Daily Current Affairs Updates: 28 November 2013

Daily Current Affairs Updates: 28 November 2013

1) Sachin Tendulkar becomes UNICEF's brand ambassador for South Asia: Recently-retired batting legend Sachin Tendulkar became UNICEF's first brand ambassador for South Asia and is all set to work in promoting hygiene and sanitation in the region.

2) Tehelka Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhary resigned: Under fire from various quarters, including the media fraternity, for the way she handled a junior colleague’s sexual harassment charge against founder-editor of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal, Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury decided to resign from the post early Thursday morning. She announced her decision to sign out from the weekly magazine through an e-mail to her colleagues.

3) Mahila Bank to open 16 more branches soon: Bharatiya Mahila Bank, the first all-woman bank, plans to open 16 more branches in the next four months. “We plan to add another 16 branches to our network in the next four months,” Mahila Bank Chairperson and Managing Director Usha Ananthasubramanian told PTI. Two branches would be inaugurated as early as first week of next month. These are Delhi and Indore branches, she added. New branches would be coming up in state capitals and Union territories.

4) Ronaldo goals lift Portugal to No. 5 in FIFA rankings: Cristiano Ronaldo's match-winning goals for Portugal in World Cup playoff matches against Sweden lifted his country to No. 5 in the monthly FIFA rankings.

5) Firoz Fatma becomes first woman 'crorepati' of KBC-7: Seventh season of the hit TV quiz show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' got its first female crorepati in the young Firoz Fatma from Uttar Pradesh. Hailing from Saharanpur in UP, the 22-year-old became the first woman to have won Rs one crore in this season of the game show hosted by megastar Amitabh Bachchan.

6) Hazare to observe indefinite fast for Lokpal Bill from Dec 10: Social activist Anna Hazare will launch an indefinite hunger strike for a strong Lokpal Bill from December 10.

7) SBT, SBI General Insurance ties up for affordable health plan: State Bank of Travancore (SBT) and SBI General Insurance today jointly launched an affordable health insurance plan for SBT customers. “SBI General Insurance and SBT today jointly announced the launch of SBI General’s Group Health Insurance Policy exclusively for SBT account holders and their families,” SBI General said in a release.

8) ICICI Bank’s Internet banking crashed for over 24 hours: For the first time, ICICI Bank’s Net banking services were disrupted for over 24 hours giving some anxious moments to customers. The disruption was noticed by customers on Wednesday afternoon when the portal remained stuck with a message that the facility was not available due to some maintenance work, without mentioning any timeframe for its restoration.

9)  TRAI finalizes tariff for mobile banking services:  The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday, released the tariff structure and guidelines for mobile banking services, a step that would help rural customers who do not have access to banks and financial services. The TRAI has prescribed a ceiling tariff for an outgoing unstructured supplementary service data (USSD)-based mobile banking service at Rs.1.50 per USSD session.

10) Neeraj Sahai appointed as President of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services: Neeraj Sahai, Indian-American has appointed as president of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, the world's largest ratings firm. He was appointed by McGraw Hill Financial Company. Neeraj Sahai (56) will assume his new role at Standard & Poor's from 6 January 2014.

11) New insider trading norms in place in ten days: SEBI: To curb the growing menace of insider trading activities in the stock market, regulator SEBI will come up with a new set of norms within next ten days, Chairman U K Sinha said on Thursday.

12) India's GDP to grow at 5.4% in Q2 of FY'14: Assocham: A day ahead of the announcement of GDP figure for the July-September quarter of the current fiscal, industry body Assocham has pegged the country's growth at 5.4 per cent for the period on improved agricultural output.

13) Michelle Yeoh to be chief guest at 2013 IFFI closing ceremony: Malaysian-Chinese star Michelle Yeoh will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony of the festival this year. The 50-year-old actor played Aung San Suu Kyi in the biopic "The Lady" in 2011. This year, IFFI began Nov 20. It will conclude Saturday.

14) Mars mission’s D-day in three days: The first Indian Mars mission began its last orbit around the Earth on Wednesday morning, even as its controllers prepared for the big night three days away. On the night of November 30-December 1, the spacecraft will be finally thrust away from the Earth, and all the way towards the Red Planet, after gathering a total escape speed of around 11.4 kms a second.