CURRENT AFFAIRS 25th JULY, 2014

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1. The Cabinet committee on economic affairs cleared a Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, to raise the foreign investment ceiling in private insurance companies from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. It also contains a provision that the management and control of these companies must be with Indians. This will result in huge flow of funds into insurance sector, create employment and increases long term savings.

2. The Union Cabinet cleared the Securities Laws (Amendment) Bill to empower the Securities & Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to effectively check illegal deposit taking and Ponzi schemes, with a corpus of at least Rs 100 crore. It allows SEBI to conduct search and seize operations, impose minimum penalty on defrauding investors.

3. According to the Human Development Report 2014 released by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India is at 135th rank like last year with no significant improvement. It's HDI value rose marginally from 0.583 to 0.586 on the index. UNDP ranks countries on the basis of key social indicators like long and healthy life, access to education and standard of living.

4. The government is merging and bringing in all skill development initiatives and agencies in other ministries under the new Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The ministry will be headed by Sarbananda Sonowal, who is also minister of state (independent charge for sports and youth affairs). National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) that was set up by the finance ministry may function under the new ministry.

5. Centre has plans to set up ultra mega solar power projects in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. It also has plans to set up solar parks in Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal and considers to have green energy corridor to transport solar power from one state to other.

6. Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In) has identified multi-identity virus Bladabindi which steals sensitive personal information of an internet user by infecting their “Microsoft Windows operating system” and spread through removable USB flash drives.