01 November 2013: Important Current Affairs Updates

01 November 2013: Important Current Affairs Updates

1)  Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport has opposed the Centre’s decision to privatise six airports, including the recently modernised Chennai and Kolkata airports, this year.

2) Prime suspect in Patna serial blasts died in the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences hospital.

3) AP CM calls for unified State on Formation Day: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Friday expressed the hope that the State would remain united, as it had achieved substantial progress as a unified entity. He unfurled the national flag and took the salute during the main official function to mark the Andhra Pradesh Formation Day at the NTR stadium.

4) Google launches Nexus 5 with Android 4.4 KitKat priced at $ 349: Google launched a new flagship Android phone , a Nexus 5 made by Korean firm LG which runs the latest version of the mobile operating system dubbed 'KitKat'. The phone, which sports a 5-inch (12.7 cm) high definition display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip and an advanced 8 megapixel rear camera, offers up to 17 hours of talk time and is available in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and Korea. It is coming soon to India. The price of the phone starts at $ 349.

5) New Chairman for National Payments Corp: M. Balachandran has been appointed chairman of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), taking over the reins from Infosys’ N. R. Narayana Murthy, who had resigned on July 25.

6) Prime Focus appoints new group COO: Prime Focus has appointed Vikas Rathee, an investment banking and corporate finance professional, as its Group Chief Operating Officer (COO).

7) Chidambaram defends RBI rate hikes: Staving off sharp criticism on the recent rate hikes by the RBI, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, on Friday defended the new RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s policy action. However, he also reiterated that the Government’s stance remained pro-growth.

8) India’s first aerospace park ready for take-off: Country’s first aerospace SEZ is all set to take wings in Adhibatla on the outskirts of Hyderabad. About 20 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and a few big players have committed an investment to the tune of Rs 1,500 crore.

9) MCX Stock Exchange (MCX-SX) has appointed Gopal Krishna Pillai IAS (Retd.) as Chairman and Thomas Mathew T., as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. SEBI has approved Pillai’s election as Chairman. Pillai was in the Indian Administrative Service and retired as Home Secretary to the Government of India. He belongs to the Kerala cadre of the 1972 batch of IAS.

10) Microsoft appointed Gurdeep Singh Pall as the corporate vice president of Skype, a popular and free international voiceover and messaging service and Lync communications product. He will replace the Mark Gillett. Gurdeep Singh Pall, 46, born in Chandigarh. He joined in Microsoft Company in January 1990 as a software design engineer.

11) India and Vietnam signed a treaty for transfer of sentenced prisoners languishing in jails in the two countries.

12)  India and Australia are to hold the 3rd round of negotiations to finalise a civil nuclear agreement that could enable the sale of Australian uranium to India, in Delhi during the week beginning November 25, it was announced on Friday.

13) India won Gold in 18th Asian Archery Competition held at Chinese Taipei. Abhishek Verma, Ratan Singh, Sandeep Kumar forming the compound team defeated the Korean trio of Lihong Min, Yong Hee Choi and Jongho Kim 233-231 to win the gold.