WEEKLY GENERAL AWARENESS UPDATES FOR BANK EXAMS

(For the week 23.10.2011 to 29.10.2011)

Sports
India sweeps series 5-0
India's domination of England in the ODI series was
complete at the Eden Gardens. By wrapping up the
final match 5-0 with a 95-run victory, the home team
gave a perfect Deepavali present to the country. India
scored a challenging 271 for eight and stopped
England at 176 in 37 overs. If Mahendrasingh Dhoni
thrilled everyone with his battling pyrotechnics, the
Indian spinners made sure the English were brought
down to earth.

Economy / Business
IBSA plan to accelerate FTA talks
In an attempt to accelerate talks on a trilateral free
trade agreement (FTA), the India-Brazil-South Africa
(IBSA) summit that ended decided to hold an annual
meeting of trade ministers from the three countries
beginning from March 2012. Comerce and Industry
Minister Anand Sharma has offered to host the first
annual trilateral meeting in New Delhi.
Trilateral trade is already close to $20 billion, having
crossed the target set for 2012 three years earlier
than envisaged. India's trade with its trade partners in
IBSA accounts for a majority of this trade.
RBI increases repo rate, loans to be costlier
The Reserve Bank of India increased the short term
indicative policy rate (repo rate) by 25 basis points,
with immediate effect, from 8.25 to 8.5 percent, with
the hope that a further rate hike may not be
warranted as inflation is likely to fall in December
2011. It has also deregulated the savings bank
deposit interest rate with immediate effect.
This is the 13th hike in policy rate since March 2010,
which means the lending rates offered by banks will
go up further. Already all kinds of loans, including
housing loans are costlier.
Repo rate is the rate at which the banks borrow funds
from the Central Bank. RBI Governor D.Suba Rao
said that the price rise continued to be a major
macroeconomic concern. It remained stubbornly high,
averaging 9.6 percent during the financial year so far.
Inflation has been broadbased, and driven by all the
three major groups, primary articles, fuel and power
and manufactured products.
However, the RBI revised downwards the projection
of growth rate for 2011-12 to 7.6 percent from 8
percent announced in the May Annual statement and
the July Quarterly Review.

With the decision on deregulating the savings bank

deposit interest rate, banks are free to determine their
rates. However, the RBI said, each bank would have
to offer a uniform interest rate on savings bank
deposits upto `1 lakh, irrespective of the amount in
the account within this limit. For savings bank
deposits over `1 lakh, the banks can provide
differential rates of interest, if it so chooses.
Coromandel Fertilisers plans greenfield plant
Coromandel Fertilisers, part of the `17,000 crore
Murugappa Group, has announced plans for setting
up a greenfield single super phosphate plant in
Punjab with an estimated investment of `116 crore.
The plant has been finalised in the light of the
balloning prices of the phosphate fertilisers. The 800
tonne per day (tpd) plant, including 400 tpd granulator
plant is expected to be ready within two years,
Coromandel Fertiliser Chairman A.Vellayan said.
9,900 pieces of information on black money
obtained
In his inaugural address at the "Economic Editors"
conference, Pranab Mukherjee the Finance Minister
noted that following sustained efforts to tackle the
menace of black money over the last two years, the
government was successful in creating an
environment where a regular flow of banking
information has started.
In particular, while a huge information network had
been created through amended DTAA's (double
taxation avoidance agreements) with four tax havens,
investigations into transactions by Indians involving
black money based on information received from
different parts of the world were in progress.
Specific requests in 333 cases (220 by Foreign Tax
Division of the Central Board of Direct Taxes and
113 by the Financial Intelligence (Unit) have been
made by Indian authorities for obtaining information
from foreign jurisdictions. Over 9,900 pieces of
information regarding suspicious transactions by
Indian citizens from several countries have been
obtained which are now under different stages of
investigation, Pranab Mukherjee said. Under the EOI
Article of the DTAA with France, India has received
some information regarding Indians having bank
accounts. In 69 cases, the tax payers have admitted
to the unaccounted income of `397.17 crore. Taxes
of `30.07 crore have also been paid.
The revised DTAA with Switzerland the Minister said,
would allow India to obtain banking information from
the European nation in specific cases for a period
starting from April 1, 2011. India's also "constructively"
engaged with Mauritius to update the tax avoidance
treaty in line with international practices.

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Policy paralysis has led to stagflation

In a sharp attack on the Manmohan Singh
government, the Bharatiya Janata Party said "Policy
paralysis" had pushed the country into stagflation - a
combination of inflation and deceleration in economic
growth. Senior party leader and former Finance
Minister Yashwant Sinha said that the government
inaction on the fiscal front was baffling and raised
questions on the possibility of a nexus between
sections of the establishment and the beneficiaries of
inflation.
He made two specific points to buttress his argument
- the government's reluctance to release food grains
rotting in the godown so as to ease food inflation and
a puzzling inaction to stabilise the rupee.
Yashwant Sinha said the sharp depreciation of the
rupee vis-a-vis the dollar was inexplicable considering
that the country had foreign reserves worth $350
billion. He maintained that the Reserve Bank of India
could have averted the rupee's free fall by
intervening.
Banks need to be recapitalised
The Reserve Bank of India said banks would have to
be recapitalised to help them achieve Basel III capital
adequacy norms and would issue a detailed guideline
on the matter by December-end.
Basel III is the new regulatory framework designed to
correct, the deficiencies in regulation that led to the
global financial crisis of 2008.
It seeks higher capital adequacy ratio to meet any
financial exigency. As per the norms, banks are
required to shore up their capital adequacy ratios and
maintain equity capital at 7 percent of risk-weighted
assets.
There are 26 public sector banks, including 8 SBI and
its subsidiaries, at present. Implementation of the
Basel III norms is scheduled to commence from
January 1, 2013, and has to be completed by January
1, 2019.

Significantly, while India's gain in terms of quota

share is the seventh largest in the 14th round of
quota review, in absolute terms it will mean an
increase from SDR (special drawing rights), 5,821.5
million to SDR 13,114.4 million. When the 14th round
of quota review came into force it would result in a
major realignment of quota shares among members
and thereby reflect the global realities.
In keeping with the demand of emerging nations,
including India, for a greater say in the IMF following
their increased economic clout after the global
meltdown in 2008, all the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India
and China) nations will now figure among the
10 largest quota shareholders in the IMF.
Cabinet nod for 15 more mega food parks
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CEA)
approved the setting up of 15 new mega food park
projects in addition to the 15 ongoing projects under
the Infrastructure Development Scheme involving a
government grant of `787.50 crore. The setting up of
the new mega food parks is expected to facilitate
state of the art infrastructure with efficient supply
chain management from the farm gate to retail
outlets. The projects are meant to bring about
substantial reduction of wastage, value addition,
employment generation and increased income for
farmers. Under the guidelines, each mega food park
must benefit atleast 6,000 farmers/producers directly
and 25,000-80,000 farmers indirectly and generate
about 40,000 direct and indirect jobs. The estimated
investment in each project of about `100 crore in
common facilities is expected to leverage an
additional investment of about `250 crore.
An estimated number of 30-40 food processing
industries are to be set up.
The scheme is expected to operate in hub and spoke
model under which there will be farm proximate
Collection Centres (CC) and Primary Processing
Centre (PPC) which will set up cleaning, grading,
sorting, and packing facilities, dry warehouses,
specialised cold stores, including pre-cooling
chambers, ripening chambers, mobile pre-coolers
and mobile collection vans.
Prepayment penalty on home loans to go: RBI

Although banks in India have higher capital adequacy

ratio than the minimum total capital requirement
under Basel III, their Tier-I or equity capital needs to
be shored up to meet the norm.
Cabinet approves hike in India's IMF Quota
The Union Cabinet approved a proposal to increase
India's contribution to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) to make it the eighth largest shareholder in the
multilateral lending agency.
India's quota share at the IMF-will increase from
2.44 percent to 2.75 percent, making it the eight
largest quota holding country at the IMF"

In a move to introduce more customer friendly norms,

the Reserve Bank India (RBI) proposed to notify
banning prepayment penalty on floating rate home
loans, recommended by the Banking ombudsman.
The RBI also linked the short term indicative rate
(repo rates) by 25 basis points to tame inflationary
pressures.
Karaikal Port becomes transhipment port
Karaikal Port Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of MARG, a
leading infrastructure company, took a major step
towards becoming the new container trade gate way
to central Tamil Nadu as the first container from the

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container Corporation of India (CONCOR) reached

MARG Karaikal Port. The train was carrying
containers loaded from CONCOR's facility at
Tondiarpet, Chennai, and destined for various
overseas locations to be shipped out through MARG
Karaikal Port.

Miscellaneous
Qadhafi killed as fighters seize his hometown
Muammar Qadhafi the former Libyan strongman who
fled into hiding after rebels toppled his regime two
months ago in the Arab Springs most violent uprising,
was killed as fighters battling the vestiges of his
loyalist forces wrested control of his hometown of
Sirte, the interim government announced. Al-Jazeera
television showed what it said was colonel Qadhafi's
corpse as jubilant fighters in Sirte fired automatic
weapons in the air, punctuating what appeared to be
an emphatic and violent ending to his four decades
as the self-proclaimed king of kings of Africa.
Libyans rejoiced as news of his death spread.
Residents of Tripoli poured into the streets to
celebrate.
Mohmoud Shammam, the Chief Spokesman of the
National Transitional Council, the interim government
that replaced Colonel Qadhafi's regime after he fled
Tripoli in late August confirmed that the Libyan leader
was killed though he did not provide other details. A
new Libya is born today, he said. This is the day of
real liberation. We were serious about giving him a
fair trial. It seems God had some other wish said the
spokesman.
"Paid news" claims first political scalp as EC
disqualifies MLA
The Election Commission delivered a historic verdict
by disqualifying Uttar Pradesh MLA Umesh Yadav
from contesting again for three years for not including
in her official accounts of expenditure the amount she
spent on advertisements in two Hindi dailies that were
masquerading as news items.
Umesh Yadav is the wife of liquor baron and
billionaire strongman D P Yadav and mother of Vikas
Yadav, the convicted murderer of Nitish Kataria. She
was elected from Bisauli in 2007 on the ticket of the
Rashtriya Parivartan Dal.
The Chief Election Commissioner S.Y.Quraishi and
Election
Commissioners
V.S.Sampath
and
H.S.Brahma-disqualified Ms.Yadav from contesting
any election for Parliament or the state legislatures or
councils for three years, under section 10A of the
Representation of the People Act, 1951, for
suppressing expenditure of `21,250 (the amount
spent for issuing the advertisements) in her election
accounts. The ban will take effect from October 20,
2011. Apart from being the first political victim of the
paid news phenomenon, Ms.Yadav is also the first
sitting legislator to be disqualified for excessive
expenditure.

Formation of new state responsibility of parliament

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna
Advani said a separate Telangana state would
become a reality by January 1, 2012, if Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia
Gandhi took a firm decision and introduced a Bill in
the winter session of Parliament.
LK. Advani said the BJP would extend its full support
if the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) government introduced a Bill for the formation
of Telangana. The process of formation of a separate
state could be completed before the end of the winter
session itself, he said.
Formation of a new state is the total responsibility of
Parliament under Article 3 of the constitution.
As Home Minister in the NDA government, I initiated
the process of forming three new states after the
relevant Bill was passed in Parliament. In respect of
two of these states, I had to ask for assembly
resolutions as their Chief Ministers were opposed to
the division and NDA constituents were not in power
there. So, I asked them to consult the entire political
set up in their states", he said.
Coming down heavily on the UPA-2 government,
Advani said that in the last two years it was paralysed
by indecisiveness and had become dysfunctional. It
had changed its stand on formation of Telangana
within 15 days of making an announcement in both
houses of Parliament, an event unparalled in the
60 years of independent history. People were now
expressing their anger against the government for
deceiving them, he said.
Advani said his party appreciated the sentiment of the
people of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema for a
united state but the BJP favoured smaller states for
the sake of administrative convenience.
Pakistan is not like Iraq or Afghanistan, Kayani
tells Washington
Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Ashfaq Parvez
Kayani asserted the country's nuclear weapon
capability, saying the United States would think
"10 times" before launching a unilateral attack on
Pakistan. And, Director General of Military Operations
Ashfaq Nadeem underscored the threat perception
from India given "New Delhi's cold start" doctrine as
seven out of nine Indian commands and three strike
corps were along India's western border. He pointed
out that 81 percent of the forward and main operating
bases of India were positioned against Pakistan.
Denying that Pakistan was seeking strategic depth in
Afghanistan, the COAS conceded Islamabad's long
term interests. We cannot leave both our eastern and
western borders insecure. About strategic depth in
Afghanistan, Gen-Kayani said history was replete
with instances of failed efforts to do so.

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Osteoporosis least underdiagnosed disease

Longest general strike for a political cause

Osteoporosis remains the least understood and

underdiagnosed ailment. It is often misconstrued for
other diseases like arthritis and spondylitis. Lack of
awareness about the disease has fuelled
misconceptions and misinformation.

The general strike in the Telanagana region of

Andhra Pradesh involving government employees,
teachers and workers of the Road Transport
Corporation and Singareni collieries, was unique as
the employees, for probably the first time in the
country showed solidarity for a political demand of a
separate Telangana State.

On the eve of World Osteoporosis Day, which is on

October 20, orthopaedics and spine surgeons feel
that there is a need for public to be aware of
osteoporosis. There is a huge disease burden of
Osteoporosis in the country. In two years, India will
have 36 million such patients", physicians point out.
Osteoporosis is an ailment in which the density and
mass of the bones decreases leading to fragile and
weak bones. The bones become porous and prone to
multiple fractures even after a slight fall. The ailment
has no signs or symptoms until a fracture occurs,
hence it is often called as a silent disease, physicians
point out.
Lack of proper nutrition, less exposure to sunlight,
sedentary life style and genetic causes are the
reasons for osteoporosis. The condition can be
managed but there is a need for public to be
educated. Physicians also advise public to avoid cool
drinks. Cool drinks contain phosphates. More
phosphate lead to less calcium in the bones. Women
after menopause suffer from osteoporosis. The more
one exercises, the more the body is able to retain
calcium and remain safe from osteoporosis.
Mayawati
Ramesh

regime

abetting

MGNREGS

fraud:

The Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam

Ramesh accused the Mayawati government of
directly abetting in embezzlement of funds meant for
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Guarantee Scheme. The centre intends holding a CBI
inquiry into the fraud ahead of the Uttar Pradesh
elections.
In a letter to the Chief Minister, Union Rural
Development Minister Jairam Ramesh maintained
that criminal conspiracies in four dsitricts were as
scandalous as was the case of the National Rural
Health Mission which the CBI was probing. A massive
scam was reported in the NRMs and two medical
officers were killed.
Expressing his anguish, Ramesh said the
implementation of the MGNREGs was far from
satisfactory. Many serious and, in fact, brazen
violations and cases of deliberate embezzlement of
funds have come to the notice of the Ministry from
time to time.
The state ignored taking action on reports of the
National Level Monitors (NLM) which highlighted
grave irregularities, the Minister said. The state
quality monitor's report on the districts of Sonbhadra,
Mirzapur, Kushainagar and Sant Kabeernagar were
also swept under the carpet.

The strike that began on September 13 would go

down in the history of the state as the third longest
period of employees' strike, after the 38 day long
strike in 1969 and the 56 day strike during the tenure
of late Chief Minister N.T.Rama Rao.
Inflated bill: trustee of Kiran Bedi's NGO quits
Team Anna member Kiran Bedi faced problems from
within when one of the founder members of her NGO
managing her trips quit the trust claiming his
reputation has been tarnished.
Anil Bal, a proprietor of Flywell travel and a trustee of
India Vision Foundation run by Ms.Bedi, said the
activists defence on overcharging her hosts had
conveyed the wrong impression among the public
that he was responsible for inflated invoices after
issuing cheaper tickets.
Ms.Bedi allegedly overcharged hosts by inflating her
travel bills and availed herself of discounts on air
tickets using her gallantry medal. She defended
herself saying she did not personally benefit and that
the money thus saved went to the foundation.
UN tells US to lift embargo on Cuba
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a
resolution to condemn the U.S. blockade of Cuba and
urge America to end its long running embargo against
the Caribbean island country.
The resolution, titled "Necessity of ending the
economic, commercial and financial embargo
imposed by the United States of America against
Cuba", was passed with 186 member states voting
yes, two against, and three abstaining.
The resolution, which is not legally binding urged the
U.S to "repeal or invalidate any such laws as soon as
possible." It was the 20th consecutive year that the
General Assembly has adopted the resolution by an
overwhelming majority of votes to condemn the Cuba
embargo.
INS Kadmatt launched
Built by the Garden Reach Ship Builders Engineers
Ltd, INS Kadmatt is the second in a series of four
anti-submarine warfare corvettes that will be
commissioned into the Navy's fleet.

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The first in the series, INS Karmota, which was

launched last year, is expected to be delivered to the
Navy in June 2012 followed by INS Kadmatt in March
2013. The vessel is 109 metres long, 12.8 metres
wide and can achieve a speed of 25 knots. Named
after an island in Lakshadweep, the ship can
accommodate 17 officers, 106 sailors and will also
carry a helicopter onboard.
"This ship's main role is to protect other ships in the
convoy and sea ports against submarine attack and
to neutralise the enemy submarines using her
weapons like torpedoes, rocket launchers and
helicopter."
The ship had high stealth features making her "more
or less invisible to the enemy above and below the
waters.
The approximate cost of building an Anti-Submarine
Warfare corvette was `1,700 crore.
Rotavirus Infection: India among 5 nations with
high deaths
Close to one lakh children below the age of five years
died of diarrhoea attributable to rotavirus infection in
India in 2008, accounting for 22 percent of the total
deaths reported globally that year, the latest edition of
the Lancet Infectious Diseases magazine has
reported.
Worldwide in 2008, diarrhoea related to rotavirus
infection resulted in 4,53,000 deaths in children
younger than 5 years - 37 percent of deaths
attributable to diarrhoea were from five countries
accounting for more than half of all deaths. The five
countries are Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Introduction of
effective and available rotavirus vaccines in other
countries, mostly middle income or poorer, could
substantially reduce worldwide deaths attributable to
diarrhoea, the paper has suggested.
The authors note their estimate of deaths due to
rotavirus related diarrhoea in 2008 is somewhat lower
than the previous estimate of 5,27,000 deaths in
2004, saying the difference is largely because of an
overall decrease in diarrhoea - related deaths in
children younger than 5 years - from 1.8 million in
2003 to 1.2 million in 2008. Save the Children, a
non-governmental organisation working for children,
said that the efficacy trials on the rotaviral vaccines
were still on in India and till the trials were over there
was little data to prove the efficacy or otherwise of
these new vaccines. Secondly and critically, these
patented vaccines are produced by a handful of
private pharmaceutical companies and are very
expensive. Introducing these vaccines in public health
system will involve huge resources.

Last of cold war behemoths to go

The last of US B53 nuclear bombs, the most
destructive weapon in its arsenal that is about 600
times more powerful than the one that destroyed
Hiroshima, will be dismantled as part of President
Barack Obama's goal of reducing the number of
atomic weapons.
The B53, described as a "high yield strategic
thermonucelar bomb", was first introduced around
1962. The bomb, which weighs about 10,000 pounds
is roughly the size of a minivan. It was deployed at
the height of the cold war and was targeted at Russia.
This was a big part of the cold war strategic plan, of
the USA against the USSR.
The B53s were designed to be dropped from a B-52
bomber as a "bunkerbuster", sending shockwaves
similar to an earthquake through the ground to
collapse deep underground shelters near Moscow
where high ranking officials might be in hiding.
The bomb can burrow underground and destroy
everything in its path. It contains about 300 pounds of
high explosive around a uranium core, has a yield of
nine megatonnes, making it about 600 times more
powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima,
Japan, during world war II.
Secret, desert burial for Qadhafi
Muammar Qadhafi's body was buried overnight in a
secret location after several days of being put on
display in a market freezer.
Qadhafi's remains were buried "overnight in a
religious ceremony" along with the corposes of his
son Mutassim and ex-Defence Minister Abu Bakr
Yunis Jaber. The overnight burials come amid raging
controversy over the circumstances of Qadhafi's
death after he was taken alive during the fall of his
hometown Sirte.
Libya's interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil said that a
commission of inquiry was to probe the strongmans
killing after foreign governments and rights group
raised concerns.
U.R.Ananthamurthy on South Asian Literature
prize shortlist
Distinguished Kannada writer and Jnanpith Award
recipient U.R.Ananthamurthy is among the six
authors short listed for this year's $50,000 DSC Prize
for South Asian Literature. He has been selected for
his widely acclaimed novel "Bharathipura" (translated
into English by Susheela Punitha) which reflects his
lifelong preoccupation with transcending caste and
class interests in modern society.

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Others on the shortlist are Kavery Nambisan

(The story that Must Not Be Told), Chandrakanta
(A street in Srinagar), Usha K.R. (Monkey-Man),
Tabish Khair (The Thing about Thugs) and Shehan
Karunatilaka (Chinaman). Announcing the short listed
names at the end of a two week long DSC South
Asian Literature. Festival, Ira Pande, Chairperson of
the jury, regretted that "some of the terrific novels"
had to be left out.
The winner will be announced at the DSC Jaipur
Literature Festival on January 21, 2012.
Advisory on bitter bottle gourd juice
The Union Health Ministry asked people to avoid
drinking bottle gourd juice if it is bitter. It is consumed
in India for controlling diabetes.
In an advisory to the public and physicians of all
Indian systems of medicine, the Department of
Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy
[AYUSH], said a small piece of bottle gourd (lauki)

should be tasted, before extracting its juice, to make

sure that it is not bitter. Also, it should not be mixed
with any other juice, and medical help should be
sought immediately if one felt discomfort, nausea,
vomiting or any feeling of uneasiness after consuming
lauki juice.
The advisory is based on the report of an expert
committee of the Indian Council of Medical Research
[ICMR], chaired by S.K.Sharma, head of the
Department of Medicine. AIIMS, which was set up to
investigate the safety of consuming lauki juice.
In 2010 a senior scientist died and his wife was taken
ill seriously after they drank the juice of bottle gourd
which was bitter.
As no specific antidote is available, physicians can
manage the patients, putting them on IV fluids and
blood transfusion including frozen plasma to maintain
the haemodynamic and electrolyte balance and for
containing gastrointestinal bleeding.

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