12 October 2015 Current Affair Updates |Daily GK Download

1. Cabinet Minister Rao Inderjit Singh has been appointed unopposed as the new President of the Paralympics Committee of India (PCI). Kavinder Chaudhary has been elected PCI vice-president. Shivaji Kumar has been appointed as joint secretary of the committee.

2. Sekhar Basu has been appointed as the chairman of Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). By virtue of this position, he will also occupy the office of secretary, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). He will succeed R.K. Sinha. Basu is presently the director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai.

3. The Joint Declaration of the Heads of the Migration Authorities of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations was released after the first BRICS Ministerial meeting on Migration held in Sochi, Russia. The declaration guided by the Ufa Declaration and the commitment to respect human rights is a major milestone so far as orderly and legal migration amongst BRICS countries is concerned.

4. Kishore Biyani-led retail major Future Group entered into an agreement with Baba Ramdev-promoted Patanjali Ayurved to sell the latter's FMCG products through its stores. Future Group expects sales from Patanjali, to the tune of Rs. 1,000 crore in the next 20 months.

5. China launched the much anticipated China International Payment System (CIPS), an international payment system that seeks to provide global dimensions to its currency Yuan. CIPS will provide capital settlement and clearing services for cross-border Yuan transactions for financial institutions domestically and abroad and will effectively enhance efficiency and increase global use of the Chinese currency.

6. FIFA, the governing body of association football provisionally suspended its president Sepp Blatter, secretary general Jerome Valcke and vice-president Michel Platini for 90 days, due to alleged charges of corruption. Issa Hayatou, head of Africa's football confederation, will act as the interim FIFA president during Blatter's ban.

7.  Japan announced to give Madhya Pradesh government Rs. 12,000 crore loan for its ambitious Bhopal and Indore Metro rail projects. This amount will be given by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for 50 years at 0.3% interest rate.

8. Union Government released data which discloses that the National Pension System (NPS) and the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) have together crossed milestone figure of Rs. 1 lakh crore (or Rs. 1 trillion) with regard to total Assets Under Management (AUM). Both together have more than one crore subscribers with total AUM of Rs.1,00,275 crores. 

9. The Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the 2015 WBG/IMF Annual Meetings started in Lima, Peru in which representatives of the 188 member countries of both multilateral financial institutions took part. This Annual Meeting serve to discuss international economic and financial developments, the state of the global economy, and policies to reduce poverty and promote inclusive economic growth.

10. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement of 12 Pacific Rim countries was reached at the ministerial meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) held in Atlanta, USA that will cover almost 36% of global economic output. This is an ambitious agreement to lower trade and investment barriers in 12 partner countries in the Asia Pacific region. The TPP is world’s biggest trade agreement in the past two decades.

11. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $15 million grant to rebuild schools, provide micro-loans to help restore livelihoods, and to boost disaster awareness in quake-ravaged Nepal.