16 September 2015 Current Affair Updates | Daily GK Download

1. Gujarat emerged as number 1 state in ease of doing business with 71.14% according to World Bank report. Andhra Pradesh followed Gujarat with 70.12%. Jharkhand is on the third place. Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are at 4th and 5th spots, respectively. Arunachal Pradesh is ranked the last with 1.23%. This is World Bank’s first ever ranking of States on the ease of doing business in India. 

 

2. Malcolm Turnbull, a former Liberal Party leader and Communications Minister, became Australia’s fourth Prime Minister in after Tony Abbott lost a leadership ballot by members of his party. The members of the ruling Liberal Party voted 54 to 44 to replace Abbott with Turnball. 

3. Indian Bankers Chanda Kochhar and Arundhati Bhattacharya have been ranked as top two in a list of most powerful women in Asia Pacific prepared by the global magazine Fortune. Kochhar, 53, who heads the country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank has been ranked at the top, up from the second position last year. She is followed by Arundhati Bhattacharya, the chairman of the country's largest lender State Bank of India, whose ranking has also moved up from the fourth spot she was at last year.

 

4. Reserve Bank of India inked an agreement with Nepal Rastra Bank on exchange of supervisory information. The Reserve Bank of India signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 'Supervisory Cooperation and Exchange of Supervisory Information' with the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). RBI has entered into Memorandam of Understanding, Letter for Supervisory Co-operation and Statement of Co-operation with supervisors of a few countries to promote greater co-operation and share supervisory information.

5. The sixth edition of Indo-Maldives joint Military Training Exercise concluded at Pangode Military Station in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala). It was titled EKUVERIN 2015 and comprised of 45 soldiers from the Bihar Regiment of Indian Army and same number of marines from the Maldivian National Defence Force. It was the first joint exercise involving an international contingent to be conducted at Thiruvananthapuram, which is being developed as a Training Node by the Indian Army. The bilateral exercise is held annually, with the aim of enhancing military cooperation and interoperability between defence forces of the two countries.

 

6. President Pranab Mukherjee awarded the Rajbhasha Kirti Award to the Ministry of Railways. The Ministry of Railways received this award for the best work in Hindi during the year 2014-15. On the occasion of Hindi Diwas celebrated on 14th September Ministry of Railways won the award for the best implementation of the Official Language Policy. On behalf of the Ministry of Railways Railway Board's Chairman A.K. Mittal received the award from the President.

 

7. Bollywood actor Anupam Kher has been awarded for his commendable contribution to cinema and art globally in Naveda with the US state's most populous city Las Vegas declaring 10 September as 'Anupam Kher Day'. The 60-year-old veteran actor was presented with the 'Certificate of Excellence' in Las Vegas by Nevada Senator Ruben Kihuen for providing quality entertainment.

8. Renowned mohiniyattam dancer and Padma Sri awardee Kalamandalam Satyabhama passed away. She was 77. A former principal of Kalamandalam, she was accorded Padma Shri in 2014. She was also the first recipient of Kerala government's Nritha Natya Puraskaram.

 

9. Ashok Sridharan, a mayoral candidate of Chancellor Angela Merkel-led Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has comprehensively won the election in Bonn, becoming the first person of Indian-origin to occupy the mayor’s office in a major German city. 49-year-old Sridharan secured the absolute majority by polling 50.06 per cent of the votes election in the former German capital. His victory marks the end of more than 21 years’ rule of the city by the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

 

10. RailTel of the Indian Railways partnered with Google to provide free Wi-Fi services under Project Nilgiri. Under this initiative, free Wi-Fi services will be provided to passengers in 400 railway stations across the country. Users will be able to access high speed internet for the first 30 minutes by using One Time Password (OTP) generated for this purpose. After 30 minutes, the speed will drop and become slow. The project employs Google’s Fiber technology under which the company provides internet services up to a speed of 1 Gbps. Google Fiber was launched in 2010 and the service is available only in the USA.

11. The Centre has decided to provide additional 50 days of work to farmers in drought-hit areas under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme. The decision was taken to provide relief to farmers in view of the deficit monsoon in various parts of the country. At present, 100 days of work is provided to rural job card holders under MGNREGA.

12. India is likely to become the fastest-growing emerging market this year and its potential growth could rise to 8 per cent over the next five years driven by Technology, gains in Education and Ease of doing business due to less red tape, according to Goldman Sachs, a global brokerage firm. Terming these three factors as TEE's, it said that these could be the key drivers of growth and can contribute 3.6 percentage point to GDP growth annually. It forecasted that India's potential growth could rise to 8 per cent over the period 2016-2020 from 7 per cent in 2012-2015, under the new GDP series.