Daily Current Affairs updates: 29 May 2014

Dear friends..after a short break daily current affairs updates are back. All missed current affairs from 10 may to 28 may will be updated in the coming days. Thanks for all your encouragement and support..looking forward for the same in coming days also. Enjoy reading…

1) Fattah el-Sisi elected Egypt president by landslide: Former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won a landslide victory in the Egyptian presidential election, securing 93.3 percent of the votes cast, judicial sources have said. His only rival, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, got only 3 percent of the votes. He conceded defeat on Thursday after saying the vote was unfair. The Presidential election in Egypt this time was marked by a low voter turnout of around 44 percent even though the polling was extended by one more day. Pro Morsi Islamist alliance led by Muslim Brotherhood boycotted these polls. This was the second Presidential election in three years in Egypt. For the first time in the history of Egypt, elections were monitored by foreign observers from European Union.

2) Reliance Industries Limited to buy Network 18 Media: The Board of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Thursday approved funding of upto Rs. 4,000 crore to Independent Media Trust (IMT), of which RIL is the sole beneficiary, for acquisition of control in Network 18 Media and Investments Limited (NW18), including its subsidiary TV18 Broadcast Limited (TV18) and the Open Offers to be made consequent to the acquisition. NW18 is the owner of a suite of premier digital internet properties, e-commerce businesses and differentiated broadcast content.

3) Ranjit Kumar is new Solicitor-General: Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar will be the next Solicitor-General as Mohan Parasaran resigned following the change of government at the Centre. Mr. Kumar had been counsel for the Gujarat government and amicus curiae in several cases in the Supreme Court. He had represented Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case pending in a Bangalore court.

4) SBI’s Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI’s Chanda Kochhar among Forbes’ most powerful women: State Bank of India Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and ICICI Bank Managing Director Chanda Kochhar are among the five women from India featured in Forbes’ 100 most powerful women in the world, a list topped by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Bhattacharya is ranked 36th on the power list, while Kochhar is 43rd. Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is ranked 92nd on the list.

PepsiCo’s India-born Chief Indra Nooyi is 13th on the list.

Note: Merkel is followed by Chair of the US Federal Reserve Janet Yellen, philanthropist Melinda Gates (3), former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (6), General Motors’ first woman CEO Mary Barra (7), First Lady Michelle Obama (8) and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg (9).

5) International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers observed: The "International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers", May 29, is "a day to pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations for their high level of professionalism, dedication, and courage and to honor the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace.

6) Modi quits Vadodara LS seat, retained Varanasi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today quit his Vadodara Lok Sabha seat, choosing to retain Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP recorded a landslide victory bagging 71 of the 80 seats in the recent elections. Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was also elected from two seats in Uttar Pradesh, has quit from his pocket-borough Mainpuri and has retained Azamgarh. Under rules, a member who has been elected from two Lok Sabha constituencies, has to vacate one of the seats within 14 days of the declaration of result. With Lok Sabha results out on May 16, the deadline was to expire on 29 May 2014.

7)  Rajnath Singh took charge as Home Minister: Rajnath Singh, under whose stewardship BJP has stormed to power with its highest-ever tally, today took charge as the Union Home Minister. The 62-year-old Singh, who was elected from the Lucknow Lok Sabha Constituency, has succeeded Sushilkumar Shinde.

8) Pinaka rockets successfully test-fired: Indigenously developed Pinaka rockets, capable of destroying enemy positions at 40 km-range with rapid salvos, were on Thursday successfully test-fired thrice from a multi-barrel launcher at an armament base in Chandipur-on-sea, near Balasore in Odisha. The rockets, which have undergone several tough tests since 1995, have been already inducted into the armed forces and the present trials were conducted with some improvements in the weapon system, defence sources said, adding some more tests are likely to be held.