25 May 2018 - Daily Current Affairs
Airtel Payments Bank appoints Anubrata Biswas as MD And CEO
- Airtel Payments Bank has appointed ‘Anubrata Biswas’ as its Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
- Earlier, Mr. Biswas was the Joint General Manager and Retail Business Head - South India for ICICI Bank.
- He has a bachelor’s degree in Electrical engineering from Jadavpur University and PGDBM from IIM, Ahmedabad.
Note:
- Airtel Payments Bank was the first payments bank to start operations in India.
- It is a fully paperless and digital bank aiming to take convenient banking services closer to customers by leveraging a vast distribution network of over five-lakh banking points.
Justice CK Prasad appointed Press Council of India chief
- Former Supreme Court Judge C K Prasad has been appointed the chairman of the Press Council of India (PCI) for a second term.
- The Press Council of India is a statutory body with a mandate to act as a watchdog to oversee the conduct of the print media.
- Earlier, Justice Prasad headed the media watchdog for three years from November 2014.
Note:
- The Press Council of India (PCI) was constituted as an autonomous, statutory, quasi-judicial body, and started functioning from 16th November 1966.
- According to the Press Council Act, the council shall consist of a chairman and 28 other members.
Dena Bank, Punjab & Sindh Bank, Central Bank of India get new chairpersons
- The union govt. has appointed non-executive chairpersons at Punjab and Sindh Bank (Charan Singh), Dena Bank (Anjali Bansal) and Central Bank of India (Tapan Ray).
- Charan Singh has served at IMF as senior economist and at Reserve Bank of India as director.
- Anjali Bansal is the founder of Spencer Stuart's India and had worked with McKinsey and Company.
- Tapan Ray has served as Secretary in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
Sushant Singh Rajput to promote Centre's 'Women Entrepreneurship Platform'
- Actor Sushant Singh Rajput will promote two major initiatives of NITI Aayog – ‘BHIM app’ and ‘the Women Entrepreneurship Platform’.
- An agreement in this effect was signed by the actor with NITI Aayog in New Delhi.
- The Women Entrepreneurship Platform was launched earlier this year with a mission to establish a vibrant, enabling ecosystem for women entrepreneurs across India.
Honour & Awards
BRICS forum presents an award to late actress Sridevi
- Late veteran actress Sridevi was posthumously conferred with the BRICS Business Forum Leadership Award for Lifetime Achievement in Indian Cinema.
- Reena Marwah (sister of Boney Kapoor) received the award and memento.
- Earlier, Sridevi was posthumously honored with the 'Best Actress' award for her performance in her last movie 'Mom', at 65th National Film Awards held in New Delhi.
- During her five-decade-long career in films, Sridevi starred in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, and Kannada films.
Nari Shakti Puraskar 2017 presented to members of the INSV Tarini team
- The Union Minister of Women and Child Development ‘Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi’ presented the prestigious ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar 2017’ to the members of the INSV Tarini team in New Delhi.
- The Six-member all-women team led by Lieutenant Commander Vartika Joshi have received the Puraskar.
- The crew of the Indian Navy Sailing Vessel 'Tarini' is a part of the Indian Navy’s unique project 'Navika SagarParikrama'.
CSIR bags Clarivate Analytics India innovation Award 2018
- Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) and Department of Biotechnology (DBT) won Clarivate Analytics India Innovation Award 2018 in Government Research Organizations category.
- IIT Bombay has won the Clarivate Analytics India Innovation Award 2018 in the Academic Institutions category.
- The awards were given in 3 broad categories of namely Government Research Organizations, Academic Institutions, and Corporations.
- The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) is known for its cutting-edge R&D knowledge base in diverse science & technology areas.
National Affairs
Cabinet nod to the ordinance to set up country's first sports university in Manipur
- The Union Cabinet has approved an ordinance to set up the country's first national sports university in Manipur.
- The ordinance will be on the lines of the bill introduced in Lok Sabha (in August 2017).
- Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed to set up the national sports university in Manipur and 100 Crore funds allocated in the 2014-15 budget.
- The Manipur government has already allocated land for the proposed university.
Ministry of HRD launches ‘Samagra Siksha’ scheme
- The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Mr. Prakash Javadekar has launched the ‘Samagra Shiksha’ scheme for school education in New Delhi.
- The Scheme is a paradigm shift in the conceptual design of school education by treating ‘school’ holistically as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary and senior secondary levels.
- Every school will get sports equipment under the Samagra Shiksha, for Primary (Rs. 5000), Upper Primary (Rs. 10,000) & for SSC & HSC schools (up to Rs. 25,000) to inculcate & emphasize the relevance of sports to realize the dream of “Khelega India Khilega India”.
- Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) to be expanded from Class 6-8 to Class 6-12 with the allocation of Rs. 4385.60 crores (in 2018-19) & Rs. 4553.10 crores (in 2019-20).
Science & Defence
India-Nepal Joint Military exercise SURYA KIRAN to be held in Uttarakhand
- Joint Military Exercise between India and Nepal ‘SURYA KIRAN-XIII’ will be conducted at Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand.
- Around 300 soldiers from both Army will share their experiences during the conduct of various counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in the past.
- Exercise SURYA KIRAN is a biannual event which is conducted alternatively in Nepal and India.
- The objective of this exercise is to conduct battalion level joint training with emphasis on counter-terrorism operations in mountainous terrain.
