deal with the challenge of climate change. It will facilitate inter-ministerial coordination and guide policy in relevant areas. The council will evolve a coordinated response to issues relating to climate change at the national level, provide oversight for formulation of action plans in the area of assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change and periodically monitor key policy decisions. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change will assist the Prime Minister’s Office in facilitating the work of the council.
3. For the first time India and Russia have agreed on negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India & the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan & Russia. Other major decisions include proposals for establishment of a ‘Smart City’ in India by the Russian company “Sistema,” joint cooperation for development of potassium and magnesium deposits in Russia, project for launching telecommunication satellites “NextStar” in the geostationary orbit of the Earth on low cost platforms and projects in high end computing.
4. The Election Commission cancelled the scheduled by-elections to three Delhi Assembly seats on Wednesday after President Pranab Mukherjee dissolved the legislature on Tuesday.
5. A youth wearing a T-shirt with the letters ISIS, an Iraqi militant group, written on it and also bearing Pakistan and its national flag alongside was detaind on Wednesday in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand. The arrested youth was found roaming in Jharia area of Dhanbad.
6. Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi was at the centre of a controversy on Wednesday over the appointment of his son-in-law Devendra Kumar as his personal assistant, evoking sharp criticism following which Mr. Kumar resigned from the post. The appointments of close relatives violate a state Cabinet Secretariat Department order of May 23, 2000.
7. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his debut among the world’s most powerful people, ranked 15th on the Forbes list topped by Russian President Vladimir Putin who pipped his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama for a second year in a row. The list of 72 most powerful people in the world also included the names of Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani at 36th, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO Lakshmi Mittal at 57th and Microsoft’s Indian-born CEO Satya Nadella at 64th.
8. NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has discovered the first mineral match from the Martian surface, the U.S. space agency has announced. Reddish rock powder from the first hole drilled into a Martian mountain by Curiosity has yielded the mission’s first confirmation of a mineral mapped from orbit. Curiosity collected the powder by drilling into a rock outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp in late September. The robotic arm delivered a pinch of the sample to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument inside the rover. 
9. The Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said the government has set a target of increasing road-building capacity to 30 km a day from a dismal three km a day at present.
10. Bharti Airtel said it did not renew its agreement to buy Loop Mobile following delay in permission from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). 
11. IndiGo has taken delivery of its 100th aircraft within eight years of its commercial operations. These 100 planes were ordered from French aircraft manufacturer Airbus in 2005, and were scheduled to be delivered by 2016. However, Indigo has taken delivery two years in advance. To celebrate this, the airline has launched a programme to sponsor the education of 100 underprivileged children.
12. Prime witness to one of the biggest controversies that rocked Indian cricket, Sachin Tendulkar has finally spoken about the anger and sense of betrayal he felt during the ‘Monkeygate scandal’ in Australia. Writing in his autobiography —— ‘Playing It My Way’ —— Tendulkar wrote “Anil Kumble (the then captain) and I took the lead and it was unanimously decided that we would boycott the tour if Bhajji’s ban was upheld.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 5 November 2014

1. In its mid-year review of the economy, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) lowered its 2014-15 growth forecast for India to 5 per cent. In July, the think tank had forecast 5.7 per cent growth. The lower projection is despite the 5.7 per cent growth in the first quarter after two successive years of sub-5 per cent growth. The NCAER’s projection is in line with the RBI’s forecast.
2. Union Cabinet recommended dissolution of the Delhi Assembly, paving the way for fresh elections in the capital. Delhi has been under President’s rule since February this year.

Credits : The Hindu, Google

News Roundup - 4 November 2014

1. The Justice (retired) Mukul Mudgal Committee, probing the betting and spot-fixing scandals in the Indian Premier League, submitted its final investigation report on the alleged role of former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president N. Srinivasan and 12 others in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court.
2. Thirteenth Finance Commission Chairman Vijay Laxman Kelkar has been appointed as Chairperson of the Finance Ministry’s think tank National Institute of Public Finance & Policy (NIPFP). He replaces the former Reserve Bank Governor C. Rangarajan. Mr V L Kelkar was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in January 2011. Prior to this, he was Adviser to the Union Finance Minister from 2002 to 2004. He was also the Union Finance Secretary in 1998-1999. He was nominated as Executive Director of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka on the Board of the International Monetary Fund in 1999.
3. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government would institutionalise a regulatory authority with full powers to oversee enforcement of all-round quality standards and consumer protection under the National Health Assurance Mission (NHAM).
4. The Supreme Court asked the Centre and the States to decide on a plea to electronically provide information to applicants under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
5. Lyricist Javed Akhtar and composer-singer Hariharan are working together to bring out the theme song of the 35th National Games, scheduled to begin on January 31. Akhtar has penned the lyrics for the three-minute signature song in Hindi, while Hariharan has composed the music.
6. Veteran Bollywood actor Sadashiv Amrapurkar, who essayed villainous and comic roles with equal ease and gave powerful performances in Ardh Satya and Sadak , died.
7. Mauritius, often accused of being a route for round-tripping of funds by Indians, conveyed to Indian government that it was ready to support its Special Investigation Team (SIT) to unearth black money.
8. The Bangladesh Supreme Court upheld the death penalty to Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mohammad Kamaruzzaman for war crimes that include mass murder and rape in 1971. The verdict comes a day after Mir Quasem Ali, who was chief of the Chittagong unit of Al Badr — the pro-Pakistan militia during the country war of independence — was found guilty of murder, torture and abductions. Motiur Rahman Nizami, the supreme commander of Al Badr and now Jamaat-e-Islami chief, was handed the capital punishment last week for his role in execution of intellectuals, mass killing, rape and loot during the nine months of bloodshed 43 years ago.
9. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has decided to drop his tribal name of Ahmadzai and has asked all government departments and media to use his family name only.
10. China has developed a highly accurate homemade laser defence weapon system capable of shooting down small-scale drones flying at low attitude. Characterised by its speed, precision and low noise, the system is designed to destroy unmanned, small-scale drones flying within an altitude of 500 metres and at a speed below 50m/s.
11. Thirteen years after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the resurrected World Trade Center is again opening for business marking an emotional milestone for both New Yorkers and the United States as a whole. Publishing giant Conde Nast will start moving Monday into One World Trade Center, a 104-story, $3.9-billion skyscraper that dominates the Manhattan skyline. It is America’s tallest building. It’s the centrepiece of the 16-acre site where the decimated twin towers once stood and where more than 2,700 people died on Sept. 11, 2001.
12. Bharti Softbank, a joint venture company of Bharti Enterprises and Japanese telecommunications major Softbank Corporation, said it had acquired 36.5 per cent equity stake in entertainment media startup ScoopWhoop.
13. Infosys has pulled out of the proposed software development centre project to be set up near Bengaluru, citing lack of infrastructure in India’s ‘Silicon Valley’.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 03 November 2014

1. A Tehran court has jailed for one year a British-Iranian woman arrested after trying to attend a volleyball match. The case of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 25-year-old law graduate from London, has drawn considerable political attention because of her dual nationality and lengthy detention before trial. 
2. At least 55 people, including children and security personnel, were killed and nearly 200 injured in a powerful suicide blast at Wagah in Pakistan on Sunday evening, minutes after the popular flag-lowering ceremony at the main Indo-Pakistan land border crossing.
3. A special tribunal in Bangladesh on Sunday sentenced to death a senior leader of the largest Islamist party, the second capital sentence in a week for the mass killings during the nation’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971. Mir Quashem Ali sat calmly in the dock as Judge Obaidul Hasan read the verdict in the packed courtroom in Dhaka, the capital. The 62-year-old Ali is a member of Jamaat-e-Islami party’s highest policy making body and he is considered to be one of top financiers of the party. Last week, the court sentenced to death the party’s leader, Motiur Rahman Nizami, for the 1971 war crimes. Another senior leader has already been hanged. In protest, Jamaat-e-Islami party enforced a nationwide general strike on Sunday, though no violence was reported. The court’s previous verdicts have triggered street violence. 

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 02 November 2014

1. SpaceShipTwo, a rocket plane that is to carry tourists on a short ride to space, crashed in the Mojave Desert during a test flight, killing one of the two pilots. Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company created by Richard Branson, acknowledged the accident on Twitter. The vehicle suffered a serious anomaly resulting in the loss of SpaceShipTwo, said the company. The test flight, the plane’s first under its own power since January and the first since a switch to a new motor, was conducted by Scaled Composites, the designer and builder of SpaceShipTwo.
2. Armour Station TV, which provides train-retailed information to passengers and beams commercials through digital TV screens at key stations, has expanded its operations to Chennai (Egmore), Ahmedabad and Delhi (Hazrat Nizamuddin) stations. The company works on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model with Indian Railways, in which the Railways provide live train running information to Armour’s proprietary software. There are no separate announcements from the Railways at stations where Armour operates. Armour is already operating at Mumbai CST, Mumbai Central, Pune, Bangalore and Chennai Central stations.
3. The Spanish government has successfully passed a new copyright law which imposes fees for online content aggregators such as Google News, in an effort to protect its print media industry.
4. Lithuania on Saturday enacted a ban on selling energy drinks to anyone under 18.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.

News Roundup - 01 November 2014

1. Second meeting of Education Ministers of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) at New Delhi = Representatives of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka issued a joint statement titled “The New Delhi Declaration on Education.” The priority areas of action decided upon include enhancing the learning and development readiness of pre-school children, ensuring education for all, expanding skill development, facilitating mutual recognition of qualifications and mobility of students and teachers and expanding alternative ways of learning such as open and distance education. They also agreed to collaborate on increased use of information technology and improving the quality of education.
2. ‘Maitri’ - A meeting of Indian and Chinese artists at Jaipur to exchange views on art and architecture.
3. Myanmar President Thein Sein opened unprecedented talks with army top brass and political rivals, including Aung San Suu Kyi, here on Friday with crucial elections next year.
4. Israel reopened a contested Jerusalem holy site and deployed more than 1,000 security personnel following clashes the previous day between Palestinians and Israeli riot police that had ratcheted up already heightened tensions in the city. The site is known to Jews as the ‘Temple Mount’ and to Muslims as the ‘Noble Sanctuary’ under leaden gray skies and pouring rain. The Jerusalem holy site has been a flashpoint between devotees of the two faiths for decades, underscoring the incendiary nature of the religious component in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A visit there by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon in 2000 set off the last Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. It remains a potent symbol for the two peoples’ competing territorial claims. Israeli authorities had said they were limiting access to the site on Friday to Muslim men over 50 in an attempt to dampen the prospects for violence triggered by Thursday’s killing of a Palestinian man suspected of attempting to assassinate a hard-line Jewish activist.
5. Growth of the eight core industries dropped to 1.9 per cent in September from 9 per cent in the same month last year due to fall in output of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and fertilizer. The growth stood at 5.8 per cent in August. Crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and fertilizer output registered a drop of 1.1 per cent, 6.2 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 11.6 per cent, respectively, in the month under review, according to the data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry.  Expansion in other four sectors — coal, cement, steel and electricity — stood at 7.2 per cent, 3.2 per cent, 4 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively, against a rise of 13.6 per cent, 12.1 per cent, 10.7 per cent and 12.9 per cent rise, respective, in September, 2013. During the April-September period, the eight sectors grew by 4 per cent against 5 per cent in the same period a year-ago.
6. Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the ‘Run for Unity’ from Rajpath on 31^st October morning to commemorate independent India's first Home Minister and his hero Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s 139^th birth anniversary. The event, which saw the participation of a large number of people including school children, was celebrated as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas or national unity day.
7. The change of name of the city from Mangalore to Mangaluru — effective from Saturday — is expected to be a smooth affair.

Credits: The Hindu, Google.