Current Affair 29 October 2015 Updates |Daily GK Download

1. India now ranks 130 out of 189 countries in the ease of doing business, moving up 12 places from last year, according to a World Bank's annual report 'Doing Business 2016'. Going from 142 in the world to 130, as India has done, is very good sign. List is topped by Singapore, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, South Korea, Hong Kong, Britain and the US.

 

2. Manipuri documentary film-maker Haobam Paban Kumar was awarded the first Bala Kailasam Memorial Award (BKMA) for Phum-Shang (‘Floating Life’), a 52-minute film. 

 

3. India’s veteran film maker, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and film critic-author, Aruna Vasudev are chosen for the life-time achievement award to be awarded at the second edition of the International Film Festival of Colombo to be held from November 7 to 11. They had been chosen for having put the Asian cinema on the international map.

 

Current Affair 29 October 2015 Updates |Daily GK Download

4. Jammu and Kashmir will host South Asian Rugby 7’S Championship in 2016. The championship will be held at Jammu and Kashmir's Bakhshi Stadium from 18 June to 20 June 2016.

 

5. USS Lassen, a guided missile destroyer of the US Navy, carried out its patrol inside what China claims as a 12-mile territorial limit around Subi Reef in the South China Sea. China has its artificial island in the area. China’s Foreign Ministry said that the action was illegal and without Chinese permission.

 

6. As per the announcement made by the Polish National Electoral Commission Jaroslaw Kaczynski-led centrist-right Law and Justice party, the PiS, scored an emphatic victory in Polish (Poland’s) parliamentary elections with 37.6% of votes. It is the first time since democracy was restored in Poland in 1989 that a single party has won enough seats to govern alone. He will succeed the outgoing Prime Minister, Ewa Kopacz.

 

7. The Government of India has constituted a committee to recommend measures to simplify the provision of the Income Tax Act, 1961. The ten-member committee will be headed by former Delhi High Court judge Justice R. V. Easwar (Retd), who is a former president of the ITAT.

 

8. The Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launched the e-Sahyog pilot project of the Income-Tax Department to facilitate taxpayers by reducing their need to physically appear before tax authorities. The e-Sahyog project is aimed at reducing compliance cost, especially for small taxpayers. He also inaugurated a drive to provide public service at peoples’ door step by holding “special PAN camps in remote areas”.

 

9. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Thomas Bach announced that all the highly qualified athletes who are refugees will be allowed to compete in the Olympic Games. This is for the first time that refugee athletes will be competing in any Olympic Games. As per the announcement, all the eligible athletes will be able to compete for the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

 

10. Citibank announced that it has appointed Samiran Chakraborty as Chief Economist for India. Prior to joining Citi, Chakraborty was Managing Director and Head of Macro Research for South Asia at Standard Chartered Bank.

 

11. Luxembourg ambassador to the United Nations, Sylvie Lucas was appointed as the Chair of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on UN Security Council reforms. Lucas, who was appointed by 70th UN General Assembly session President Morgens Lykketoft, replaced Ambassador Courtenay Rattray of Jamaica.