GK Updates - 17 May | Banking Quiz

Nita Ambani proposed as Director on RIL board

I.The Board of Directors of Reliance Industries Limited has recommended the appointment of Smt. Nita M. Ambani, the Chairperson of Reliance Foundation as a Director on the Board of Reliance Industries Limited. She is being nominated to the Board in place of Shri Ramnik H. Ambani, who is retiring at the age of 90 years. Approval of the shareholders will be sought in the 40th AGM being held on 18th June 2014.

II.A press release from the company said, that Mrs Ambani had made significant contribution to the social sector by leading many path-breaking initiatives spanning education, health, rural transformation, environmental protection and sports.

Citi raises India’s GDP growth forecast to 6.5% in FY 15-16

I.Call this the Modi effect. Citi Research — a division of Citigroup Global Markets — has raised its India GDP growth forecast for 2015-16 to 6.5 per cent on expectations of an accelerated pickup in investments.

II.This move comes on the heels of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s stunning victory, beating expectations by gaining an absolute majority (272-plus seats of a total of 543) in the 2014 general elections.

III.Citi had earlier projected economic growth for 2015-16 at 6.2 per cent.

IV.It has, however, retained the GDP growth forecast for 2014-15 at 5.6 per cent.

V.While the new political formation is likely to set the wheel in motion immediately, effects on the economy will be lagged and a full-fledged recovery will be realised only in 2016-17, Rohini Malkani, Chief Economist, Citi India said in a research note.

VI.Citi is of the view that governance and institutional reforms will start reflecting in the numbers with a lag. Also, high inflation and interest rates could impede growth in the short term, the research note added.

Captain Nair, founder of the Leela group, passes away

I.A doyen of the hotel industry Capt. C. P. Krishnan Nair, Founder Chairman of The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, passed away peacefully at the age of 92, following a brief illness.

II.His family was beside him, a press release from the hotel group said. The last rites will be performed tomorrow, Sunday, May 18, at 3 pm at Pawan Hans crematorium in Juhu, Mumbai. A memorial prayer ceremony is scheduled at The Leela Mumbai, Sahar, at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 22.

III.Capt. Nair is survived by his wife Madam Leela, their sons – Chairman and Managing Director, Vivek Nair, and Co-Chairman and Managing Director, Dinesh Nair, their wives and children.

IV.A freedom fighter and an officer of the Indian army who later built a luxury hotel chain, Capt. Chittarath Poovakkatt Krishnan Nair is a Padma Bhushan awardee.

Former Tisco chief Russi Mody passes away

I.Russi Mody, former CMD of Tata Steel, expired late on Friday night at a nursing home in Kolkata. He was 95. Mody, though, known as “man of steel” for his long stint at Tata Steel, also served as joint chairman of Air India and the now defunct Indian Airlines.

II.Padma Vibhushan, Mody, a student of history, was a self-confessed admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte. Born in Mumbai, Mody, a bachelor, chose to stay in Kolkata after his retirement from the Tata Group in 1990.

III.A proficient piano player, he fondly reminisced his playing the piano accompanying the Nobel Laureate Nuclear Physicist Albert Einstein on the violin at a function during his university days in the UK.

NCC appoints new nominee director from Blackstone

NCC Ltd has informed the BSE that the board of directors of the company on Thursday accepted the resignation of Akhil Gupta and approved the appointment of Amit Dixit as nominee director of Blackstone on the company's board.

SpiceJet posts Rs 1,003 cr net loss for fiscal 2014

I.SpiceJet has reported a net loss of Rs 1,003 crore for fiscal 2014 compared to a net loss of Rs 191 crore previously.

II.In a statement, the airline attributed the loss to "the sharp depreciation of the rupee during the quarter ended September 30, 2013''.

III.The statement adds that, “Given the fact that over 75 per cent of any Indian airline’s cost is influenced by the dollar, the effects of the exchange rates on a broad spectrum of cost heads were crippling.”

IV.On a year-on-year basis, the airline saw a 6 per cent increase in the number of passengers flown, while there was a 12 per cent increase in its revenues. In addition, the passenger yield also increased to Rs 4,253 from Rs 4,052.

V.But when the fourth quarter results of 2014 are compared with the same period previously, they show that the airline saw a 6 percent decline in the number of passengers carried, although passenger yield improved by 17 per cent to Rs 4,375 (Rs 3,739).

VI.The airline also recorded an 8 per cent increase in revenue from operations during Q4 2014 compared to the same period previously.

Manmohan Singh resigns, Cabinet recommends dissolution of Lok Sabha

I.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh resigned today, capping a 10-year tenure of two UPA governments that has been brought to an end by a shattering defeat in the Lok Sabha elections.

II.81-year-old Singh drove to the Rasthrapati Bhavan from his official residence 7, Race Course Road, to submit the resignation of his Council of Ministers.

III.“The President has accepted the resignation of Manmohan Singh and has requested him and his colleagues to continue till the new Government is formed,” a Rashtrapati Bhavan statement said.

IV.The Prime Minister and Mukherjee, who had worked in Singh’s Cabinet as Finance, Defence and External Affairs Minister, exchanged bouquets.

V.Singh handed over his resignation and the recommendation of the Cabinet for dissolution of the 15th Lok Sabha, which is just a formality.

Bank unions to protest against privatisation on May 21

I.The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has called upon all unions of bank employees to organise protest meetings/demonstration after working hours on May 21 to condemn the recent recommendation of a Reserve Bank of India panel in favour of privatisation.

II.It may be recalled that last week P J Nayak panel had recommended that public sector banks should be privatised by brining the Government stake below 50 per cent.

III."Many private sector banks in the country have collapsed in the past due to mis-management and fraudulent practices. Hence, public sector banks should not be privatised,’’ M V Murali, Convenor, UFBU, said in a release issued here.

IV.Banking services were accessible to the commoners only because of public sector banks, which were also ensuring credit flow to sectors such as agriculture, rural development, women empowerment and hence, they should instead be strengthened.

Assam CM Tarun Gogoi to resign within a week

I.Attributing a bit of “arrogance and complacency” within himself and the Congress for the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha elections in Assam, Tarun Gogoi today said that he would resign with a week as its chief minister.

II.Gogoi, however said, “I will not leave politics and will continue to work for recovering the party from the current position.”

III.He had said yesterday that he would send his resignation to Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

IV.“When you win three terms as Chief Minister, some amount of arrogance and complacency set in. This was of course the case with me as well as the party. We thought nobody could defeat us. We forgot that we had lost earlier,” Gogoi told a press conference here.

V.Among other reasons for Congress drubbing in the polls, he said: “This is the first debacle since I am here. Probably there was a communication gap with the people. Our campaign was probably not up to the mark. Our publicity did not fulfill our agenda.”

KCR to become the first Chief Minister of Telangana

I.The Legislature party of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has unanimously elected party president K Chandrasekhara Rao as their leader.

II.This paves the way for him to become the first Chief Minister of Telangana. He also won the Medak Lok Sabha seat with a thumping majority. He has, however, chosen to retain his Assembly seat.

III.The party has won 63 of the 119 Assembly seats in the newly-formed State. The Congress has won 20 seats and the Telugu Desam-BJP combine 21. The MIM got seven.

IV.The Legislature Party met on Saturday afternoon to elect a leader.

Crayon Data selected as winner at TiE50 Awards

I.Crayon Data, a Singapore-India (Chennai) based big data start-up founded in 2012 by enterprise analytics veteran Suresh Shankar and seasoned entrepreneur Srikant Sastri has been selected as a winner at the 2014 TiE50 Awards programme in San Jose, California.

II.This achievement, comes on the heels of Crayon being shortlisted as one of the 25 finalists at the IBM Watson Mobile Developers Challenge in May 2014 and as one of the 50 hottest Big Data start-ups at CeBIT in March 2014.

III.“This is a great validation of Crayon’s efforts to simplify the world’s choices. TiE has great significance for Crayon because of its reach and influence in the most powerful corridors of venture capital in Silicon Valley. About 70 per cent of the TiE50 winners in previous years have had a huge track record of success and it is touted to be the biggest stepping stone to become a billion dollar company,” Suresh Shankar said.

IV.The company has raised Rs 27 crore in funding from investors, including Meng Wong, co-founder of the Joyful Frog Digital Incubator, and William Bissell, Managing Director of Fabindia.Crayon’s SimplerChoices, is a choice engine that brings the power of big data and analytics to an enterprise to help them increase sales conversions as well as improve returns from existing accounts through the platform. Enterprises can choose a web-based offering, a pay-per-use SaaS offering or integrate SimplerChoices with their IT/CRM system.