Today Current News September 2013

Today Current News September 2013
RBI asks banks to allot different product code on dormant account

Reserve Bank today advised banks to allot a different product code in their core banking solution to accounts that were dormant or inoperative for over two years as central and state governments were facing difficulties to transfer social benefits in such accounts.

State and central governments have expressed difficulties in crediting cheques/Direct Benefit Transfer/Electronic Benefit Transfer/scholarships for students, Zero Balance Accounts, into accounts opened for the beneficiaries under various central/state government schemes but had been classified as dormant/inoperative due to non-operation of the account for over two years, RBI said in a notification.


As per RBI directive, banks have been advised that a savings or current account should be treated as inoperative/ dormant if there are no transactions in the account for over a period of two years.

YES Bank raises $225 m using swap loan facility

YES Bank has become the first bank to raise funds overseas using the swap loan facility provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week.

The private sector lender raised $255 million ($180 million and €58 million) by way of dual currency, multi-tenor syndicated loan facility.

A Treasury head of a private sector bank had said that this facility could bring in dollar inflows to the tune of $10-15 billion.

The facility has a maturity of one and two years with majority commitments coming in the two-year tenure bucket.

The loan has been distributed with commitments from 11 banks representing eight countries across US, Europe, Middle East and Australia.

The facility shall be utilised for general corporate purposes and trade finance,” YES Bank said in a statement.

According to the bank: “The recent RBI guidelines on offering swap facility to banks, for their FCY borrowings, at 100 bps below the market rate, will further make the landed rupee cost (or the effective interest rate) of these funds extremely competitive vis-a-vis rupee funds of equivalent maturity.”

RBI, on September 10, had announced that banks can raise funds overseas above 50 per cent of their Tier I capital with a minimum maturity of three years and swap these borrowings with the central bank at a concessional rate for one to three years.

Vikramaditya likely to be delivered in November 

The Navy’s wait for its second aircraft carrier, 45,000-tonne Vikramaditya is likely to end soon as the warship has successfully completed all aviation trials in the White Sea, reports received from Russia said.

A team of 20 officers of the Indian Navy were on board the warship — a retrofitted Russian carrier formerly named Admiral Gorshkov — for observation as fighter jets, flown by the Russian pilots, landed and took off from the deck and performed all other exercises, like touch-and-go, and flight profiles.

The Navy now operates INS Viraat. India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, Vikrant, is being built by the Cochin Shipyard, and it is likely to be ready for commissioning in 2017-18.

Datawind ties up with TES India, an online community of teachers

Datawind has entered into a strategic partnership with TES India, an online community for teachers, to provide a library of ready-to-use teaching material to its end-users.

By making use of this library, teachers and institutions can teach their students free of cost. Content, covering international syllabi, learning materials for courses such as the Bachelor of Arts, B.Com and B.Ed, general awareness and CBSE are among the five lakh volumes available.

The library also has content for children with special needs which will help teachers understand different cases.

This partnership will strengthen the teachers’ community so that they can deliver quality education, which is the need of the hour for young India,” Suneet Singh Tuli, Chief Executive Officer and President, Datawind said.
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ONGC beats Indian Navy 1-0 Durand Cup

ONGC  enter  Durand Cup football tournament final after they prevailed over Indian Navy 1-0 in a hotly-contested second semi-final match.

Striker Henry Ezeh scored the match-winner in the at the Ambedkar Stadium.

Air India, SBI Cards launch co-branded credit card

Air India has tied up with SBI Cards to launch a co-branded travel credit card that seeks to add value to the travel experience of Indian customers.

The offering from this tie-up comprises Platinum as well as a Signature card.

Given the value proposition offered by the new Air India SBI Credit Card, it is going to wipe out all other credit cards in the market and achieve a significant market share in the next few months, said Rohit Nandan, Chairman and Managing Director, Air India.

The new Air India SBI card allows a customer spending Rs 5 lakh in a year to earn up to three Delhi-Mumbai return tickets on Air India.

The launch of this credit card marks the beginning of a new collaboration between the two major public sector entities (Air India and SBI), Nandan added.

State Bank of India is also the leader of a consortium of banks that have helped Air India in its financial restructuring exercise. SBI Cards is a joint venture between SBI and GE Capital.

Speaking at the launch event of the card, SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri said the days of monopoly in various businesses are over in India and both SBI Cards and Air India need to focus on customer delight.

Egypt court confirms asset closed against Islamist leaders

A Cairo court on Tuesday confirmed orders from the Prosecutor General freezing the assets of 14 Islamist leaders who have been referred to trial since the July 3 ouster of former President Mohamed Morsy.

The 14 with Muslim Brotherhood head Mohammed Badie, his deputy Khairat al-Shater and the head of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Saad al-Katatni.

Also covered by the decision of the North Cairo Criminal Court are hardline preachers Safwat Hegazy and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail.


The Islamist leaders face trial on a variety of charges, including resisting the authorities and incitement to murder in several clashes between Brotherhood supporters and opponents.

India, China to go on media co-operation

India and China on Monday agreed to initiate steps to include media co-operation as part of the 2014 celebrations being observed to commemorate ‘Friendly Exchanges’.

This was agreed in a meeting between the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Manish Tewari and Minister of State Council, Information Office, Cai Ming Zhao.

The two delegations it was agreed to “explore possible areas of co-operation in capacity building, co-production agreements related to films, sharing of the experience of institutionalising digitisation in the broadcasting sector and enhanced participation during the film festivals being held in both countries.”

These areas will be identified under the aegis of the working group set up between the two countries. The Chinese minister is on a visit to India to participate in the first meeting of the India-China Media Forum being held in New Delhi on Monday.

Stolen Yogini sculpture returns from Paris

A 1,100-year-old stone sculpture stolen many years ago from Lokhari, a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, and shipped to Paris has returned to India.

The National Museum in New Delhi is planning to celebrate the return of the idol and highlight the menace of illicit trafficking of India’s antiquities by holding an 18-day exhibition from September 19.


the 400-kg stolen sculpture of Vrishanana Yogini, a goddess with a buffalo-shaped head. After his death, his wife Martine Schrimpf donated it to the Indian Embassy in Paris in 2008.

Gujarathi  Indian Grandmasters win in World Junior Chess

Indian Grandmasters Vidit Gujarathi and Sahaj Grover maintained a clean slate, defeating Tomas Laurusas of Lithuania and Vyacheslav Lozhnikov of Kazakhstan respectively in the second round of the World Junior Chess Championship in Kocaeli, Turkey. 

Gujarathi overpowered Laurusas with the black pieces after a positional exchange sacrifice that netted him a handful of pawns in the endgame.

The Nasik-boy made no mistakes in the endgame that turned out to be a one-sided affair. Grover, on the other hand, demolished Lozhnikov in a miniature game out of a closed Sicilian.

Brazil plans to cut from US-centric internet

Brazil plans to divorce itself from the US-centric internet over Washington’s widespread online spying, a move that many experts fear will be a potentially dangerous first step toward politically fracturing a global network built with minimal interference by governments.

President Dilma Rousseff has ordered a series of measures aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following revelations that the US National Security Agency intercepted her communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company’s network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to US tech companies such as Facebook and Google.

Most of Brazil’s global internet traffic passes through the United States, so Ms. Rousseff’s government plans to lay underwater fibber optic cable directly to Europe and also link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a network free of US eavesdropping.


Brazil also plans to build more internet exchange points, places where vast amounts of data are relayed, in order to route Brazilians’ traffic away from potential interception. 

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