Current Affairs - July 12, 2019 Current Affairs

IndiGo was founded in 2006 as a private company by Rahul Bhatia of InterGlobe Enterprises and Rakesh Gangwal.

Byju Raveendran is the founder and CEO of Byju's Classes, the Education Technology firm whose tagline is "Fall in love with learning"

The Delhi government has announced that the Rajghat thermal power plant will be officially shut and turned into a solar park. A 5,000 KW of solar power will be produced at the 45 acre plant site. The coal-based plant, whose current units were commissioned in 1989, has been lying in a shutdown mode from 2014.

Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) rolled out an initiative in the form of a Unique Document Identification Number (UDIN). The main aim is to pursue a heightened sense of self-governance and strengthen the practicing side of company secretaries. UDIN will provide ease of maintaining a register of attestation and certification services. The ICSI functions under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

Fitch Ratings Inc. is one of the Big Three credit rating agencies. Fitch Ratings is headquartered in New York.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation of Government of India is the nodal Ministry responsible for the formulation of national policies and programmes for development and regulation of Civil Aviation.

Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) is hosting a women startup summit on August 1 in Kochi. KSUM is the nodal agency of the state government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.

20% is the percentage of additional tax that the listed companies are liable to pay in the case of buyback of share?

16.7% percentage of the higher education budget goes to IITs, 1% to IIMs, and 2.3% to IISERs.

The market value of the startup stands at $5.7 billion, which makes Byju's the fourth most valueable company in India behind Flipkart, Paytm and Ola.

India have won 4 gold medals in Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships held in Apia, Samoa. Men (Elite and junior): Achinta Sheuli has won 2 gold medals in 73kg event. Junior: Gulam Navi has won gold medal in 67kg event. Junior and youth: L. Sadananda Singh has won Bronze & Gold medals in 73kg event. Women (Elite): Manpreet Kaur has won silver medal in 76kg event. Junior: R. Arockiya Alish has won silver medal in 76kg event.

IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Limited) is an Indian low-cost airline headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 49.9% domestic market share as of April 2019.

Sunil Chhetri, Indian men's football team captain, was named the Men's Footballer of the year 2019 at the All India Football Federation's (AIFF) Awards. He won the award for the third consecutive year. He is also the second-highest active international scorer (70 goals for India) after Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo. In women's category, it was conferred to footballer Ashalata Devi.

Academy was established in 2000 is a cricket facility of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for training young cricketers who are identified as having the potential to represent the Indian cricket team.

The Bharat Chamber of Commerce and the BRICS Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi, signed an MoU for promoting trade and investments between the BRICS countries and the eastern part of India.

Mukesh Ambani -led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) surpassed IT-major, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to become the most valued firm by market capitalization (m-cap). The current m-cap of RIL is Rs 8,11,048.27 crore and that of TCS is Rs 7,99,802.04 crore which is 11,246.23 crores less than RIL. Shares of RIL increased by 2.20 % to Rs 1,279.45 on the BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) and Intra-day it surged 2.55 % to Rs 1,283.85.while the Shares of TCS fell by 2.05 % to Rs 2,131.45. RIL was followed by TCS, HDFC Bank (Housing Development Finance Corporation,Rs 6,50,136.04 crore), HDFC (Rs 3,85,207.96 crore) and HUL(Hindustan Unilever ,Rs 3,76,545.49 crore).

According to the report titled, "Global Prime Office Occupancy Costs survey" (annual report) by CBRE, an American real estate consulting firm, New Delhi's Connaught Place (CP) was the 9th most expensive office location in the world with an annual rent of nearly $144 per sq ft. 6 of the world's 10 most expensive office markets were from Asia. For the second year, Hong Kong's Central district retained the top spot as the world's most expensive market for prime office rents. The prime occupancy costs was valued at $322 per sq.ft. per annum. London's West End was ranked 2nd, followed by Hong Kong's Kowloon, New York's Midtown Manhattan and Beijing's Finance Street.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has formed an internal committee to review timings of different financial markets. It change the timing of the functioning of the foreign exchange market from 9 am to 9 pm. Currently, the currency market works from 9 am to 5 pm. The move is after RBI's consideration to gauge demand and potential benefits. RBI also said that if there is lack of demand from participants, the current market timings for government security markets may be retained. The move is after RBI's consideration to gauge demand and potential benefits. This extension of market timings is expected to provide various benefits like better pricing of post market hours information/data, improved onshore price discovery and a possible shift of offshore volumes to onshore. It is also understood that the extension might entail higher costs to stakeholders.

The 19th Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting was held in London. External Affairs Minister conveyed India's stand at the meet.

Sachin is the only player to cross the mark of playing 400 oneday internationals.

Jeffrey "Jeff" Weiner is an American businessman. He is the chief executive officer of LinkedIn, a business-related social networking website. He started with LinkedIn on December 15, 2008, as Interim President.

Kamala Harris, Democratic junior United States Senator from the State of California (first Indian American in the U.S. Senate and first Jamaican American senator from California); former Attorney General of California and San Francisco District Attorney (first district attorney in the U.S. of Indian descent).

Andhra Pradesh CM Jaganmohan Reddy has announced Rs 7 lakh as compensation to families of farmers who committed suicide in the last five years. His government also plans to make a law that ensures that none but the family of the dead farmer gets this compensation.

National record holder Dutee Chand became the first Indian woman track and field athlete to clinch a gold medal in the World Universiade after she won the 100m dash event in Napoli.

In 'The Commonwealth at 70: From Westminster to the World' book published by the popular London publishers St James House and the History of Parliament Trust, Aditya Birla World Academy, India's leading International school situated in Mumbai, Maharashtra, became the only Indian school to be featured in it. An event 'Commonwealth at 70' which commemorated 70 years of the Commonwealth (Estb April 26, 1949) was held on June 25, 2019 at Westminster Abbey, United Kingdom. It was attended by Mrs. Neerja Birla, Chairperson of The Aditya Birla World Academy. The Aditya Birla World Academy strives to create a cohesive learning environment which helps to develop a child's innate talents.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Sri Lanka had successfully eliminated measles. WHO praised Sri Lanka's achievement in a statement at a time when measles cases were increasing globally.

Coffee Table Book commemorating 50 years of partnership with UN-WFP (United Nation World Food Programme) towards food and nutrition security in India has been launched by Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare along with Dr. Hameed Nuru, Representative, and Country Director, UNEP. UN World Food Programme partnered with the agriculture Ministry to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG ) which includes ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture.

India - Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Troika Trade Minister's Meeting was held in New Delhi for informal consultation on the ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Railways, Piyush Goyal, Acting Minister of Commerce of Thailand, Ms. Chutima Bunyapraphasara, Minister of Trade of Indonesia, Enggartiasto Lukita, Secretary-General, ASEAN, Lim Jock Hoi and Trade Negotiating Committee (TNC) Chair of RCEP, Iman Pambagyo attended the meeting. India emphasized on adherence to the RCEP guiding principles in order to balance high ambition on goods tariff reduction with addressing of sensitives in bilateral pairings between India and China through temporary and permanent deviations/ exclusions.

Singer Taylor Swift has topped the Forbes' Celebrity 100 list and emerged as the highest-paid celebrity with her 2019 estimated earnings of over USD 185 million. Taylor Swift replaced Kylie Jenner. Jenner is now 2nd in the list. India's Akshay kumar is placed 33rd in the list.

A battle between the airline's promoters - Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal - came out in the open recently over the control over the company.

The West Bengal government has decided to launch a special drive to fill up vacant posts at different Government departments. The announcement was made by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the state assembly. Over 33,600 posts of different categories are lying vacant in the state.

World Population day is an annual event, observed on July 11 every year, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues.

Magnus Carlsen of Norway, the world champion, won the Croatia Grand Chess Tour 2019 title against Maxime Vachier Lagrav of France. It was his eighth straight win in the tournament. He earned $90,000 and 20 Grand Chess Tour (GCT) points. The tournament was held from June 26 - July 8, 2019 at Mimara Museum (Opening Ceremony) & Novinarski Dom (Tournament Games), Croatia. Viswanathan Anand of India lost to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan and suffered his second defeat in the Croatia Grand Chess Tour.

Prasar Bharati signed a MoU with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur for research collaboration in newly emerging technologies and broadcasting-related areas in New Delhi.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) signed an MoU(Memorandum of understanding) with National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) to fund large scale projects, including highways in a bid to achieve Prime Minister's vision to make India a $5-trillion economy in the next five years. The MoU meant to form SPVs (special purpose vehicles )to execute the fund arrangement for large size green field road projects to be executed by NHAI. In a major greenfield investment, the two organizations would be investing equity of around Rs 15,000 crores in the Delhi- Mumbai expressway, and can further raise a debt of around Rs 60,000 crores on the equity. The MoU will provide innovative financial models including for the 24,000 km Rs.7.5 lakh crore Bharatmala Pariyojana and it will also boost private investments in a big way to go ahead with the plan of highway expansion.