Daily Current Affairs: 6 November 2013

 Daily Current Affairs: 6 November 2013

1) Swedish Embassy celebrates 100 years of Tagore’s Nobel Prize: Rabindranath Tagore, the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature will be at the centre of celebrations of the Sweden India Nobel Memorial Week in the country. The seventh edition of the week is dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore to mark the centenary of his Nobel Prize in Literature which will be organized by the Swedish Embassy.

2) Nirupama Rao, Indian envoy to the US, bid farewell to her career of diplomacy, as members of the American diplomatic corps and her counterparts from countries like China and Brazil gathered at a reception hosted in her honour by the State Department. She served as India’s Foreign Secretary, External Affairs Ministry’s spokesperson and envoy to important countries like China and Sri Lanka in four decades as a diplomat.

3) India’s Masterchef Tarla Dalal dead: Tarla Dalal, India’s first celebrity chef, who died at the age of 77 in Mumbai on Wednesday, brought the world into Indian kitchens; she took Indian cooking to homes across the world as well.

4) Charkha of Mahatma Gandhi that he used in Yerwada Jail during the Quit India Movement was auctioned in UK for £110000 at England. The charkha of Mahatma Gandhi is about eight decades old.  His last/final will was also auctioned over £20000 for historical documents and artefacts by the Mullock’s Auction house in Shropshire, England. The name of the buyer was kept secret.

5) Mars Mission on track, orbit-raising to begin on 07 Nov 2013: A day after its successful launch, India’s Mars Orbiter spacecraft was functioning smoothly in the Earth’s orbit and ready for orbit-raising operations tomorrow. “Since its injection into Earth’s orbit yesterday, it has been functioning smoothly on the orbit. We are planning to perform orbit-raising manoeuvres in the early hours of tomorrow,” an ISRO spokesman told PTI over phone.

6) Prof Hangloo appointed Kalyani University VC: Rattan Lal Hangloo, senior faculty in Department of History at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), has been appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of Kalyani University in West Bengal for a term of four years.

7) Day 1: India vs West Indies: Shami shines on debut as India take control-  A four-wicket burst by debutant pacer Mohammad Shami rocked the West Indies middle-order as they were all out for 234 runs on the opening day of the first Test against India.

8) Tata Communications has appointed Tri Pham as Chief Strategy Officer of the company.

9) RBI unveils norms for foreign banks to set up wholly-owned units: Foreign banks that want to set up operations in India will have to do so through an independent subsidiary. This means they cannot operate as a branch of the parent bank. The Reserve Bank of India has announced new guidelines with a view to ring-fence the local operations of foreign banks from adverse developments in their home countries.

10) SBI hikes base rate, benchmark prime lending rate by 20 bps: State Bank of India (SBI) has hiked its base rate by 20 basis points to 10 per cent from 9.8 per cent. The country's largest commercial bank has also increased its benchmark prime lending rate by 20 basis points from 14.55 per cent to 14.75 per cent. These changes will come into effect from November 7 (Thursday), SBI said in a filing with the stock exchanges.

11) Prem Narain appointed as Secretary of Ministry of Overseas Affairs: government today appointed Prem Narain as the Secretary of Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry in place of Rajiv Mehrishi, who is now new Fertilisers Secretary.

12) India and China started a 10 day joint training exercise 'Hand in Hand’, aimed at enhancing counter terrorism skills in Miao ergang, China.

13) Jammu and Kashmir Bank has reappointed Mushtaq Ahmad as its Chairman and CEO for a period of another three years.

14) LIC Housing Finance Ltd has appointed Sunita Sharma as Managing Director and CEO with effect from November 5, 2013.

15)  Assamese music director Sher Choudhury passed away on 6 November 2013 at B. Baruah Cancer Institute in Guwahati, Assam. He was 69. Sher Choudhury received National Award for best music director for the Gautam Bora directed film 'Wosobipo'  in 1990.