GK Updates - 9 June | Banking Quiz

RBI eases address proof rules for bank A/c

I.Now, citizens without having permanent address proof can open a bank account by submitting only one document as current proof of address, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

II.Taking note of citizens who are migrant workers and transferred employees who do not possess permanent address documents, the central bank eased the Know Your customer (KYC) documentation rules.

III.In a notification, RBI said, “Henceforth, customers may submit only one documentary proof of address (either current or permanent) while opening a bank account or while undergoing periodic updation. In case the address mentioned as per ‘proof of address’ undergoes a change, fresh proof of address may be submitted to the branch within a period of six months.”

IV.The RBI further added that in case the proof of address furnished by the customer is not the local address or address where the customer is currently residing, the bank may take a declaration of the local address on which all correspondence will be made by the bank with the customer.

V.“No proof is required to be submitted for such address for correspondence/local address. This address may be verified by the bank through ‘positive confirmation’ such as acknowledgment of receipt of (i) letter, cheque books, ATM cards; (ii) telephonic conversation; (iii) visits; etc,” it said.

Pawan Goenka appointed Chairman of Board of Governors at IIT Madras

I.Pawan Goenka, Executive Director & President, Automotive & Farm Equipment Sectors at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd (M&M), has been appointed chairman of the board of governors at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

II.The appointment was made by the President of India in his capacity as Visitor of the Institute, and is for a period of three years with effect from June 9, 2014.

III.As the chairman of the board of governors, Goenka will preside over all board meetings, helping promote the policy advocacy priorities of the IIT Madras.

IV.In this capacity, Goenka will also advise the board and senior management on a wide range of issues.

V.“An alumnus of IIT Kanpur, Goenka is an internationally acknowledged scientist manager with several citations to his credit. A stalwart of the automobile industry, he has spearheaded various prestigious industry bodies and I am certain he will add tremendous value to this role as well,” said Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director at IIT Madras.

First Telangana Assembly session begins on Monday

I.The first Assembly session of the new State of Telangana will commence here on Monday and will continue till June 13.

II.Speaking to newspersons after taking over as the Minister for Marketing, Irrigation and Legislative Affairs here on Sunday, Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS) leader Harish Rao said the session would be conducted in an ‘efficient and meaningful way’ to reflect people’s issues.

III.All the 119 members would take oath on the first day. The Speaker would be elected on June 10. TRS has already indicated that S Madhusudhanachari and M Padma Devender Reddy would be the Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively.

IV.Governor ESL Narasimhan will address the joint session of the House on June 11.

Jaitley to be Leader of House in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad Leader of Opposition

I.Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was today named as the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, while Congress veteran Ghulam Nabi Azad was declared the Leader of the Opposition.

II.Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari made the announcement on the first day’s sitting of the Upper House after the Lok Sabha elections.

III.Ansari said Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu had written to him on June 2 informing that Jaitley will the Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha.

IV.He said the letter regarding Azad being made the Leader of Congress came to him yesterday.

V.Jaitley (61), a senior BJP member was earlier the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha during UPA Government, while Azad (65) was Union Health Minister.

Naidu sworn in first CM of new AP, inducts 19 Ministers

I.The swearing-in ceremony of N Chandrababu Naidu as the first Chief Minister of the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh turned out to be a mega affair.

II.The 65-year-old Naidu, along with his 19 Cabinet colleagues, was sworn-in on Sunday evening at a public ceremony held near Acharya Nagarjuna University at Numbur near here. Governor ESL Narasimhan administered the oath of office to the Chief Minister and other ministers.

III.The Cabinet includes two members from the BJP, an ally of the TDP, and three women.

IV.Apart from a massive crowd, a galaxy of industrialists, central ministers, chief ministers, BJP leaders, including its President Rajnath Singh and LK Advani and film stars such as Pavan Kalyan, were present on the occasion.

V.For Naidu, who had served for close to nine years from 1995 to 2004 as Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh, it was a home coming to power as he had spent the last 10 years as the Leader of the Opposition.

Wang Yi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, visited India

I.Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister of China was on a two-day long visit to India from 8 June to 9 June 2014. He visited India in the capacity of Special Envoy of the President of China, Xi Jinping. The objective of the visit was to establish contact with the new Government of India led by Narendra Modi.

II.During his visit, he met Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi and discussed a wide range of issues related to trade, economy, border and people to people exchanges.

III.Apart from this, the two ministers also decided to conduct high-level meetings of President, Vice President, Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister of the two countries in 2014.

Kudankulam became India’s first nuclear plant to generate 1000 MW power

I.Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant on 8 June 2014 became India’s first nuclear plant to generate 1000 MW power. Unit I of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant reached its full capacity.

II.With this, the total nuclear energy contribution will increase to 5789 MW. Work on the Unit-first of Kudankulam Plant was completed in 2013.

III.Before Kudankulam, Tata Mundra project in Gujarat had the distinction of being the largest single generation unit in operation with 800 MW power capacity.

Uttarakhand Cabinet approved pension scheme for farmers

I.Uttarakhand Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Harish Rawat on 5 June 2014 approved two schemes namely pension scheme for farmers and scheme to air-lift doctors to remote areas of the state. The schemes were approved in a Cabinet meet held in Almora.

II.Under the pension scheme all farmers of the state who farms on two hectare piece of land will get 800 rupees per month as a pension. Whereas, under scheme to air-lift doctors the air-lifted doctors and pharmacists will attend patients for a month and then will be replaced by another group of doctors.

Japan records 6.7% GDP growth in Q1

I.Japan’s economy grew at an annualised rate of 6.7 per cent in the first quarter after preliminary data was upgraded, the government said on Monday.

II.The figure was upgraded from an annualised figure of 5.9 per cent for the January-to-March quarter announced in mid-May.

III.The world’s third-largest economy growth was boosted in the first quarter thanks to last-minute purchases before a sales tax increase in April, the government said.

IV.The government raised the nation’s sales tax in April to 8 per cent from 5 per cent – the first hike in 17 years.

V.Quarter-on-quarter the Japanese economy grew 1.6 per cent, compared to the preliminary figure of 1.5 per cent.

Railway Protection Force to recruit 17,000 more

I.Fresh recruitment of 17,000 Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel is expected over the next two to three months, Arunendra Kumar, Chairman, Railway Board, said here on Friday.

II.Induction of new personnel is likely to help overcome some issues of passenger safety.

III.“We hope the addition of 17,000 new personnel over the next two to three months will help take care of some issues related to passenger safety,” he told reporters adding that 10 per cent of those recruited will be women.

IV.Currently, the RPF has strength of 74,000.

Petro Poroshenko sworn-in as President of Ukraine

I.Petro Poroshenko was sworn-in as the President of Ukraine in Kiev on 7 June 2014. He was elected as President on 25 May 2014 with more than 54 percent of the vote.

II.He won the election against former President Yulia Tymoshenko, who scored 12.81 percent of the votes. The election was not held in Crimea, which was unilaterally annexed by Russia in March 2014.

III.The term of office for the Ukrainian president is five years. In the Presidential election of Ukraine if no candidate obtain an absolute majority in the first round then second round will be held.

UN General Assembly announced an award in honour of Nelson Mandela

I.UN General Assembly on 7 June 2014 announced an award in honour of Nelson Mandela. The award was announced to pay tribute to the achievements and contribution of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

II.The terms of the criteria and the procedure for bestowing the prize will be established within next six months i.e. December 2014. This is to be adopted by the Assembly no later than November 2014.

Chandrababu Naidu sworn-in as first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh

I.Nara Chandrababu Naidu was sworn-in as the first Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh after bifurcation. Governor E S L Narasimhan administered the oath of Naidu and his cabinet at Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur on 8 June 2014.

II.In 2014, Telengana bill was approved by the parliament and was separated from Andhra Pradesh as 29th state of the Indian Union on 2 June 2014. Now the new Andhra Pradesh contains 13 districts and Hyderabad as common capital of both states for 10 years.

III.Telugu Desam Party leader, Chandrababu Naidu had an alliance with BJP and won 108 seats out of the 175 seats in the assembly elections 2014. The party also won 17 seats in the Lok Sabha election 2014 and is second largest ally of BJP in the Parliament.

Kathleen Stephens took charge as US interim Ambassador

I.Kathleen Stephens on 6 June 2014 took charge as US interim Ambassador to India.

II.She took charge just ahead of India's first official engagement with Washington in the form of a visit by assistant secretary for south and central Asia Nisha Biswal.

III.Stephens is replacing the former US Ambassador Nancy Powell. Nancy Powell had left India on 22 May 2014 after announcing the end of her tenure in March 2014.

RCom drops roaming charges, introduces flat rate

I.In a huge bonanza for customers, Reliance Communications today announced the launch of One India, One Rate Plans, which offers free incoming national roaming offer for post-paid and pre-paid GSM customers.

II.Under this offer, there will be no difference between local, STD and roaming charges and customers will be charged only their local home plan tariffs, even while roaming anywhere in India.

III.We are delighted to launch the One India, One Rate Plans in the country, which abolishes differentiated tariffs for roaming, STD and local calls in India. When business has no boundaries, then tariffs should also be seamless and customer-friendly — thus, incoming calls while roaming will now be free on the RCom network,” Gurdeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Consumer Business, Reliance Communications Ltd, said.

IV.The One India, One Rate Plans will help us attract customers in the high-value Corporate and SME roaming segments. RCom’s One India, One Rate Plans will help us break down the tariff barriers and extend unprecedented benefits to our roaming customers,” he added.

V.This is the first time an operator has introduced free roaming packs across all circles and even on calls received from other networks.

Ranjit Kumar assumes charge as Solicitor General

I.Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar on Monday assumed charge as the Solicitor General (SG) of India.

II.The government has also appointed six additional Solicitor Generals (ASGs)——senior advocates Maninder Singh, L. Nageshwar Rao, Tushar Mehta, P S Patwalia, Neeraj K Kaul and P S Narasimha.

III.The newly—appointed law officers would take steps to reduce the number of cases, given the fact that the government and its departments are major litigants, sources said.

El Nino may be ending, says Australian Met Bureau

I.This is the million-dollar question cropping up after the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has come up with a blinder of a breaking news.

II.The Bureau is now saying that the El Nino in the Pacific may be ending and the basin is now trending towards alter ego La Nina.

III.But the Bureau had earlier in the day detected a monsoon ''blocker" within India's own territorial waters in the form of a negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

IV.According to latest updates available, the Bureau says the El Nino process may be ending, if not ended already.

V.In what looks like an astonishing flip-over in the Pacific, the trends indicate to a developing La Nina in which the east of the basin cools and the west warms up.

VI.A La Nina has been traditionally believed to be a supporting phenomenon for the Indian monsoon.

Facebook COO’s first India visit to focus on SMEs, developers

I.Aggressive on tapping the multi-billion dollar opportunity in the Indian SME market, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is scheduled to make her maiden trip to the country as the social networking giant deepens ties in its second-largest market.

II.Sandberg, who will be in India in the last week of June, is scheduled to meet small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Hyderabad, followed by a media round-table in the national Capital next month.

III.“She will be coming to India later this month but we are not in a position to share the details yet,” an official from the company said.

IV.India is the largest market for Facebook outside the US, with over 100 million users.

V.The company has been aggressively hunting for new avenues to increase advertising revenue and the SME sector in India, which has over 25 million firms, could play a crucial role.

Sania Mirza achieves career-best ranking of six

I.Touching a new high, India’s tennis ace Sania Mirza today became world number six in doubles, her career-best ranking, as the new chart was released following the conclusion of the French Open.

II.Courtesy a quarter-finals appearance at the Roland Garros, Sania earned 430 ranking points along with partner Cara Black to jump eight places in the ranking charts.

III.Sania and Cara had lost to eventual champions Shuai Peng and Su-Wei Hsieh.

IV.“When I started the season this year in January, one of my goals was to better my career-best world ranking. I am happy to have achieved this today,” Sania said from Birmingham, where she is gearing up for the grass court season, leading to Wimbledon championships.

Nadal proves his clay might with 9th French Open title

I.Rafael Nadal became the first man in history to win the French Open nine times as he swept to a record fifth straight title with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 6-4 defeat of Novak Djokovic on Sunday.

II.The success marked a 14th Grand Slam title for the Spanish king of clay, three shy of the record of 17 by Roger Federer. Nadal has won his last 35 matches at the event which he has dominated for a decade.

III.Nadal stands an impressive 66-1 at the tournament and 90-1 over his career in best-of-five-set matches on his beloved clay. His only loss came in the 2009 fourth round to Robin Soderling.

IV.Nadal finished with a break of Djokovic in draining, physical conditions, with the Serb second seed double-faulting on match point.

V.Nadal was presented with the trophy by six-time Paris winner Bjorn Borg.

VI.“It’s amazing and emotional for me today,” said Nadal, who ended with 44 winners and broke his opponent six times.