Current affairs: September 29, 2016 for all competetive exams
Cabinet approved festival bonus for railway staff
As a festive offering, the Centre
approved the payment of productivity linked bonus, equivalent to 78 days of
wages, to railway workers.
- All non-gazetted railway employees,
except Railway Protection Force and Railway Protection Special Force
personnel, are eligible for the bonus for 2015-16.
- The payment will be made to eligible employees before Dussehra or Puja holidays.
Union Cabinet approved ratification of climate
deal
The Union Cabinet gave the go-ahead for
ratifying the Paris climate deal on October 2, in line with Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s announcement at the BJP’s national executive meeting.
- Post-ratification, India will have to conform to the United Nations-brokered agreement to ensure that global temperatures do not rise more than 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels.
Cabinet approved for $3.2 billion Oil deal
The CCEA approved the acquisition of a
23.9 per cent stake in JSC Vankorneft and 29.9 per cent in LLC Taas-Yuryakh
from Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft), Russia’s national oil company, by a
consortium comprising Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and
Bharat Petro Resources Ltd.
- The acquisition of stake in
Vankorneft will provide 6.56 million metric tonnes of oil equivalent
(MMTOE) and 29.9 per cent stake in Taas-Yuryakh will provide 0.5 MMTOE
initially and 1.5 MMTOE by 2019.
- The consortium will pay $2,020 million for the Vankorneft stake and $1,242 million for the stake in Taas-Yuryakh.
Cabinet approved India – Singapore MoU:
The
Union Cabinet has given its approval to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
in the field of Industrial Property Cooperation between Department of
Industrial Policy and Promotion under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry
and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), Ministry of Law,
Government of Singapore.
- The MoU will be signed at the upcoming visit of Singapore’s
Prime Minister to India in October, 2016.
- The MoU will enhance bilateral cooperation activities in the arena of Industrial Property Rights of Patents, Trademarks and Industrial Designs.
Cabinet approved an Undertaking between India and Korea on Mutual
Recognition of Certificates for Seafarers, 1978
The
Union Cabinet has given its approval for signing of an Undertaking between
India and Korea on Mutual Recognition of Certificates.
- It is in pursuance of the Regulation 1/10 of International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) for Seafarers, 1978, as amended.
Telangana ties up with ISRO
for bandwidth to telecast coaching programmes
The Telangana Government has signed an
agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to get bandwidth
to telecast Mana TV programmes.
- To start with, the TV channel will air coaching programmes for students appearing for various competitive examinations to get government jobs.
Project SAKSHAM
Project
Saksham, a new indirect tax network of the Central Board of Excise and Customs
(CBEC), has been approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
- The total cost of the project is estimated to be Rs 2256 crore, which will be incurred over a period of seven years.
A new handheld device to detect melamine in milk
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore have
developed a handheld melamine detector. With this detecting melamine in milk is
expected to become easy, quick and inexpensive.
- In this method,
leaf extract of a commonly seen weed parthenium along with silver nitrate
is used for detecting the presence of melamine in milk.
- Melamine is an organic base chemical most commonly found in the form of white crystals rich in nitrogen.
Almost every household has a bank account: Labour Bureau
According to the latest Labour Bureau data, almost every household in the
country is a part of the banking system, mainly due to government’s financial
inclusion plans.
- Around 94.4% households had saving bank accounts in 2015-16. The figure was much higher than the official figure (58.7%) of households with saving bank accounts in India, as per Census 2011.
SEBI allows options contracts in commodities
Six more commodities wereadded to the list of products notified on September 28, 2016 for
derivative tradings on the exchanges.
- In consultation
with markets regulator Sebi and on suggestions of an expert committee
headed by NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand, the government has notified a
consolidated list of 91 commodities, up from 85 so far, on which
derivative contracts can be launched and traded on the exchanges.
- The new commodities include cocoa, pig iron, brass, tea and eggs and diamonds.
WHO declares Region of the
Americas as Measles free
The World Health
Organisation, a specialised agency of UN has declared the Region of
the Americas as Measles free.
- With this, the Americas became the first in the world to have eliminated measles, a viral disease that can cause severe health problems, including pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and even death.
Cuba and Russia
sign agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation
Rosatom, Russian state
nuclear agency, and Cuba's Ministry of Science on 27 September 2016 signed an
agreement on cooperation in the field of peaceful atomic energy use.
- The deal was signed by Rosatom Deputy CEO for International Relations Nikolai Spassky and Cuban Deputy Science Minister Jose Fidel Santana.
Obama
nominated ambassador to Cuba
The United States President
Barack Obama has appointed its first Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis to Cuba in
55 years.
- The new ambassador DeLaurentis had been working at the new US embassy in Havana, which opened since 2014.
Infosys introduces Skava Commerce
India’s second largest IT
services company, Infosys, introduced Skava Commerce, a modern, mobile-first
and modular e-commerce platform.
- The new platform was developed by
Skava, a start-up acquired by Infosys in last June.
- It allows businesses to leverage flexible cloud-based micro-services and white label applications to new offerings and improve conversion in digital channels.
IPS officer OP Singh taking
over as the new Director General of CISF
OP Singh A 1983-batch
officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre O P Singh took over as the new Director General
of CISF.
- Prior to this serving as the Director General of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF)
C. Haripriya Rangarajan passed away:
Renowned iconographist Dr.
Haripriya Rangarajan, wife of Dr. C.Rangarajan, Former Governor, Reserve Bank
of India, and Former Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister,
passed away. She was 81.
- She was a member of the Indian History Congress and has penned several books, including one on Vaishnavism in Gujarat and another on the iconography of Varahi. She was working on a volume on Dakshinamurthy.
Shimon Peres, former Israeli
president, dies aged 93
The former Israel's defining
political figures and a Nobel peace prize laureate, Shimon Peres has died at
the age of 93.
- He had served twice as a prime
minister and once as a president.
- He has got Nobel peace prize in 1994
Indian women's kabaddi team
wins gold in Asian Beach Games
Indian women’s Kabbadi team
on 28 September 2016 bagged the gold medal at the 5th Asian Beach
Games.
- In the final clash India
defeated Thailand .
- Final was played at Bien Dong Park in Danang, Vietnam.
