Current Affairs Sep 01, 2015

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01. Mehrishi replaces Goyal as Home Secretary: Senior IAS officer Rajiv Mehrishi replaced L.C. Goyal as Home Secretary. Mr. Goyal, who took charge in February, was ordered to seek voluntary retirement barely hours his retirement.

02. Core sector growth slows to 1.1 % in July: The index of eight core industries again saw a fall in its rate of growth, falling to 1.1 per cent in July compared to 3 per cent in the previous month. Coal sector posing a growth of 0.3 percent, when compared to 6.24 percent in June, was the major contributor to the fall.

03. Indian banks adopt Basel-III norms in a phased manner: Shyamala Gopinath, former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that Indian banks are already adopting Basel-III norms in a phased manner and are steadily progressing towards this global standard.

04. RBI moots uniform methodology for calculating base rate: To ensure that banks’ lending rates are more sensitive to changes in the monetary policy rates, RBI has issued draft guidelines, prescribing a uniform method by which they have to arrive at the interest rates for providing loans.

05. Fitch affirms ratings on 9 banks: Fitch Ratings has affirmed the ratings on nine Indian banks. The Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings (IDR) on State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, Bank of Baroda (New Zealand), Punjab National Bank (PNB), Canara Bank, IDBI Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have been affirmed at 'BBB'PNB's Viability Rating (VR) has been downgraded to 'BB'

06. Magsaysay award for whistle blower: Indian whistle-blower bureaucrat Sanjiv Chaturvedi, who has been conferred with the Ramon Magsaysay award by the Philippines president, said it was a tribute to all honest and sincere civil servants fighting against corruption.

07. ‘Housing for All’ scheme- Union Govt. releases list of 305 cities: The Government has identified 305 cities and towns across 9 states for implementation of its flagship ‘Housing for All’ scheme. Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation will provide assistance of over 2 lakh crore rupees for construction of houses to enable two crore urban poor own their own houses.

08. India wins historic test series against SriLanka: India has won a historic cricket test series 2-1 against SriLanka, taming the Lanka lions in their homeland for the first time in 22 years.

09. Govt. launches Three IT Initiatives for passengers : Govt. has launched three IT initiatives developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) (the IT arm of Ministry of Railways). They are Paperless Unreserved Ticketing through Mobile Phone between New Delhi – Palwal Section (NR). Currency Coin cum Card operated Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (CCoTVM) at New Delhi Railway Station and Mobile Application for Freight Operations (PARICHAALAN).

10. Centre asks RBI to reverse Rs. 1,274 crores deductions from Telangana account: The Finance Ministry has asked the RBI to reverse deductions of Rs. 1,274 crores made by the central bank from the principal amount of Telangana held by the RBI, saying that the deduction was not “in consonance with the principle of co-operative federalism”.