Latest Current Affairs January 18
- Qlik appoints Arun Balasubramanian as new Country Manager for India
Qlik, a leader in data analytics has announced the appointment of Arun Balasubramanian as its Country Manager for India. In his role at Qlik, Arun will be responsible for leading and expanding Qlik’s operations in India.
Qlik’s large and growing footprint includes over 45,000 customers globally. Local customers which harness Qlik’s platform-based approach to derive actionable insights include Bajaj Allianz, Bharat Forge, BookMyShow, HCL Technologies, Mahindra and Mahindra Limited, Mercedes-Benz, and Sitel, amongst others.
- MobiKwik hires RBL’S senior VP Puneet Agarwal as chief risk officer
Issuer-independent digital financial services platform MobiKwik has announced the appointment of Puneet Agarwal as the chief risk officer.
He will be setting-up and managing the risk management framework for the financial services business at MobiKwik, which would involve creating lending policies, risk models and portfolio management strategies to help acquire the right set of customers, and build a profitable and sustainable business.
- Maharashtra announces 1% reservation to orphans in jobs, education
Maharashtra Government has announced 1% reservation for orphans in government jobs and education.
The reservation, termed parallel reservation, will be provided under the general category, which means the government won’t need to increase its caste reservation quota that has already reached 52%. Parallel reservation means, of the total jobs available under the general category, 1% will be reserved only for orphans.
- Maharashtra becomes first state to unveil Public Cloud Policy
The Maharashtra government announced its State Innovation and Start-up Policy, aiming to generate five lakh jobs in the next five years.
It also revealed its public cloud policy, which targets $2 billion opportunity for the industry. For a start, it has asked its departments to shift its data storage onto the cloud.
The Fadnavis government had formed a four-member committee to draft a policy framework on cloud usage two months ago, which submitted a policy document that’s being now adopted as the public cloud policy.
- AP govt signs Mou with Niti Aayog for developing monitoring mechanism
The Andhra Pradesh government and Niti Aayog have entered into an MoU for development of monitoring mechanism, including creation of dashboard and collection of data for improving the performance of 115 most aspirational districts in the country.
An MoU was signed by Mr Ashok Jain, Advisor NITI Aayog and Mr Sanjay Gupta, Secretary, Planning Department of the government of Andhra Pradesh at the District Collectors’ Conference
- India announces $350 million Solar Development Fund
The Central government will set up a $350 million fund to finance solar projects as the country steps up efforts to achieve its ambitious target of adding 175 gigawatts (GW) in renewable energy by 2022.
India will need at least $125 billion to fund a plan to increase the share of renewable power supply in the country’s grid by 2022, underlining the immense financing challenge ahead.
- 10th Global Forum for Food & Agriculture held Berlin
Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is leading the Indian delegation to 10th Global Forum for Food & Agriculture (GFFA) from 18-20 January, 2018 which includes the 10th Berlin Agriculture Ministers’ Conference.
The theme of this year’s event is “Shaping the future of livestock – sustainability, responsibly, efficiently”. The discussions will focus on sustainable and productive animal production among other issues.
- HDFC Bank becomes first Indian bank to cross Rs5 trillion market cap
India’s most-valued lender HDFC Bank Ltd was crossed Rs5 trillion market capitalisation for the first time, making it only the third Indian company to achieve this milestone.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) are the other two companies which crossed market capitalisation of Rs5 trillion. RIL remained the most-valued company with a market cap of Rs5.82 trillion, followed by TCS with a market cap of Rs5.57 trillion.
- SBI ties up with Transfast Remittance LLC for remittance
State Bank of India (SBI), the largest commercial bank in India, has announced tie-up with Transfast Remittance LLC, the USA based payment network since 25 years with a network that covers over 6 billion people across 120 plus countries for inward remittance from the USA to India.
Transfast enjoys a leadership position in the cross border payments industry and offers competitive pricing, fast transfer of funds and personalized customer engagement to notify transfers and other value added services.
- Paytm Payments Bank starts physical debit card delivery
The account holders in Paytm Payments Bank can now order physical debit cards from the Paytm app. Earlier, the bank provided only digital debit cards which are issued to customers upon opening of Individual Savings Account.
The development was confirmed by Paytm and One97 Communication founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma also announced the integration of BHIM UPI on iOS platform. The iPhone users can now create their own Paytm BHIM UPI ID on the app, and link their Savings bank account with it.
- Yes Bank ties up with Amplus Energy Solutions
Amplus Energy Solutions has signed an MoU with India’s leading bank Yes Bank for a strategic tie-up to co-finance projects in the solar energy sector in India.
Yes Bank, which has been focussing on funding green energy projects in India, also announced that it will mobilise USD one billion by 2023 for financing solar energy projects in India and USD five billion till 2030.
The total projects capacity under the partnership of Amplus Energy Solutions and Yes Bank is expected to be up to 1,000 MW.
- India test-fires Nuclear-Capable ICBM Agni-V
India has successfully conducted the “first pre-induction trial” of its over 5,000-km range Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile, which brings the whole of Asia and China as well parts of Europe and Africa within its nuclear strike envelope.
The country’s most formidable missile will undergo one more such pre-induction trial “within this year” before it is inducted into the Agni-V regiment already raised by the tri-Service Strategic Forces Command (SFC) with the requisite command and control structures.
- UK appoints ‘Minister for loneliness’
Britain has appointed a minister for loneliness to take forward the work of murdered lawmaker Jo Cox and tackle the isolation felt by more than one in ten people in the UK.
Sports minister Tracey Crouch will take on the new role, in addition to her existing job, and develop a strategy to address the problem, which research has linked with dementia, early mortality and high blood pressure.
- Virat Kohli named ICC cricketer of the year
Indian captain Virat Kohli was named the ICC Cricketer of the Year at the ICC. Kohli was also named the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year and captain of both ICC Test and ODI teams.
Kohli regained the No 1 spot on the ICC rankings for ODI batsmen with 889 rating points, the best ever by an Indian cricketer.
This is the second time in succession that an Indian won the overall cricketer of the year award. Off-spinner R Ashwin had claimed the honour last year.
It was Kohli’s second gong at the 2017 ICC Awards, with the 29-year-old also being named the ODI Player of the Year. Kohli was also named captain of the ICC Test and ODI teams of the year.
