Daily GK Updates – 9th June 2015
1. KV Chowdary appointed as new Central Vigilance Commissioner
i. President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed KV Chowdary new Central Vigilance Commissioner.He was appointed 
by President on the recommendation of Select committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and comprising of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh as well as Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge.
ii. He is 1978-batch IRS officer of the Income Tax cadre. He also had served as Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), an apex authority of the Indian Income Tax department. Prior to this appointment Mr. Chowdary was working as the adviser to the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team which is probing black money cases.
iii. VC was set up by the Union Government in February 1964 on the recommendations of the K. Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption.
iv. The CVC is an apex body of Union Government formed to address governmental corruption. It has the status of statutory autonomous body and free of control from any executive authority as per the provisions of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act, 2003.
2. Vijai Sharma appointed as new Chief Information Commissioner
i. President Pranab Mukherjee has appointed Vijai Sharma as Chief Information Commissioner. He will have tenure of for 5 years or till they attain the age of 65, whichever is earlier.
ii. Vijai Sharma is a 1974 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh Cadre. Prior to this appointment he was serving as information commissioner in Central Information Commission since 2012.
iii. He has rich work experience in Administration & Governance and Law & Policy in Central and State Governments and United Nations. He also had served as Environment secretary.
iv. Vijai Sharma’s name for Chief Information Commissioner was finalized on June 1, 2015 by selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and comprising Union minister Arun Jaitley as well as Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge.
3. Indian Railways ink MoU with IIT-BHU for research work
i. Indian Railways has inked Indian Institute of Technology (BHU) Varanasi for research and development work. This MOU is part of Malaviya Chair for Railway Technology, Varanasi.
ii. The MoU was been signed by Railway Board Advisior R K Verma and IIT (BHU)- Director, Professor Rajeev Sangal in the presence of Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.
iii. The pact envisages for upgradation of Railway tracks for High speed trains and developing indigenous raw material for the industry in lines with Make India Programme.
iv. Apart from singing MoU it was also announced to set up Malaviya Chair Committee to supervise research work.
v. The chair is being named after freedom fighter and Bharat Ratna recipient Madan Mohan Malaviya who was the founder of Banaras Hindu University (BHU).
vi. Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu also dedicated 1500th rail engine “Gaurav” for public services from Diesel locomotive works (DLW) at Maduadeeh, Varanasi.
4. ICICI Bank to appoint MK Sharma as non-executive Chairman
i. ICICI Bank board has approved the appointment of M K Sharma as the new non-executive Chairman of the Board for a period of 5 years. MK Sharma was formerly the Vice Chairman of Hindustan Unilever Ltd.
ii. Sharma will succeed KV Kamath, who would step down from the Board to take on a bigger role as the first President of New Development Bank, established by the BRICS nations.
iii. The appointment of the new non-executive Chairman is subject to the prior approval of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and would be effective July 1, 2015 or the date of receipt of RBI approval, whichever is later, ICICI Bank said in a statement.
iv. Sharma was an independent Director on the Board of ICICI Bank for eight years from 2003 to 2011 and is an independent director of several companies.
v. At present, he is an independent Director of two subsidiaries of the Bank, ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company and ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company.
5. World’s first ‘feeling’ prosthetic leg fitted in Austria
i. World’s first prosthetic (artificial) leg capable of simulating the feelings of a real limb and fighting phantom pain was unveiled by researchers in Vienna, Austria
ii. The first of its kind medical innovation is the result of a two-fold process which is developed by Professor Hubert Egger at the University of Linz, Austria. This prosthetic leg was fitted on Wolfgang Rangger who had lost his right leg in 2007.
iii.The new feeling prosthetic leg was rewired to remaining foot nerve endings from Rangger’s stump to healthy tissue in the thigh by surgeons.
iv. Six sensors are fitted to the foot sole of prosthesis which are relayed to a micro-controller and linked to stimulators inside the shaft where the stump sits
v. These small sensor devices measure the pressure of heel, toe and foot movement and send these signals to the brain every time Rangger takes a step or applies pressure
vi. The sensors also tell the brain there is a foot and the wearer has the impression that it rolls off the ground when he walks.
6. Flood of fire written by Amitav Ghosh
i. Booker Prize awardee Amitav Ghosh released his new novel Flood of fire. With the novel, he has concluded the Ibis trilogy, his fictional recreation of the events leading up to the first opium war of 1839-42.
ii. The Ibis trilogy is a work of historical fiction by Amitav Ghosh. It comprises Sea of Poppies (2008), River of Smoke (2011), and Flood of Fire (2015).
iii. The story is set in the first half of the 19th century. It deals with the trade of opium between India and China run by the East India Company and the trafficking of coolies to Mauritius.
iv. It is 1839 and China has embargoed the trade of opium, yet too much is at stake in the lucrative business and the British Foreign Secretary has ordered the colonial government in India to assemble an expeditionary force for an attack to reinstate the trade.
v. Among those consigned is Kesri Singh, a soldier in the army of the East India Company. He makes his way eastward on the Hind, a transport ship that will carry him from Bengal to Hong Kong.
vi. With all the verve of the first two novels in the trilogy, Flood of Fire completes Ghosh’s unprecedented reenvisioning of the nineteenth-century war on drugs.
7. SBI Life launches tablet service to digitise documentation process
i. In a bid to go paperless, SBI Life Insurance today introduced ‘Connect Life’, a tablet-based service to digitise the entire documentation process.
ii. It begins with a built-in need analysis calculator that offers a customer the right products to choose from, filling the proposal form with a facility of paying premium and uploading necessary documents from the tablet.
iii. Distribution partners from all the sales channels of SBI Life can sell insurance products through this facility,” SBI Life said in a statement.
iv. The product brochures and videos help them make an informed choice with recommendations from the need analysis report and SBI Life’s expert distribution partners.
v. The customer can fill in the proposal form, upload his/her documents, instantly pay the premium and be assured of making an informed and right decision, it further said.
8. IIT Delhi ranked best engineering college in India
i. In the recently released EDU-RAND 2015 rankings, IIT Delhi is at the top of the list, followed by the IITs in Kharagpur, Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati, and Kanpur.
ii. IIT Delhi has been ranked as the best engineering college in India while Kolkata’s Jadavpur University leads the pack among government colleges, according to a report.
iii. Kolkata’s Jadavpur University is ranked the best government engineering college in the country, while BITS Pilani occupies the first place amongst private colleges.
9. NCR to now include these 3 new districts
i. Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said the Centre has approved the inclusion of three new districts – Jind, Karnal and Muzaffarnagar – in the National Capital Region (NCR). While Jind and Karnal are in Haryana, Muzaffarnagar is in Uttar Pradesh.
ii. With this, the total number of districts outside Delhi that form the NCR goes up to 23 from the three neighbouring states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
iii. The NCR is India’s largest and one of the world’s most populated regions with over five crore people according to the 2011 census.
10. Anantjeet wins 2 golds at Junior Shotgun Cup in Finland
i. Young marksman Anantjeet Naruka emerged as the country’s star performer by winning an individual gold medal apart from a team gold as India returned with four medals from the 7th International Junior Shotgun Cup in Orimattila, Finland.
ii. Apart from two gold, the Indian team won one silver and one bronze medal. Anantjeet won his medals in the Junior men’s skeet category.
iii. In the individual category, he shot a total of 110 and 12. Along with Angadvir Bajwa and Arjun Mann, he won the gold medal in the Skeet Team Junior with score of 110, 119 and 102 respectively.
iv. Angadvir Bajwa returned with a bronze medal in the Skeet Junior Men category with a total of 119 and 13 respectively. The trio of Akash Saharan, Kismat Chopra and Lakshay with scores of 107, 101 and 99 respectively returned with a Silver medal in the Junior Men’s Trap event.
v. Amongst the women, the most notable performance came from Kirti Gupta who finished sixth in the Trap Junior Women event, after qualifying for the finals with a score of 53/75.
11. Government extends Bank of Baroda interim chief Ranjan Dhawan’s term for 3 months
i. The government has further extended the term of Bank of Baroda’s (BoB) interim MD & CEO Ranjan Dhawan for three months while Bank of India will be headed by its Executive Director B P Sharma for the same duration. Dhawan, the senior-most Executive Director of BoB, was given this additional charge in February.
ii. This extension will take effect from June 8, 2015, and will be valid till the appointment of a regular MD & CEO or until further orders, BoB said in a BSE filing.
iii. The post of a full-time MD & CEO at BoB has been lying vacant since July 2014 when the then Chairman and Managing Director S S Mundra was appointed RBI Deputy Governor.
12. RBI debt recast norms : Banks will be left holding the bag if they fail to find buyers for cost
i. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has permitted banks to take control of 51 percent of stake in a company that has failed to recover financial health even after a period of financial restructuring, typically due to management inefficiency or other factors.
ii. This provision, part of the strategic debt restructuring exercise (SDR), is aimed at ensuring promoters of defaulted companies have more ‘skin in the game’.
iii. The RBI’s move is part of a coordinated action plan with markets regulator, Securities and exchange board of India (Sebi), which in March had allowed banks to convert part or full debt of listed defaulter companies into equity.
iv. Both the RBI and Sebi have made the process easier for banks and become aggressive in taking control of defaulter companies.
v. For companies too, this will offer relief since they will be free from interest payments once the debt is converted into equity. However, such a relief might come at the cost of losing management control.
13. Isro Bags Space Pioneer Award for Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission
i. The country’s low-cost Mangalyaan Mars orbiter mission which is in rendezvous with the Red Planet for an extended period has been presented with the Space Pioneer award for the year 2015 by the US’ National Space Society.
ii. Space Pioneer award for the year 2015 was presented to Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in the Science and Engineering category during the 34th Annual International Space Development Conference held at Toronto in Canada during May 20-24, 2015, Bengaluru-headquartered Isro said on its website.
iii. Scripting space history, India on September 24, 2014 successfully placed its low-cost Mars spacecraft in orbit around the red planet in its very first attempt, breaking into an elite club of three US, Russia and Europe who have successfully undertaken missions to Mars or its orbit.
iv. The Isro spacecraft was launched on its nine-month-long odyssey on a homegrown PSLV rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on November 5, 2013 and had escaped the earth’s gravitational field on December 1.
14. Manchester United Football Club became World’s most valuable brand with 1.2 billion US dollars
i. The Manchester United became the World’s most valuable brand in the World football with 1.2 billion US dollars. Also, it became the first club to pass the 1 billion US dollar mark.
ii. It was revealed in the study titled Football 50 2015 released by the Brand Finance, a leading brand valuation and strategy consultancy.
iii. The United has beaten Bayern Munich and Real Madrid to reclaim their position as the biggest brand in world football.
iv. The Club’s record-breaking deals drive up the brand value which includes UK broadcast deal for Premier League rights commencing from the 2016-17 season worth 7.8 billion US dollars.
v. Manchester United Football Club is a professional football club based at Old Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. It was founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878 and the name was changed to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.
15. Sourav Ganguly: Cricket, Captaincy and Controversy written by Saptarshi Sarkar
i. The book Sourav Ganguly: Cricket, Captaincy and Controversy was written by Saptarshi Sarkar and was published in April 2015 by HarperCollins India.
ii. The biography of former Indian Cricket Captain Sourav Ganguly deals with his cricketing career.In the book, the author throws light on some of the issues related to Ganguly’s career like underrated all-rounder, Lord of the left handers, relation with Aussies, brand Ganguly, etc.
iii. Earlier, two books were published on Ganguly – Sourav Ganguly by Vinod Tiwari and Sourav Ganguly, the maharaja of cricket by Debashish Datta which were published in 2005 and 2007 respectively.
16. Momota and Ratchanok won Indonesia Open Badminton titles
i. Japanese rising star shuttler Kento Momota and Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon won the men’s and women’s singles respectively of the Indonesia Open Badminton tournament.
ii. Indonesia Open Badminton tournament was held at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium, Jakarta, Indonesia. The total prize money at stake was 800000 US dollars.
iii. Kento Momota defeated Denmark’s defending champion and third seed Jan O. Jorgensen 16-21, 21-19, 21-7. Kento Momota is World No.9. This was the 20-year-old’s second victory in a Super series event.
iv. In the women’s singles final, former world champion and world No.6 Ratchanok defeated Japan’s world No.35 Yui Hashimoto 21-12, 21-10. Meanwhile South Korea’s Ko Sung Hyun and Shin Baek Choel beat China’s Fu Haifeng and Zhang Nan 21-16, 16-21, 21-19 in 53 minutes to win the men’s double title.
v. In the women’s singles final, China’s Tang Jinhua and Tian Qing defeated Indonesia’s Nitya Krishinda Maheswari and Grysia Polii 21-11, 21-10. The mixed doubles title went to Xu Chen and Ma Jin, who beat Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei 21-17, 21-16. India’s campaign ended following Parupalli Kashyap’s loss to Momota in the semi-final.
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