GK News Analysis Updates for Competition Exams – 24th to 31st July, 2014

(Edited by Rajesh Goyal)*

July Heading Detailed News 2014 24th CONCOR public- The Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public sector became Enterprises, Department of Public 17th Navratna Enterprises, Government of granted status company. Navratna status to Container Corporation of India Limited (CONCOR) in July 2014. CONCOR is a PSU engaged in providing comprehensive logistics solutions. It has the largest network of 62 inland container depots (ICDs)/container freight stations in India. In addition to providing inland transport by rail for containers, it has also expanded to cover management of ports, air cargo complexes and establishing cold-chain.

The Government of India (GoI) holds 61.80% stake in CONCOR (in terms of shareholding pattern as on 30 June 2014).

24th India at third The IMF has updates it’s the World Economic place on PPP Outlook estimates of Purchasing Power Parity bases (PPP) weights and GDP after the International Comparison Programme (ICP) released new benchmarks for 2001.

India is now the third biggest economy on the PPP basis. In terms of market exchange rates, India has only a 2.5% share. 24th World’s largest Scientist in China Sichuan province have aquatic insect discovered the world’s largest aquatic insect discovered in which has pincer-liked mandible cover a China Sichuan man’s face.

24th Cabinet clears The Union cabinet approved a proposal to 49% FDI in ease foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in Insurance, the domestic insurance sector to 49% from pension reform 26%, signaling NDA government’s intent to next draw capital and investment into an economy that is struggling to claw out of a crippling slowdown. 25th Ukraine's PM Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk resigns, has resigned after his governing coalition complicating collapsed. The shock announcement added to MH17 probe an already chaotic situation in the rebel- controlled east parts of the country. International experts are at present carrying out investigation into downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that left 298 dead.

25th B D Tandon is new Balram Das Tandon, another Senior BJP leader, has been appointed as the fifth Governor of Chhattisgarh.

25th Salman Khan is Salman Khan, popular Bollywood star, has brand been appointed as the brand ambassador by ambassador for plumbing pipe major Astral Poly Technik Ltd Astral for two years.

25th Twelve banks In late 2013, Reserve Bank of India carried out fined by the RBI a scrutiny of the loan and current accounts of for violating RBI Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd., in certain rules in the case of branches of banks which have given loan to Deccan Chronicle Deccan Chronicle Holdings. After this Holdings scrutiny, RBI concluded that some of the violations were substantiated and thus imposed monetary penalties.

These 12 banks are – Andhra Bank (Rs 10 lakh), Axis Bank (Rs 15 lakh), Canara Bank (Rs 10 lakh), Corporation Bank (Rs 10 lakh), HDFC Bank (Rs 5 lakh), ICICI Bank (Rs 40 lakh), IDBI Bank (Rs 15 lakh), IndusInd Bank (Rs 10 lakh), Kotak Mahindra Bank (Rs 10 lakh), Ratnakar Bank (Rs 5 lakh), State Bank of Hyderabad (Rs 10 lakh) and Yes Bank (Rs 10 lakh). 25th Government has Government has informed that it is not July no proposal to considering any proposal to integrate the UID integrate Aadhaar (Aadhaar) project with National Population project & NPR Register (NPR). www.BestGuru.com The new government will continue Aadhaar registrations as Rs 2,039.64 crore has been provided in the budget 2014-15 for Aadhaar, as against Rs 1,550 crore allocated in 2013-14.

Around 73.71 crore Aadhaar enrolments have been done till mid-July.

26th Typhoon Matmo Typhoon Matmo (a tropical cyclone and was killed thirteen known as Typhoon Henry in the Philippines) people in China struck Taiwan and China. More than 2.5 and affected about million people were affected as the impact of 2.5 million people the typhoon was wide spread. Matmo was the 10th typhoon to affect China this year and destroyed homes and crops and caused direct economic losses worth 3.37 billion Yuan ( or equal to $547 million).

26th 15th anniversary The 15th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas of Kargil Vijay was observed throughout India to remember Diwas being the sacrifices of Indian Jawans who laid down observed their lives in Kargil war in 1999. throughout the country [The armed conflict had broken out in Kargil in 1999, when Pakistani soldiers infiltrated into India. The Indian Army fought bravely in the high altitude mountains of Kargil hills and forced Pakistani troops to beat a retreat]

26th CWG 2014 Indian sportspersons have continued their winning streak at Glosgow Games. [The details of these are covered in a separate article, which all candidates must read.

26th Kaptan Singh Kaptan Singh Solanki, a BJP veteran and Solanki appointed Rajya Sabha member was appointed as the Haryana Governor of Haryana [in place of Jagannath Governor Pahadia]

26th Woodland, A well known grand, Woodland (Footwear UNICEF to launch and apparel maker) has tied up with UNICEF water, sanitation to promote a water, sanitation and hygiene campaign in campaign (WASH) in Assam. Assam This is the third year of their tie-up. The idea of the partnership is to support UNICEF’s www.BestGuru.comefforts to advocate the importance of safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. Over the last two years, Woodland has contributed approximately Rs 1.25 crore towards the programme, the company said in a release.

26th Prime Minister In a major initiative , PM, , on Narendra Modi completion of 60 days in Government, launched an launched an interactive website named interactive www.mygov.nic.in that aims to engage all the website youth of the country in the nation’s mygov.nic.in development and ideas from all the volunteers. Various people as well as experts will be now able to discuss and share thoughts on different topics relating to India’s development. This will also empower the people to contribute towards good governance through various tasks and discussions.

The platform is not intended to be a grievance redressal mechanism, but an initiative that will help government to engage all the people and get their ideas.

27th RBI, Monetary The Reserve Bank of India has inked a Authority of Hong memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kong ink MoU for the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong for info exchange exchange of supervisory information. The RBI signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for supervisory cooperation and exchange of supervisory information with the Monetary Authority, Hong Kong," RBI said in a notification. With this, RBI has signed MoUs with 21 supervisors for supervisory co-operation.

27th RBI allows NBFCs Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) to use e-KYC have been allowed to accept e-KYC service as a service to verify valid process to verify identity and address identity proof of customers to reduce risk of fraud and forgery. "In order to reduce the risk of identity fraud, document forgery and have paperless KYC verification, UIDAI has launched its e-KYC service.

27th International An international conference on women www.BestGuru.comconference on entrepreneurship would be held here starting women October 18. entrepreneurship in October

27th Amitabh Amitabh Bachchan, was appointed as the Bachchan named horticulture ambassador of Maharashtra. as Maharashtra's With this appointment, he will start horticulture promoting the horticulture sector in ambassador Maharashtra. Maharashtra, the western Indian state is India's largest fruit producing state with around two million hectares area covered in fruit orchards. The 71-year-old actor is also the face of Gujarat tourism as well as the polio eradication campaign.

27th One in every 3 India has become a majority ingredient in Apple engineers is Apple’s success story. It is estimated that a Indian third of the $ 171-billion company’s engineering staff is Indian, and that a large and increasing proportion of its enterprise software, service and support work is done by Indian IT vendors.

28th World Hepatitis World Hepatitis Day is an annual event on the Day being 28th July that provides international focus for observed patient groups and people living with viral hepatitis. It is an opportunity to raise awareness and influence real change in disease prevention and access to testing and treatment. It is observed all over the world to generate mass awareness about the deadly disease.

[INTERESTING FACTS : The theme of this year's World Hepatitis Day was 'It's closer than you think.' With about one million people worldwide dying due to hepatitis - and millions suffering immediate sickness or developing chronic illness - the theme reflects the lurking dangers of the disease.

India has over 40 million Hepatitis B infected patients, second only to China, and most people are infected with chronic Hepatitis B or C] www.BestGuru.com 28th Bharti Airtel telecom company Bharti Airtel’s subscriber base across mobile, recently became fixed line and DTH services crossed 300 the first in India million recently. Company’s latest 100 million to have a combined subscribers were added in less than 2 years. subscriber base of Bharti Airtel has been ranked as the fourth- over 300 million largest mobile service provider globally and second-largest globally outside of China. 29th International International Tiger Day is held annually on Tiger Day 2014 July 29 to give worldwide attention to the observed across reservation of tigers. The day is celebrated as the world an awareness day. The goal of the Tiger Day is to promote protection and expansion of the wild tiger habitats and also to gain support awareness for tiger conservation.

At present the number of wild tigers is at its lowest. In last 100 years, around 97 percent of the total tigers population have been lost. In 1913, the world has about 1 lakh wild tigers, which has dropped to 3000 in 2014.

As per estimates, India in 2010 had 1706 wild tigers that increased from 1411 in 2006. Among the 13 tiger-range countries, India has the highest number of tiger population.

29th Govt launches Government has launched the Rashtriya Rashtriya Gokul Gokul Mission to promote conservation and Mission development of indigenous breeds in a focused and scientific manner. The mission aims at enhancing milk production, upgrading non-desrcipt cattle using elite indegenious breeds and distributes disease free high genetic bulls. The purpose of the Mission is for bovine breeding and dairy development with an outlay of 500 crore rupees during the 12th five year programme. 29th Flipkart raises $ Flipkart announced that it has raised $1 1bn in fund - billion (Rs 6,000 crore), the largest ever fund- highest in Indian raising by an Indian internet company. As e-commerce per market estimates, the Bangalore-based company is now valued at about $7 billion. "This is a great milestone for Flipkart and for www.BestGuru.cominternet companies in India”

29th Textile policy aims The draft National Textile policy, aims at to create 35 mn achieving 300 billion dollars exports by 2024- jobs, $300 bn 25 and creation of additional 35 million jobs exports by attracting investments. The draft Vision, Strategy and Action Plan for Indian Textiles and Apparels was presented to the Textiles Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar yesterday. Expert Committee Chairman Ajay Shankar presented the blueprint to the Minister.

29th IAF receives 6th The Indian Air Force received its sixth C-17 C-17 Globe master Globe master heavy lift transport aircraft III aircraft which also carried a World War II vintage 'Harvard' aircraft in its belly. The C-17 is the biggest aircraft in IAF's inventory and the government had accorded approval to buy 10 C-17 Globe master III along with associated equipment for the IAF.

29th Moeen Ali banned Moeen Ali, all-rounder in England team, came from wearing ' to highlight after he was found wearing Save Gaza' wristbands with “Save Gaza” and “Free wristbands for Palestine” in the third Test of the Test series. England ICC clothing rules do not allow displays of messages relating to political, religious or racial activities during internationals. Thus, he was banned from wearing such a band in future tests.

29th Hundred die due It is reported that nearly 100 people have died to hunger in five due to malnutrition and hunger in tea-estates closed Tea-estates in Jalpaiguri / Alipurduar. since January 29th WTO: India firm India said it is unwilling to compromise on on food security WTO demand for any dilution in its policy related to the minimum support price for farm goods. Top government sources told that India is not going to settle for anything that does not address its concerns and having a subsidy cap based on 1986-88 prices does not make sense. Since then prices have increased by up to six times, making the subsidy ceiling of 19% of the value of www.BestGuru.comproduction virtually redundant for several developing countries, including China and Thailand. 29th RBI calls for Sebi Tightening the regulatory noose around action against willful defaulters of bank loans, RBI has willful defaulters suggested to market watchdog SEBI that such entities should be prevented from raising funds through capital markets.

30th Fuad Masum Muhammad Fuad Masum of Patriotic Union elected as the 7th of Kurdistan (PUK) party was elected as the President of Iraq seventh President of Iraq. He was elected with overwhelming majority by the Council of Representatives of Iraq (Iraqi Parliament) in Baghdad.

30th WB loan to West World Bank will give around Rs. 1200 crore Bengal for Gram rupees loan to the West Bengal Government Panchayat for improvement of a thousand Gram improvement Panchayats in the State. These funds will be utilized in 9 districts to bring a thousand Panchayat bodies under the Nirmal Gram Panchayat scheme in the next five years. Mr. Mukherjee said that another 2400 Gram Panchayats will be brought under the scheme in the next phase.

30th Law Commission Law Commission Chairperson A.P. Shah has recommends fixed recommended (a) same retirement age of 65 tenure for CJI for Supreme Court and High Court judges, (b) a “cooling-off period” for judges after retirement and (c) a fixed tenure for Chief Justice of India. These three changes are “intertwined” with the “overhaul” required in the process of judicial appointments. Justice Shah's note titled ‘A Judicial Appointments Commission for India: A Proposal’ became the central point of debate between the Law Ministry and eminent jurists.

30th Arup Raha takes IAF chief, Arup Raha, took over as the over as Chairman, Chairman, Chiefs of Staffs Committee, from CoSC incumbent Gen Bikram Singh who retired on 31st July 2014. The Chairman, Chiefs of Staffs Committee is the senior-most military officer in the country. Raha, will hold the office for a period of 29 www.BestGuru.commonths and would probably be the longest- serving officer in the chair.

30th Sushilarani Patel, Sushilarani Patel, the renowned classical a Classical singer singer of India died at her Bandra home on 24 died at 96 July 2014 due to heart attack. She in 2002 became a Sangeet Natak Academy laureate.

30th The Vijay Mallya The Vijay Mallya Story written by K Story written by K Giriprakash was published by Penguin Books Giriprakash Limited in 2014. K. Giriprakash is the Chief of published Bureau, The Hindu Business Line.

30th Malin village near Malin village situated about 70 km from Pune Pune has major near the famous Bhimashankar Jyotirling landslide temple saw a major landslide due to heavy rains. Huge boulders from a hillock came crashing down on a village and destroyed a full village and killed over 50 people. The landslide is believed to be due to unchecked cutting of trees and leveling of the hills without caring for environmental issues

30th Amazon to bring As a counter to Flipkarts decision to raise $1 $2 billion in to billion, Amazon has announced that they will India spend $2 billion (Rs. 12,000 crores) to grow Amazon’s online retail business in India. 30th SC tells Supertech In a major landmark decision Supreme Court to refund flat asked Supertech builder to refund the owner amount of the flats along with 14% interest. In April 2014 Allahabad High Court had directed that the Emerald Court twin towers (40 story buildings under construction) in Noida should be demolished as these were illegally built.

30th ITC Ready to Light India’s largest Cigarettes maker ITC has Up e-Cigarettes developed an electronic Cigarettes. These E- Cigarettes are battery operated designed to deliver nicotine, flavor and other chemicals by turning chemicals, including highly addictive nicotine, into an aerosol that is inhaled by the user. It is claimed that it is less harmful them normal Cigarettes. [INTERESTING FACTS : Nicotine is named after the tobacco plant Nicotiana tabacum, which in turn is named after the French ambassador in Portugal, Jean www.BestGuru.comNicot de Villemain, who sent tobacco and seeds to Paris in 1560, and who promoted their medicinal use. Nicotine was first isolated from the tobacco plant in 1828 and it was considered as a poison]

30th Eating chicken A labs study release by Centers for Science could make you and Environment (CSE) found antibiotic immune to residues in 40% of chicken samples in NCR antibiotics area. Experts are of the view that regular consumer of such meat could be in danger of developing antibiotic resistance. Poultry owners pump antibiotic into chickens to promote the growth of chickens so that they become bigger and fetch more money. 30th UPSC aspirant A number of students have gone on hunger protest in Delhi strikes in Delhi demanding change in CSAT (Civil Services Aptitude Test) format.

Civil services aspirants are protesting against the pattern of the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) which they believe gives an unfair advantage to English-speaking students while leaving candidates from Hindi or regional languages background at a disadvantage. They want CSAT to be scrapped. 30th No bug found at Finally government put to rest the Gadakari speculations about bugging devices being Residence found at Union Minister Nitin Gadakari ‘s Residence. It has been clarified in Lok Sabha that these are baseless news. 31st Ebola outbreak: The President of Sierra Leone has declared a Sierra Leone public health emergency as the Ebola declares health outbreak has spread. The announcement emergency came from President Ernest Bai Koroma late on Wednesday as neighbouring Liberia also ramped up efforts to slow the virulent disease’s spread.

Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa that is bordered by Guinea to the northeast, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. [ Capital: Freetown ; Currency: Sierra Leonean leone ]

Ebola virus disease (EVD) or Ebola www.BestGuru.comhemorrhagic fever (EHF) is the human disease caused by the ebola virus. Symptoms typically start two days to three weeks after contracting the virus, with a fever, throat and muscle pains, and headaches. There is then typically nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, along with decreased functioning of the liver and kidneys. At this point, some people begin to have problems with bleeding 31st This 'strange- The appearance of a "strange-looking" looking visitor' mammal inside the Parliament complex sent Parliament sparked panic and threw the security staff into security staff into a tizzy. The “Palm Civet” , an endangered a tizzy mammal which looks like a cross between a mongoose and a wild cat, was spotted in the Parliament library building, [The Asian palm civet, also called toddy cat, is a small member of the Viverridae family native to the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. ]

31st S S Mundra S S Mundra has joined RBI as the Deputy assumes office as Governor. He has been appointed as DG for a Reserve Bank of term of three years. Mr Mundra, was India Deputy Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Governor Bank, and will be taking the place K C Chakrabarty who had taken VRS a few months back. Mundra, a career banker, started his career as probationary officers with Bank of Baroda.

31st Saudi Arabia bans Saudi authorities have decided to impose import of temporary ban on import of pepper from “pepper” from India with effect from May 30, According to India reports, presence of high levels of pesticides in the Indian consignment was the reason to put the import restriction.

31st John Kerry, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Sushma Swaraj U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry co-chaired co-chair fifth fifth Indo-US Strategic Dialogue during which Strategic Dialogue the two sides discussed “transformative initiatives” in key areas of security and energy.

31st New Delhi to host New Delhi will host the Third India-Africa 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit, IAFS-III, on the 4th of Summit this year December this year. This follows the decision www.BestGuru.com taken at its Second Summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in 2011. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said preparations for the IAFS-III have begun in consultation with the African Union. Ms. Swaraj said the Declaration and Framework of Cooperation will be finalized in consultation with the African Union.

31st General Dalbir Lieutenant General Dalbir Singh Suhag has Singh Suhag is taken over as the new Army chief. He new Army Chief succeeded the incumbent General Bikram Singh. General Singh handed over the baton of charge to him. 59-year-old Lieutenant General Suhag, a Gurkha officer who had participated in the 1987 Indian Peace Keeping Force operation in Sri Lanka, will have 30-month tenure.

*The above news items have been edited by Rajesh Goyal so as to make these competition exam friendly. Ms Arpita Srivastava has assisted in the compilation of the news items from various sources such as newspapers / magazines / TV News with additional inputs by the team of BestGuru.com

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