1 Rijiju unveils world's first philosophical novel on God in Delhi

The book was unveiled by Union Minister Kiren Rijiju in presence of David Syiemlieth,
Chairman, UPSC in august gathering at Civil Services Officers‘ Institute .

For over the centuries, the world has produced many writers, authors and literatuate, who had
penned down their thoughts and ideas of life, history, reality, surreal, and many others. However, it
is rare to have a curator or an originator penning down a philosophical novel for God.

In a rare feat, a young Indian IAS officer, Haulianlal Guite, who hails from country's most remote
areas of Manipur state has recently published a book titled "Confessions of a dying mind: the blind
faith of atheism" in New Delhi.

2 Karnataka Bank Ltd has entered into a distribution agreement to sell the mutual fund
products of HDFC Capital Asset Management Ltd (HDFCAML).

Mahabaleswara MS, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Karnataka Bank, and Rajiv
Maniar, Senior Vice-President and Head Sales (East and South), HDFCAML, exchanged the
memorandum of understanding in Mangaluru on Tuesday.

3 Former Ethiopian Health Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been elected the
new Director-General of the World Health Organisation,

Nominated by the Ethiopian government, Tedros, as he is reportedly known as, will take
charge in July, for a five year term. He takes over from Margaret Chan who in her two-
term stint since January 2007 oversaw global public health crises such as H1 N1 (swine flu) and
Ebola, more recently. The election is the first where all WHO memberstates participated in the
voting process. And from five candidates the list narrowed down to three contenders selected by the
WHO Executive Board in January.

4 Bank of Baroda (BOB) and lFFCO on Tuesday rolled out their first set of co-branded debit
cards for farmers as part of a novel initiative to push digitalisation and cashless economy.

The co-branded debit cards, with inbuilt overdraft of Rs 2,500 in special savings bank
account, could be used for purchase of various agri products at IFFCO sale counters.

P.S.Jayakumar, Managing Director & CEO, Bank of Baroda handed out the IFFCO-BOB co-branded
debit card to 51 farmers of Khurja & Bulandshar (Moradabad/Western UP zone of Bank of Baroda) in
the capital on Tuesday. On the occasion, senior officials of Bank of Baroda and lFFCO including
R.P.Singh, Director (HR & Legal), IFFCO were present.

Two lakh co-branded debit cards will be issued initially to the farmers beginning with the
States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. These co-branded debit
cards will be exclusively used for the purchase of IFFCO products only.
5 Federal Bank, in association with Geojit, has launched a new trading platform called
"Selfie" for customers.

Designed and managed by Geojit, the trading platform will give its users absolute control
over their investments with timely research inputs to make sound investment decisions.
The tablet edition of Selfie for Android and IOS users is available in app stores for
download.

The live portfolio of investments helps users to arrive at quick decisions

6 HDFC Life, one of India's top private life insurance companies today announced the
launch its first life insurance email bot. The Al based email bot, named SPOK is claimed to
be first in India that automatically read, understand, categorise, prioritise and respond to
customer emails that are sent to HDFC Life, within milliseconds.

This automation initiative will enable HDFC Life to respond to user queries faster and
more efficiently and consistently.

7 Karnataka Bank Ltd has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Life
Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India for selling life insurance products of LIC.

8 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Annual Meetings of the African
Development Bank (AfDB) on May 23.

This is the first time in the history of AfDB Group that India would be hosting the Annual
Meetings of the bank. The meetings are to be held from May 22 to 26 at Gandhinagar in
Gujarat. The core theme of the event is "Transforming Agriculture for Wealth Creation in
Africa".

9 Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan was today given additional charge of
Environment Ministry, due to sudden demise of Anil Madhav Dave.

President Pranab Mukherjee, as advised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has directed
that Harsh Vardhan, Cabinet Minister shall be assigned the charge of the Ministry of
Environment, Forest and Climate Change, in addition to his exiting portfolios

Harsh Vardhan is also the Minister of Earth Sciences.

10 India’s leading digital wallet provider Paytm has received a final licence from the
Reserve Bank of India for its payments bank, clearing the way for its launch next week.

“We are in process of launching Paytm Payments Bank on May 23. We recently received
approval from RBI for Renu Satti to be the CEO,” said a spokeswoman for Paytm.
Paytm Payments Bank, which is slated to start operations on May 23, said it will offer 4%
per annum as interest on saving accounts deposits. It will offer five free ATM transactions
(in non-metro cities) per month, post which they will be charged Rs. 20 per ATM
withdrawal.

“The first one million customers to open a Payments Bank account and reach a deposit
Rs. 25,000 will get a cashback of Rs. 250 instantly,” the company said in a statement, adding
that the account will have zero balance requirement and every online transaction will be free of
charge.

Airtel Payments Bank, which started operations in January this year, has announced
introductory interest of 7.25% on savings account while India Post Payments Bank will be
offering an interest rate of 4.5% on deposits up to Rs. 25,000, 5% on deposits of Rs.
25,000-Rs. 50,000 and 5.5% on Rs.50,000-Rs.1,00,000.

Digital payments and e-commerce player Paytm has raised about $ 1.4 billion (rs 9,000
crore) from Japanese internet giant SoftBank in its biggest-ever fund-raising round.

11 FICCI pegs India's 2017-18 GDP growth at 7.4% ---May 15, 2017

FICCI‘s latest Economic Outlook Survey has pegged India's gross domestic product (GDP)
growth at around 7.4 percent for the fiscal year 2017-18.

12 HDFC Life today said it has entered into a bancassurance tie-up with Catholic Syrian
Bank to distribute its individual life insurance products to the private lender's customers.

13 The country's GDP for 2016-17 will get a 50 basis points (bps) push to 7.6 per cent from
the government's estimate of 7.1 per cent, due to the recent revision of the base year of
the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and the Index of Industrial Production (llP), India's former
chief statistician Pronab Sen said.

The base year of All-India WPI has been revised from 2004-05 to 2011-12 by the Office of
Economic Advisor (OEA), Department of Industrial Policy andPromotion, Ministry of
Commerce and Industry to align it with the base year of other macroeconomic indicators
like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Index of Industrial Production (HP).

12 May 2017

14 World Health Organization today appointed legendary Indian movie star Mr Amitabh
Bachchan as its Goodwill Ambassador for Hepatitis in South East Asia Region to boost
awareness and intensify action to arrest the hepatitis epidemic.
15 Vinay Mohan Kwatra, currently a joint secretary in the Prime Minister's Office, has
been appointed as the next ambassador to France.

16 LIC Housing Finance has come up with a new home loan product 'Griha Siddhi'

Under Griha Siddhi, LICHFL has created a special segment for women borrowers for loans
up to rs 25 lakh at an interest rate of 8.35 per cent per annum. For other borrowers, the
interest rate will be 8.40 per cent.

For home loans up to rs 1 crore, the interest rate will be 8.50 per cent.

Loans will be offered for a maximum tenure of 30 years or retirement age in case of
salaried employees, while for other borrowers the maximum term is up to 25 years.

17 State Bank of India (SBI) has announced another revision in service charges with effect
from June 1, 2017. All cash withdrawals through ATM will now be charged at Rs 25 per
transaction. Only RuPay classic card will be issued for free.

SBI clarifies ATM charge hike only for wallet customers

Beyond four withdrawals in a month, the service charges applicable will be Rs 50 plus
service tax per transaction at branch; Rs 20 plus service tax at other bank ATMs and Rs 10
plus serivce tax for SBI ATMs.

Cash deposit through banking correspondent of up to Rs 10,000 (in multiples of 100) will
be charged at 0.25 per cent of the value with a minimum of Rs 2 and maximum of Rs 8
plus service tax. Cash withdrawal through banking correspondent of up to Rs 2,000
(multiples of 100) will be charged at 2.50 per cent of the transaction value (minimum of Rs
6) plus service tax.

Online transfers

IMPS fund transfer charges through internet banking/UPI/ IUSSD will be Rs 5 plus service
tax for amounts of up to Rs 1 lakh; Rs 15 plus service tax for above RS1 lakh and up to Rs 2
lakh; and Rs 25 plus service tax for above Rs 2 lakh and up to Rs 5 lakh.

18 National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has raised Rs 3,000 crore by selling the
rupee-denominated masala bonds that are now listed on London Stock Exchange.

Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari has marked the listing ceremony on Thursday in London
reinforcing the view that the exchange platform is gaining popularity among Indian borrowers.

”Our Government is fully committed to bridge the infrastructure deficit in the country,"
said Gadkari.
19 the government appointed Sanjay Mitra as defence secretary and gave IT secretary
Aruna Sundararajan additional charge of the telecom department.

20 Markets regulator Sebi allowed investors to buy mutual fund schemes for up to Rs
50,000 through digital wallets, making it easier for them -especially the young generation -
to purchase these instruments.

Dena Bank has become the first lender to classify Videocon Industries as a bad loan, potentially
opening a can of worms for the rest of the banking sector, which is already plagued by rising
stressed assets.

Some estimates put the total banking sector exposure for Videocon at Rs 40,000 crore and even if
half of these loans are classified as NPAs it could widen the hole for all lenders who are already
struggling to clean up their books.

21 Banking on the Government's drive to promote a cash-less economy, cashback portal

Cashkaro.com has tied up with YES Bank to launch card-linked offers as part of its loyalty
programme for both offline and online shoppers.

The offer will be currently available on all YES BANK debit cards, and will be extended to
all other payment products of YES Bank in the near future, Cashkaro said in a statement.

22 Keen on creating more awareness about the forthcoming disinvestment issues, the
Finance Ministry has set up an lnvestor Facilitation Platform that will provide information
about stocks of public sector units.

Set up by the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), the
platform will be an interactive forum for all stakeholders, including investors, investment
banks, law firms, public sector units and administrative ministries that are involved in
stake sales.

According to an official, different categories of users will get different kinds of

information. "But the overall objective is to make them more in touch with PSU
disinvestment issues. Investors will get features like price movements, shareholding
patterns and financial results,”

23 Edelweiss Tokio launched India's first and the simplest life insurance product that can
be bought at a point of sale (PoS).

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance recently launched PoS Saral Nivesh the first product to be
approved by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India's (lRDA)
guidelines on point of sale life products.

PoS Saral Nivesh is a non-linked, non participating endowment life insurance plan which
offers both protection and saving.
24 India’s growth is expected to rebound to 7.2% in the 2017-18 fiscal and 7.7% in 2018-19
after disruptions caused by demonetisation, the IMF

24 The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved seven top-level changes in
various public sector banks.

Usha Ananthasubramanian, MD and CEO, Punjab National Bank, has been appointed as
MD & CEO of Allahabad Bank.

Sunil Mehta, Executive Director, Corporation Bank, has been appointed as MD & CEO of
Punjab National Bank.

The committee has also approved the appointment of Dinabandhu Mohapatra, Executive
Director at Canara Bank, as MD and CEO of Bank of India.

G Rajkiran Rai, Executive Director at Oriental Bank of Commerce, has been appointed MD
& CEO of Union Bank of India, for a period of three years with effect from July 1.

R Subramaniakumar, Executive Director, Indian Overseas Bank, has been elevated as MD

& CEO of the Indian Overseas bank.

RA Sankara Narayanan, ED, Bank of India, has been appointed MD & CEO of Vijaya Bank
with effect from September 1.

MO Rego, MD & CEO of Bank of India, has been appointed MD & CEO of Syndicate Bank
with immediate effect.

25 The promulgation of Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 will lead to

effective resolution of stressed assets, particularly in consortium or multiple banking
arrangements

The Ordinance enables the Union Government to authorize the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) to direct banking companies to resolve specific stressed assets

The promulgation of the Banking Regulation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017 inserting two
new Sections (viz. 35AA and 35AB) after Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949
enables the Union Government to authorize the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to direct
banking companies to resolve specific stressed assets by initiating insolvency resolution
process, where required

26 Reliance Corporate IT Park (RCITPL) on Wednesday said it has signed a Memorandum

of Understanding (MoU) with enterprise application software major SAP SE to launch
'SARAL GST solution for taxpayers.
According to the subsidiary of Reliance Industries, the new offering will enable taxpayers
to be GST compliant and smoothly access the government's GST System, once GST is rolled
out from July 1, 2017.

The company said SARAL GST will leverage the expertise of RCITPL as GST Suvidha Provider (GSP)
and SAP as Application Service Provider (ASP).

The SARAL GST envisages RCITPL to connect ASPs to the government's GST system through jio MPLS
network. Further, SAP, in its role as ASP, will enable taxpayers to effectively create, manage and file
GST

27 The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) constitutes Technical Committee
to lay down Technical Standards for the performance of core services and other services
under IBBI (Information Utilities) Regulations, 2017

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has constituted a Technical
Committee in accordance with Regulation 14 of the IBBI (Information Utilities)
Regulations, 2017

Dr. R. B. Barman (Chairman, National Statistical Commission) - Chairperson

28 Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh have emerged as the cleanest cities in the
country as per a massive cleanliness survey commissioned by the Union Urban
Development Ministry.

The dirtiest city, according to the survey, is Gonda in Uttar Pradesh.

The survey, Swachh Survekshan-2017, was carried out by the Quality Council of India
across 434 cities and includes the feedback of 18 lakh respondents. The results were
announced by Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu.

The top 10 cleanest cities are Indore, Bhopal, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Mysuru, Tiruchi,
Delhi’s New Delhi Municipal Council area, Navi Mumbai, Tirupati and Vadodara,
respectively.

29 China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank today approved USD 160

million loan for a power project in Andhra Pradesh, the first credit from the bank for an
Indian project.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), in which India is the second largest
shareholder after China, has approved the project with the objective to strengthen the
power transmission and distribution system in Andhra Pradesh, said a bank statement.
30 India to clock 7.1% GDP this year, 7.5% in 2018 : UN

India is expected to clock 7.1 per cent growth this year before edging up to 7.5 per cent in
2018, according to a UN report, which warned that the country faces heightened risks
related to the concentration of bad loans in the public sector banks.

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said in its annual flagship
report 'The Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2017’ launched yesterday that the
economic growth for India is projected to be stable at 7.1 per cent in 2017 before edging up to 7.5
per cent in 2018, underpinned by higher private and public consumption and increased
infrastructure spending.

31 Indian economy likely to grow at 7.2% this fiscal: World Bank

The World Bank expects India’s economy to expand at 7.2 per cent this fiscal, but said that
the note ban temporarily disrupted growth last fiscal, which slowed to an estimated 6.8
per cent.

"India's economy was slowing down in early 2016-17, until the favourable monsoon started lifting
the economy, but the recovery was temporarily disrupted by the government’s ‘demonetisation’
initiative," it said in its India Development Update released on Monday.

The report comes ahead of the release of provisional estimates of national income for
2016-17 by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on May 31. The CS0, in its advance
estimates, had pegged GDP growth at 7.1 per cent in 2016-17.

The World Bank had in January scaled down India‘s growth forecast to 7 per cent for 2016-17 and
had estimated growth to rebound in 2017-18 to 7.6 per cent.

32 Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge is the new chairman of the 21 member Public
Accounts Committee of Parliament.

33 Madhya Pradesh today became the first state to announce shifting of its financial year
format to January-December from the present April-March cycle.

The decision comes close on the heels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi making a pitch for shifting
the fiscal year to January-December period during NITI Aayog's governing council meet in the
national capital recently.

"The state cabinet in its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today
decided to shift the fiscal year January to December. S0, now the budget session of the
next FY would be held in December-January," state Public Relations Minister Narottam
Mishra told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

34 Mr. Anthony Lianzuala took over as the New Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in
national capital here today. Earlier, the Government of India had appointed Mr. Anthony
Lianzuala, a 1982-batch Indian Civil Accounts Service (ICAS) Officer, as the new Controller
General of Accounts (CGA), Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance with effect
from May 1, 2017. He will be the First person from the North-Eastern Region to hold this
position.

35 Country's first digitalised Panchayat ward in kerala

AYMANAM

36 The government has expanded the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) headed by former
comptroller and auditor general Vinod Rai by adding two more members.

Former Allahabad Bank chairperson and managing director Shubhalaxmi Panse and
private equity player Pradip Shah have been inducted into the board as independent
members

37 The Employees Provident Fund Organisation has approved hike in investment limit in
exchange traded funds (ETFs) to 15 per cent, from the existing 10 per cent, according to
Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya.

38 Actor Priyanka Chopra will be honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Award
for being an international icon.

39 The Government has selected five merchant bankers, including Goldman Sachs and
Citigroup, to manage the government’s 3 per cent stake sale in IOC which could fetch
about Rs 6,000 crore to the exchequer.

The other bankers who have been selected by the Department of Investment and Public
Asset Management (DIPAM) for managing the stake sale are Deutsche Equities, SBI Capital
Markets and ICICI Securities, sources said.

As many as 10 merchant bankers had made presentations before the DIPAM yesterday, out of which
five were selected.

Other merchant bankers who were vying for the job include Axis Capital, Kotak Investment, Nomura
Financial, Edelweiss Financial and IDFC Bank.

40 Indian Oil Corp has overtaken Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) to become India’s most
profitable state-owned company.

IOC, which has for decades been India's biggest company by turnover, posted a 70 per
cent jump in net profit to Rs 19,106.40 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2017.

This was more than the Rs 17,900 crore net profit ONGC posted in the 2016-17 fiscal, making IOC the
most profitable PSU, according to earning statements of the companies.
41 President of India receives books 'Mann Ki Baat: a social revolution on radio' and
‘marching with a billion analysing Narendra Modi’s government at Mid Term'

The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee received the first copies of books ‘Mann Ki
Baat: A Social Revolution on Radio’ and 'Marching with a BillionAnalysing Narendra
Modi’s Government at Midterm' from Smt. Sumitra Mahajan, Speaker Lok Sabha who
formally released these books at a function at Rashtrapati Bhavan today in the presence
of Mohd. Hamid Ansari, Vice President of India, Shri Arun Jaitley, Union Minister of
Finance and Defence and other dignitaries.

42 Two Indian cities Mumbai and Kota have been named among the world's most
crowded in a list topped by Dhaka, said World Economic Forum (WEF) citing UN Habitat
data.

With a population density of 44,500 people per square kilometre, Dhaka, the capital of
Bangladesh, is the most crowded city on the planet, followed by India’s financial capital
Mumbai, home to 31,700 people per square kilometre at the second place.

Kota in Rajasthan with 12,100 people per square kilometre was ranked seventh.

43 Winning like Virat: Think & Succeed like Kohli

Abhirup Bhattacharya