CURRENT AFFAIRS 24-25th August, 2014

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CURRENT AFFAIRS 25th August, 2014

1. India launched its first ethanol-run bus in the Nagpur as a part of Green Bus Project by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. Four states -Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will be the major beneficiaries from the project as they produce ethanol in large quantities. The project will help reduce import bills and also move towards clean energy.

2. India and Vietnam agreed to deepen cooperation in defence and oil sectors during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj visit the strategically-important country. The new government is following "Act East Policy" with its Asian neighbours.

3. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani plans to invest $2 billion to build a 2,500 megawatt power plant in Odisha state. The Adani group will sign a pact with the Odisha government in four months to set up a new plant.

4. Maharashtra Governor K. Sankaranarayanan resigned after being shifted to Mizoram abruptly. Mr. Sankaranarayanan term was to have expired in 2017.

5. Supreme Court declared 218 coal block allocations made from 1993 to 2011 as illegal and arbitrary. Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha indicated that a committee headed by a retired apex court judge could be appointed to go into the consequences arising out of the order and examine ways of reallocation of coal blocks.

CURRENT AFFAIRS 24th August, 2014

1. FMCG conglomerate ITC has replaced Tata group’s TCS as the country’s most admired company on a Fortune magazine list. ITC is followed by infrastructure major Larsen and Toubro (L&T), another FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever, carmaker Maruti Suzuki and public sector bank SBI.

2. Reserve Bank of India has announced that settlement of transactions using credit cards online for purchase of goods and services within the country will have to be done through a bank in India and that the payments must be made in rupees. It may hurt e-commerce platforms and taxi aggregators as they route credit card transactions through an international payment gateway.

3. India’s first indigenously-built stealth Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) INS Kamorta was commissioned at naval dockyard in Vishakhapatnam by Union Defence Minister Arun Jaitley. INS Kamrota is India’s first vessel in the navy whose all weapon systems are manufactured indigenously.

4 . Weightlifter Ragala Venkat Rahul won India's first medal of the second Youth Olympic Games held in Nanjing, China. Silver medal of Rahul was also India's first medal in Weightlifting in Youth Olympics.

5. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said that banks sold stressed assets worth Rs 16,960 crore in 2013-14 to Asset Reconstruction companies as against just Rs 1,320 crore in the previous year. The rise in selling of NPAs has been a concern due to the fact that banks may tend to use this option to evergreen their balance sheets.