Today General Knowledge June 2013

Today General Knowledge June 2013 Business News 25 June 2013

Reserve Bank to be closed on July 1 for account closing

Reserve Bank of India offices in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai will be closed on July 1 for its annual accounts closing.

There will be no settlement of trades on next Monday since the real time gross settlement (RTGS) will be closed, dealers said.

However, trading will continue as banks will remain open.

Committee on indecent depiction of women in media

The Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) has set up a committee to finalize modalities for a media campaign against indecent portrayal of women in mass media.

The committee will be headed by WCD Additional Secretary K. Ratna Prabha and will comprise senior members from the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting among others.

The committee will work towards finalising modalities of a media campaign, through print and electronic media, to instil a sense of respect for women in all spheres of life

The aim of the campaign is to instill respect for women in all spheres of life. 

The committee looking to draw up a national campaign to sensitise families regarding the values of girls, through depicting women achievers, abhor civil practices like female foeticide, dowry, child marriages, etc.

New fastest supercomputer – the Chinese Tianhe-2.

The Tianhe-2 was built by the National University of Defense Technology in China. 

It is the successor to the Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which topped the list of world’s fastest supercomputers in November of 2010.

Tianhe-2 is built entirely with Intel processors. 

It contains 16,000 nodes, which each contain two Xeon IvyBridge processors and three Xeon Phi processors, for a total of 3,120,000 total processor cores. 

John Kerry arrives in India on three-day visit

Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in New Delhi on Sunday onto participate in the fourth round of Indo-US strategic dialogue even as US announced to invest $100 million in India's burgeoning clean energy sector.

Kerry, 69, accompanied by a high-level delegation arrived in New Delhi on a three-day visit, the first one after assuming the charge of the State Department earlier this year.

He will co-chair the India-US strategic dialogue with External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid during which key issues like bilateral trade, defence and security cooperation besides energy and higher education would be discussed.

This investment, through the Agency's Development Credit Authority, is expected to create hundreds of additional megawatts of sustainable energy capacity and will help to advance India's clean energy industry.

During the talks, India will seek from the US information on the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar besides putting across its concerns about the H1B and L category visas  that has raised concerns among the Indian industry, especially the IT sector.

The issue of market access, nuclear liability bill and American National Security Agency's Internet snooping programme are also likely to be discussed.

Hewlett Packard's storage unit wins $4 million deal from India

Technology major Hewlett Packard's storage division has won a $4 million (Rs 24 crore) deal from an Indian manufacturing company, making it the largest ever deal this division has won from the fast-growing Asia Pacific region, according to a senior company executive.

The company had also announced that it would cut some 29,000 jobs by 2014 as part of a large scale organisational restructuring to save costs.

Silver Medal for boxer Manjeet Singh at China Open

The Indian challenge at the third China Open boxing tournament in Guiyang came to an end with super heavyweight boxer Manjeet Singh losing out in the title.

The 21-year-old, making his international debut, did well to go all the way to the final, in the end coming short in the ultimate hurdle. But the burly police boxer put up a sterling show in what was a fight to the finish.

Manjeet, who beat Wang Zhi Bao from China in the semis, was up against another local lad Akepeer Yusuf of the China B team in the fight for the yellow metal.

Yusuf made an aggressive start making full use of his long reach. But Singh, a two time Youth National Championship bronze medallist, displayed some good ring movement and in-fighting to land a few telling blows on Yusuf in the second round

However in the final round, the Chinese boxer was more dominant with his precise attacks which kept the Indian on the back-foot. Manjeet lost on a split decision.

The Indian men's team returns from the event with one silver medal and three bronze medals. Sunil Kumar (52 kg), Ajay Kumar (56 kg) and Jaideep (75 kg) had to be content with a bronze after losing out in the Round of 4.

इंटरनेशनल रोमिंग के लिए BSNL ने किया 4 देशों से समझौता

सार्वजनिक क्षेत्र की दूरसंचार कंपनी बीएसएनएल ने बहरीन, गुआना तथा सउदी अरब के सेवा प्रदाताओं के साथ मई में चार अंतरराष्ट्रीय रोमिंग समझौते किये।

Meeting of the 4th India-US Strategic Dialogue has begun in New Delhi

The meeting is co-chaired by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and the visiting US Secretary of State, John Kerry

Accompanied by a high-level delegation, Mr Kerry arrived in New Delhi last evening on a three-day visit to India. The delegation includes US Energy Secretary, NASA Director, US Military Chief for the Pacific Region and top officials from the State Department and Home- Land Security.

This is Mr Kerry's first visit to India after his appointment as the US Secretary of State.

This is the first high level political interaction with New Delhi in the second term of Obama Presidency and expected to push forward the India-US relationship. 

The issue of market accesss, nuclear liability bill and American National Security Agency's internet snooping programme are also expected to figure in the discussions.

It gives both sides an opportunity to carry out some stock-taking of the relationship since the dialogue last year and also to try and set a new vision for the future.

IIM-K sets new record, over half of 2015 batch will be women

Class of 2015 at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIM-K) will be unlike any other in any other premier B-School in the country - it will have more women than men. 

The other IIMs too have admitted a larger pool of women this year, as ET reported (June 17), but none have managed to run the diversity score this high. 

The top three IIMs, namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta, have 20.8%, 26.8% and 23.2% women in their 2015 batch respectively, as of June 17. 

The admission process in the country's top management schools was recently tweaked to ease gender inequality. 

IIM-K gave 5 extra points to a woman candidate for an interview call, after which all candidates were admitted on merit.

Many others like IIM Calcutta, Rohtak and Udaipur awarded extra marks to women candidates.

Prasar Bharati to get digital wing

Prasar Bharati may get a digital wing to reach out to the increasing number of Internet and smartphone users, if recommendations of a working group formed by the government are accepted.

The working group has said that in addition to television and radio, Prasar Bharati should get a third arm - Prasar Bharati Digital - to connect with new age users.

The government had earlier appointed an expert committee headed by technocrat Sam Pitroda to examine the functioning of Prasar Bharati, which then created 11 working groups to examine various aspects of the public broadcaster.

One of these working groups, which was headed by Pankaj Pachauri, communications advisor in the PMO, had suggested creation of Prasar Bharati Digital.

The sub-committee is learnt to have recommended that Prasar Bharati's digital wing should be authentic, accessible and a highly interactive platform.

In the recommendations submitted to the Expert Committee, the panel has suggested that Prasar Bharati Digital should be set up with a team of 10 young professionals headed by a director and supported by three additional directors

As per the recommendations, Prasar Bharati's digital wing would not only source content from Doordarshan, AIR and other government organisations but also facilitate generation of new streams of content.