GENERAL AWARENESS UPDATES: 1) The Presidents Office on Wednesday announced the Bharat Ratna award to Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya (posthumously) and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Mr. Vajpayee will be the seventh Prime Minister to receive the award, while Pandit Malviya will be the 12th person to be honoured posthumously. In 2013, the award was conferred to cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and scientist C.N.R Rao. 2) Government approved promulgation of an Ordinance to hike Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) cap in the insurance sector to 49 per cent from 26 per cent. 3) The deadline for exchanging pre-2005 currency notes of various denominations, including Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, has been extended by another six months till June, 30, 2015. Earlier in March 2014, the Reserve Bank of India had set the last date for public to exchange these notes as January 1, 2015. In notes issued post 2005, the year of printing is visible at the bottom on the reverse. Post-2005 notes have added security features and help in curbing the menace of fake currency. 4) Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) on 22nd Dec’14 signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Odisha Government to develop commercially viable stretches of National Waterway-5. In the National Waterway-5, East Coast Canal has been integrated with Brahmini river and Mahanadi delta rivers (588 km). 5) Ford Credit India, a subsidiary of Ford Motor Credit Company, has been licensed by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as non-banking financial company (NBFC). 6) HRIDAY scheme has been launched by the Union Government in Dec’2014 for conserving and preserving the heritage characters of 12 cities. These are: Amritsar, Varanasi, Gaya, Puri, Ajmer, Mathura, Dwarka, Badami, Velankanni, Kanchipuram, Warangal (Telangana) and Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh). The scheme aims at developing tourism and job creation because India’s rich cultural, historical, religious and natural heritages have a huge potential of tourism. 7) Rosetta, European Space Mission, is named as the most important scientific breakthrough of the Year 2014 by the science journal released in Dec’14. Rosetta landed its three-legged Philae module on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014, 10 years after the spacecraft was launched. 8) Shyam Srinivasan, CEO of Federal Bank, has been appointed as the Chairman of the reconstituted Indian Bank’s Association Committee on Member Sector Private Banks for 2014-15. He is a member of the committee on Financial Sector Legislative Reforms set up by the Reserve Bank of India. 9) Vijay Kelkar Committee has recommended autonomous state for Vidarbha. It has also recommended shifting of the state secretariat to Nagpur, the states second capital, for the month of December every year. 10) Japan’s parliament re-elected Shinzo Abe to serve another term as prime minister. 11) China and Nepal signed an agreement to expand the use of their currencies for border trade. The agreement was signed between the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). According to the agreement, the two countries will use local currencies (Yuan and Nepal rupee) for settlement in both cross-border trade and ordinary trade activities. 12) Union Ministry of Home Affairs set up Mathur Committee to examine the possibility of constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) for reinvestigation of the 1984 anti-sikh riot cases. The committee will be headed by former Supreme Court Judge Justice (retired) G.P. Mathur. The committee will also look into the issue of implementation of the payment of enhanced compensation of 5 lakh rupees per person killed during the riots. 13) 29th National Consumers Right Day was observed across India on 24 December 2014. The day is being observed annually on 24 December, since the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 was enacted on 24 December 1986. 14) ‘Losar’ the Buddhist Festival of Ladakh Region of Jammu and Kashmir started from 22nd Dec’14. This marks the beginning of New Year in Ladakh.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:26:23 +0000
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