Daily gk Update 9 June 2013

Daily gk Update 9 June 2013 , Aaj ka Gk 9 June 2013

Nigeria unveils new visa policy to attract investors, tourists

Nigeria has unveiled its new visa policy mainly to attract global investors and tourists, a government official from the African nation said.

The Nigerian Government has recently approved a new visa policy, which is intended to ease the entry into the country of strategic visitors, especially investors and tourists, who have much to contribute to the national economy," Babatunde Lawal, Director, Macroeconomics Department, National Planning Commission of Nigeria said at a FICCI .

"In 2012, the volume of trade between India and Nigeria was valued at over USD 17 billion, and this trend is expected to be maintained in 2013 and increased in the years ahead, He said.

In 2011, Nigeria had about 30 per cent of the volume of trade between Africa and India. 

The current trends indicate that Nigeria's energy, power, telecommunications, information technology, medical/pharmaceutical, and consumer goods sectors hold considerable appeal for Indian businesses.

FICCI in partnership with the Nigerian law firm of Perchstone & Graeys organised the first India-Africa Business Series on the theme 'Securing Energy for Emerging Market: The Africa-Asia Experience'.

MCX-SX launches debt segment; to begin live trading

Expanding its product basket, the country's newest stock exchange MCX-SX 

launched a dedicated debt market segment and announced commencement of live trading on this platform.

Inaugurating the debt market segment of MCX-SX here this evening, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) Whole Time Member Rajeev Kumar Agarwal said he expects the exchange to make significant contributions in creating a vibrant debt market in the country, thus helping in raising of capital by the companies.

The country's largest stock exchange NSE recently launched its dedicated debt platform, while BSE has also got an approval from Sebi for this segment.

MCX-SX said the new dedicated segment would facilitate trading and settlement in all debt securities on a single platform, in line with the mechanism in place globally in the fixed income markets.

MCX-SX received permission from Sebi to deal in equity and equity futures & options, interest rate futures and wholesale debt segments in July 2012.

K R Kamath Re-Elected as the Chairman of Indian Banks' Association (IBA)

K R Kamath, the chairman and managing director of Punjab National Bank (PNB) was re-elected as the Chairman of IBA for 2013-14 tenure. 

 At the 66th annual general meeting, IBA also elected Aditya Puri, managing director and CEO of HDFC Bank, as its Deputy Chairman. Along with this, the Chairman of State Bank of India (SBI), Pratip Chaudhuri was elected as the Honorary Secretary. 

 It is an association of Indian banks and financial institutions was formed on 26 September 1946. It is based in Mumbai. 

It represents a total of 173 banking companies which are operating in India. 

The objective of the association is strengthening, development and coordination of the Indian banking. It also facilitates various member banks.

Indian Banks' Association is managed by the managing committee. The current managing committee of the IBA consists of a chairman, three deputy chairman, one honorary secretary as well as 26 members.

Serena vs Sharapova in French Open final 

i. Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams will be clash for French Open title on Saturday.

ii. Sharapova, the defending champion, overcame 11 double-faults to win a semi-final shriekfest against Victoria Azarenka, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.

iii. Williams then advanced to her first French Open final since 2002 by dispatching Sara Errani 6-0, 6-1 in 46 minutes of astounding power and precision.

iv. The top—ranked Williams, a 15—time Grand Slam champion, won her only Roland Garros title 11 years ago by beating her sister Venus in the final.

Huga Chavez awarded Venezuela journalism prize 

Hugo Chavez, former President of Venezuela, was posthumously awarded the Journalism prize after a unanimous vote.

Despite being accused of persecuting the press during his 14 year reign, late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was given the country’s National Journalism Prize.

In a statement on Friday, The National Journalism Prize Foundation said that its jury voted unanimously to give Chavez the prize because he gave voice to "the oppressed of the world" and fought a "constant battle against media lies."

Chavez lost his battle to cancer on March 5.

Dhawan’s dazzling ton sets up India’s 26-run win

 Opener Shikhar Dhawan bludgeoned his way to a maiden ODI century as a rejuvenated India kicked off their campaign in the ICC Champions Trophy with a comfortable 26-run victory over South Africa on Thursday.

 Chasing an imposing target of 332, South Africa were all out for 305. The Proteas lost three top wickets for six runs in the group B match in Cardiff.

The star of the show was Dhawan, who made 114 of a mere 94 balls to set the tone for India. The left-hander had scored 185 on his Test debut against Australia in March.

With their third victory in as many Champions Trophy games, India thus keep their all-win record intact against the South Africans.

Kardassis quits Jet; Hameed Ali acting CEO

Jet Airways chief executive Nikos Kardassis has resigned after a five-year stint with the company, and chief operating officer Capt Hameed Ali is the interim chief executive, the airline said.

This was his second inning with Jet. Ever since the airline clinched a stake sale deal with the Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways in the last week of April, whereby it agreed to sell 24 per cent stake for Rs. 2,042 crore, the industry was abuzz with speculation that Mr. Kardassis was on his way out.

The Naresh Goyal-led airline said in a filing to the BSE that Mr. Kardassis resigned with effect from June 5.

Mr. Kardassis returned to Jet on October 15, 2009 as acting CEO after Wolfgang Prock-Schauer quit, and was appointed CEO from May 20, 2010. 

Mr. Kardassis’ first term with Jet started in 1994 and lasted till 1999 and he was instrumental in the restructuring, cost/network management of the airline.

He had also served as senior vice-president, the Americas, for Jet, prior to his appointment as the CEO.

‘Hacking’ sparks row over exam evaluation

Over the past two days, Cornell University student Debarghya Das’ blog post on ‘Hacking the Indian Education System’ has kicked off a debate across the country over the security of data published online and the practice of moderation of marks obtained by school students in board examinations.

The 20-year-old Cornell student extracted large amounts of class X and XII student results from a website that hosted the ICSE results using an automated program. 

Over 1,760 schools are affiliated to the ICSE and more than 1.2 lakh students took the board exams. 

Based on interpretation of the data sets, he raised allegations of large-scale “tampering” of marks by the authorities, ostensibly to maintain a healthy graph on the results.

Information Security experts said what the student did could not be viewed as a major security breach as much as it was exploiting a loophole. 

Anyone with basic programming skills will be able to pull it off,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society.

There are add-ons available on popular internet browers that allow users to read the embedded codes on a website and run programs to mine data.

Debarghya too explained on his blog (deedy.quora.com) that what he did was not illegal. “I did not illegally access any database system. 

All I did was access information that was available to any person who entered a number into the website could access. I simply mined the data.” 

State Bank of India opposes airline licence for new venture of Capt Gopinath

State Bank of India (SBI) has raised objections to the proposal of Captain Gopinath to float a budget airline saying that the company which he had led in the past is yet to repay loans.

Confirming the development, managing Director and CFO Diwakar Gupta said the bank had written to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) registering its objections to Gopinath's proposal.

Promoted by Gopinath, Deccan Cargo and Express Logistics Pvt Ltd which ran Deccan 360, grounded since May 2011, owes about Rs 500 crore to various banks. 

Gopinath, who sold his low cost carrier Air Deccan to liquor baron Vijay Mallya promoted Kingfisher Airlines in 2007, applied for a licence to start another airline in 2012.

Banks have started recovering dues from the carrier and have recouped around Rs 1,000 crore as of now.

"KFA recoveries are going on. We have substantial amount of recoveries. Total recoveries for banks more than Rs 800-1000 crore," SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri had said recently.