20 August 2015 Current Affair Updates | Daily GK Download
1. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has
launched two funds by Small Industries Development Bank of India
(SIDBI), a fund of funds with total corpus of Rs 12,000 crore. The funds
are Rs 2,000-crore India Aspiration Fund (IAF) and SIDBI Make In India
Loan For Enterprises (SMILE) scheme with an investment size of Rs 10,000
crore.
2. The State Bank of India has launched its mobile wallet — State Bank Buddy — in collaboration with Accenture and MasterCard. The mobile wallet app is available in 13 languages on Google Play Store.The bank said the wallet will soon be available in the Apple App Store as well.
2. The State Bank of India has launched its mobile wallet — State Bank Buddy — in collaboration with Accenture and MasterCard. The mobile wallet app is available in 13 languages on Google Play Store.The bank said the wallet will soon be available in the Apple App Store as well.
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| 20 August 2015 Current Affair Updates | Daily GK Download |
3. The Indian government's recent steps to support the
capitalisation of public sector banks won't fully resolve their looming
capital shortfall, according to a Standard & Poor's report. The
government has recently announced its plan to allocate capital to each
of the banks for fiscal 2016-2019 (ending March 31), increase the
capital allocation for fiscal 2016, and commit to further allocation in
the next few years if needed. The government has earmarked Indian rupee
(INR) 0.7 trillion (US$11 billion) for capital infusions for 2016-2019.
4. Islamic leaders from 20 countries who have gathered
at the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium in Istanbul,
Turkey, issued a ‘Declaration on climate change’ which calls for phasing
out of greenhouse gas emissions. The declaration, replete with quotes
from the Qur’an, calls upon the world, particularly the 1.6 billion
Muslims, to protect the planet from being destroyed by human activity.
5. A NASA spacecraft has confirmed for the first time
that the Moon’s thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in
electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow. There’s not enough
neon to make Moon visibly glow because the Moon’s atmosphere is
extremely tenuous. A dense atmosphere like Earth’s is relatively rare in
our solar system because an object has to be sufficiently massive to
have enough gravity to hold onto it.
6. To fund the unfunded, the Finance Ministry plans to
launch a month long campaign for loans under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana
and hopes to double loan disbursement to the small business sector to
over Rs 1 lakh crore during the fiscal.
7. The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), the major
player in the insurance sector launched its new endowment plus ULIP
product. Mr B K Panda, Sr Divisional Manager LICI, Guwahati, along with
Mr S Biswas, Manager Sales officially launched the policy.
8. Domestic airlines carried 67.45 lakh passengers in
July this year, an increase of 29.31 per cent over the 52.16 lakh
passengers during the same period in the previous year. The latest data
released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) shows that
IndiGo remained the market leader having flown 24.17 lakh passengers.
Jet Airways took the second position (13.35 lakh passengers) followed by
Air India at 10.94 lakh passengers.
9. Malayalam actor Paravoor Bharathan, who acted in nearly 300 regional films, died in Kerala.
10. Britain's Sebastian Coe was elected as new
International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) president at
the 50th IAAF Congress.
11. Athletics Federation of India President Adille
Sumariwalla was elected as one of the members of the prestigious Council
of the IAAF, the global governing body of the sport. Sumariwalla is the
first Indian to be elected in the IAAF Council.
