Top
news Based on The Hindu
Third Week of August
1. The Union Minister for Science and
Technology and former Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh passed
away.
2. National Health Mission (NHM) would
be launched by merging the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the
National Urban Health Mission (NUHM). At the community level, outreach services
will be provided to urban poor slums with the help of Urban Social Health
Activists (USHA) — one for every 200-500 households.
3. Urdu litterateur Gopi Chand Narang honored
by Pakistan with Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence), the third
highest civilian honour.
4. The Securities and Exchange Board of
India (SEBI) announced a slew of measures to revamp the capital market by wider
participation of retail investors in the initial public offering (IPO) and
mutual fund industry, including steps to improve the geographical reach of
mutual funds and introducing electronic-IPO.
5. The Prime Minister’s Economic
Advisory Council (PMEAC) projected 6.7 per cent growth rate for the current
fiscal year in its ‘Economic Outlook 2012-13’.
6. The Obama administration has
announced setting up of an institute for manufacturing innovations NAMII
(National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute - based in Ohio), which
will help prevent jobs going to India and China.
7. China’s Wen Xia Yu was crowned Miss
World 2012 while India’s contender, Vanya Mishra, made it to the top seven.
8. The National Stock Exchange emerged
as the world's second- largest bourse in terms of turnover in trading of index
as well as stock futures, according to latest data of the World Federation of
Exchanges (WEF).
9. V V S Laxman retired from
international cricket.
10. Algerian
diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi was appointed the new UN-Arab League envoy for Syria.
He will succeed Kofi Annan, who resigned earlier this month.
11. Gujarat
state Government announced a Comprehensive Ban on Gutka.
12. Cinematographer
Ashok Mehta passed away.
13. The
57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has suspended Syria in a
decision taken in OIC summit meeting in the Saudi holy city of Mecca.
14. Steel
Authority of India (SAIL) will sponsor all medal winners of the London Olympics
for the next Olympics to be held in 2016 at Rio De Janeiro (Brazil).
15. Government
has decided to set up National Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine at the
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium complex in New Delhi to help sportspersons to excel in
international events. The Sports Ministry has also proposed to set up a
training institute at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala.
16. AC
double-decker train flagged off by Railway Minister Mukul Roy from Sarai
Rohilla station to Jaipur.
17. Ecuador
has granted asylum to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
18. The
initial version of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), jointly
developed by India and Russia and tipped to be one of the most advanced in the
world, will be unveiled in India in 2014. It is slated for induction in the
Indian Air Force by 2022.
19. Retail
inflation eased to 9.86 per cent from 9.93 per cent in June CPI (consumer price
index) data released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO).
20. Centre
Government has given an ultimatum to micro-blogging site Twitter to remove
around 30 web pages still carrying inflammatory content such as morphed
pictures and fake videos or face penal action.
21. The Forbes magazine
ranked United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi the sixth
most powerful woman in the world, in its list of 100 women. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel tops the list for the second year in a row. The other four Indian
women in the list are Indira Nooyi (12), Padmashree Warrior (58), Chanda Kochar
(59) and Kiran Mazzomdar Shaw (80).
22. Russia
formally becomes member of WTO.
23. Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, who is in-charge of Space and Atomic Energy, will be
at Sriharikota on September 9 to watch the launch of a Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV-C21) that will put French remote-sensing satellite SPOT-6 and
Japanese micro-satellite PROITERES in orbit. This launch will be the 100th
mission of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
24. 20th
Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavana Award was presented to D.R. Mehta who
popularised Jaipur Foot.
25. IDBI
Bank became the first lender to come out with a floating rate deposit FRTD
(floating rate interest on retail term deposits) product after the Reserve Bank
of India nudged banks to switch to such mode of deposits in July. Country’s
largest lender State Bank of India had, in fact, experimented with such a
product earlier.
26. Public
sector banks across the country were hit as staff and officers launched a
two-day strike protesting against reforms in the sector, outsourcing of
non-core services to private sector and demanding pension revision.
27. London
Olympics silver medalist Vijay Kumar and Bronze medalist Yogeshwar Dutt will be
conferred with the country’s highest sporting honour Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna
Award for the year 2012. Besides, 25 sportspersons will be presented the Arjuna
Awards, the second highest sports award in the country.
28. The
pilotless target aircraft Lakshya-1 was successfully test-flown from the
Integrated Test Range at Chandipur.
29. The
expert group set up under the chairmanship of Prime Minister’s Economic
Advisory Council (PMEAC) chief, C. Rangarajan, to review the methodology of
measuring poverty will submit its report in a year.
30. Ashok
Chawla Committee is related to auction of natural resources.
31. Finance
Minister P. Chidambaram has been appointed as India's Governor on the Board of
Governors of the African Development Bank and African Development Fund in place
of Pranab Mukherjee.
32. Apple
has won USD 1 billion in a massive victory over South Korean giant Samsung in a
patent case.
33. Domestic
rating agency ICRA revised down its GDP growth estimate to 5.7 percent.
34. Delhi
Government launched Kerosene-free Delhi scheme. Under this scheme, over 3.50
lakh households will get LPG cylinder and a gas stove free of cost in the coming
days.
35. Congress
leader PJ Kurien was unanimously elected the Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha.
36. JP
Morgan projected India’s growth rate 5.3 percent for 2012-13.
37. State
Bank of India chairman Pratip Chaudhuri made a strong pitch for the abolition
of the cash reserve ratio (CRR), saying that parking the mandatory funds with
the Reserve Bank without any interest was costing the banking system about Rs
21,000 crore.
38. Reserve
Bank has proposed to conduct field trials of Rs 10 polymer banknotes in five
cities Jaipur, Shimla, Bhubaneshwar Mysore and Cochin. Polymer notes were first
introduced in Australia to safeguard against counterfeiting of currency.
39. India
and Pakistan have agreed to allow two banks each from both the countries to set
up branches across the border. The two Indian banks are State Bank of India
(SBI) and Bank of India (BoI). And two Pakistani bank are National Bank of
Pakistan and United Bank Ltd.
40. Government said the Reserve Bank is scrutinising the "systems" of HSBC Bank
and Standard Chartered Bank related with anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC norms.
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