Daily Gk 22nd June 2017

Current affairs for IBPS RRB,RBI,DENA BANK,SSC CGL,UPSC,AFCAT

National

Former Calcutta high court judge Karnan brought to Kolkata, taken to Presidency jail

• Former Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan was arrested, more than a month after the Supreme Court sentenced him to six months imprisonment for contempt of court.

·         Karnan, who earned the dubious distinction of being the first sitting high court judge to be awarded a jail term by the apex court, had retired from service on June 12 as a fugitive.

·         A seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by chief justice of India JS Khehar, had sentenced him to six months imprisonment for contempt of court.

·         Three days after the sentence, Karnan had moved the apex court for staying his arrest.

·         Enrolled as an advocate with the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu in 1983, Karnan was apponted a judge of the Madras High Court in 2009. He was transferred to the Calcutta High Court on March 11, 2016.

The 5th International Forum for Technological Development TECHNOPROM-2017 was held in Russia

·       The 5th International Forum for Technological Development TECHNOPROM-2017 was held at Novosibirsk, Russia on 21 June 2017.For this Technoprom-2017  from India attended by the the Minister of Defence, Finance & Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley.

·         TECHNOPROM has, in the five years since its inception, grown to become a leading international forum in the area of technology with over 50 business events and an impressive 6000 participants. The focus this year on breakthrough technologies in the scientific, technological and innovative fields has established this event as a key forum for insights and business opportunities into leading technological products and technologies.

·         This year, India and Russia are celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Over the past seven decades, our relations have grown from strength to strength.

·         Since the signing of the Declaration of India-Russia Strategic Partnership in 2000, our bilateral ties have witnessed enhanced levels of cooperation in a wide range of areas.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi to perform yoga at the sprawling Ramabai Ambedkar ground in Lucknow on the International Yoga Day

·         Incessant rainfall failed to dampen spirits of thousands of people who joined Prime Minister Narendra Modi to perform yoga at the sprawling Ramabai Ambedkar ground in Lucknow on the International Yoga Day observed on June 21.

·         The PM did not let them down. Modi left behind his security cordon to join students at the main arena.

• Guinness World record holder Tao Porchon-Lynch, the oldest yoga trainer in the world, shared the stage with India’s oldest trainer Amma Nanammal -- both are 98 years old -- at a yoga programme held at the Kanteerava Stadium.

International

Kenneth Juster to be U.S. Ambassador to India

• Kenneth Juster, deputy director of National Economic Council, will be appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to India, the White House confirmed.
• Mr. Juster has been a strong advocate of India-U.S. partnership, and was the co-chair of the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group set up during the George W. Bush presidency. The news was reported first byThe Washington Post, though his name has appeared in the list of probable candidates for the post earlier too.

Mohammed bin Salman will be the next king of Saudi Arabia

·         Saudi Arabia’s King Salman appointed his 31-year-old son Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince, placing him firmly as first-in-line to the throne and removing the country’s counterterrorism czar and a figure well known to Washington from the royal line of succession.

·         In a series of royal decrees carried on the state-run Saudi Press Agency, the monarch stripped his 57-year-old nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was positioned to inherit the throne, from his title as crown prince and from his powerful position as the country’s interior minister overseeing security.

·         Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman already oversees a vast portfolio that includes defence. He also heads an economic council tasked with overhauling the country’s economy. He had previously been the second-in-line to the throne as deputy crown prince, though royal watchers had long suspected his rise to power.

·         The prince was little known to Saudis and outsiders before Salman became king in January 2015. He was in charge of his father’s royal court when the latter was the crown prince.

China offers to build dam in Gilgit-Baltistan that ADB, World Bank refused to fund

• Pakistan claimed that China has offered to make a dam project on the Indus River that India objects to, a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), said the state-run Radio Pakistan.
• The information about the project, the Diamer-Bhasha Dam, was conveyed by Pakistan's state-run power utility to a committee of the country's National Assembly. Earlier this month, Pakistan's planning minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters in an interview that "Pakistan expects China to fund" the project.
• The Diamer-Bhasha Dam is a project that both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have refused to touch because India objects to its location, which is in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. India claims the region is a part of Kashmir. A little over a year ago, the US was making noises about supporting the project and India didn't shy away from showing it was peeved.

IS destroys 840-year-old al-Nuri mosque in Mosul

·         The Islamic State group destroyed Mosul’s al-Nuri mosque and its iconic leaning minaret known as al-Hadba when fighters detonated explosives inside the structures, Iraq’s Ministry of Defense said.

·         Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tweeted that the destruction was an admission by the militants that they are losing the fight for Iraq’s second-largest city.

·         “Daesh’s bombing of the al-Hadba minaret and the al-Nuri Mosque is a formal declaration of their defeat,” al-Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

·         The mosque, which is also known as Mosul’s Great Mosque, is where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a so-called Islamic caliphate in 2014 shortly after Mosul was overrun by the militants. The minaret that leaned like Italy’s Tower of Pisa had stood for more than 840 years.

Economy

Pune raises Rs 200 crore in first municipal bond issue in 14 years

• Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has become the first local body in the country to issue municipal bonds in nearly one and a half decade, raising Rs 200 crore for the smart city project, the central government’s pet scheme.
• The issue, handled by SBI Capital Market, was oversubscribed six times, having received subscribtions worth Rs 1,200 crore. The bonds, rated AA+, one of the top ratings, offers 7.59%, about 30-40 basis points more than bonds sold by state governments.
• Domestic insurers, pension funds, and large state-owned banks invested the PMC bonds. 
  

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigns under investor pressure

·         Uber Technologies Inc Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick has resigned under mounting pressure from investors over his leadership.

·         The deparrure of Kalanick, who is also the co-founder of one of the most influential technology companies of its generation, caps a tumultuous period of the world's largest ride-services company, which upended the taxi industry and transportation regulations globally with Mr Kalanick at the helm.

SEBI eases norms to buy stressed assets

·         As part of the larger attempts of the government to resolve the massive bad debt issue, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) relaxed norms for investors acquiring assets in companies with stressed assets and facing bankruptcy proceedings.

·         The board of the capital markets regulator has decided to exempt the acquirers from making open offers after buying stakes from lenders while including checks such as a three-year lock-in for new investors and mandating that such relaxation would have to be approved by a special resolution.

·         This would come as a big relief to both lenders and acquirers concerned about a possible open offer since sizeable stakes could change hands.

·         SEBI has decided to levy a ‘Regulatory Fee’ of $1,000 on each subscriber of offshore derivative instrument (ODI), which will have to be collected by the registered foreign portfolio investor (FPI) that issues the ODIs.

·         The regulator had recently floated a consultation paper to further tighten the norms for issuance of ODIs. It has also decided to “prohibit ODIs from being issued against derivatives except on those that are used for hedging purposes.”

·         SEBI Chairman Ajay Tyagi, however, clarified that the regulator did not intend to ban PNs, but would want the instrument to be used only to “test the waters” and long-term investors should prefer the FPI route.

Banks get 30 days to deposit demonetised currency with RBI

·         The Union government issued a notification allowing banks and post offices still holding demonetised currency notes to deposit them with the Reserve Bank of India within 30 days, along with a reason for why they were not deposited with the central bank within the specified period.

·         “Where in pursuance of the notification of the Government of India… the specified banks notes have been accepted from their customers, by any bank or post office on or before December 30, 2016, or by any district central cooperative bank within the period of November 10 to November 14, 2016, such specified bank notes may be deposited by such bank, post office or district central cooperative bank, as the case may be, in any office of the Reserve Bank, within a period of 30 days from the commencement of these rules,” the notification said.

Science & Technology

INDIA PAVILION at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) International Convention & Exhibition San Diego, USA

• The Indian Pavilion at BIO International Convention & Exhibition 2017, San Diego was inaugurated by the Minister of State for S&T and Earth Sciences, Mr. Y S Chowdary.
• The MAKE IN INDIA theme has been emphasized in the Indian Pavilion. Inaugurating the Pavilion, the Minister stated that the positive discussions during BIO will lead to a lot of new opportunities for Indian start-up companies in Science & Technology and will also boost the confidence of international stakeholders in India’s biotech sector. More than 30 start-ups, companies, state governments, biotech parks and research institutes are exhibiting at the India Pavilion.

Solar push could mean 3 lakh jobs by 2022: report

·         Were India to be able to meet its commitment of adding 160,000 MW of renewable power (solar and wind power) by 2022, it would generate employment for 300,000 new workers, says a new report by the think tanks, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Ninety percent of these jobs would be in the solar sector.

·         Currently both these industries employ around 21,000 people. But with a strong domestic manufacturing policy in place, another 45,000 could find indirect full-time jobs, according to the study. Seventy percent of the new jobs would be in the labour-intensive rooftop solar segment, which tend to generate “seven times more jobs” than large-scale projects such as solar farms, which are more typically associated with India’s solar push.

• This study is the third in a series of reports that look at job creation in the renewable sector. The findings were based on a survey of 37 solar companies, eight solar manufacturers, and nine wind companies. In all, 60% of the solar companies that responded were developing ground-mounted plants, while the rest were involved in rooftop solar projects.

NASA tests flexible solar array on space station

·         NASA is testing for the first time the effectiveness of a flexible solar array on space station that could one day power satellites and spacecraft.

·         The Roll-Out Solar Array, or ROSA, an advanced, flexible solar array that rolls out like a tape measure “can be easily adapted to different sizes, including very large arrays, to provide power for a variety of future spacecraft,” NASA said.

·         It also has the potential to make solar arrays more compact and lighter weight for satellite radio and television, weather forecasting, GPS and other services used on the Earth.

·         In addition, the technology conceivably could be adapted to provide solar power in remote locations.

·         NASA tested the ROSA technology in vacuum chambers on the Earth several years ago, but this is its first test in space.

source;Internet

Powerd By: SAHIL