Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Daily Current Affairs Updates: 7 April 2015

1) M Annadurai took over as director of ISRO Satellite Centre:
--> M Annadurai, Outstanding Scientist and Programme Director, Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS) and Small Satellite Systems (SSS) of ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bangalore, has assumed the office of Director, ISAC on April 1, 2015.
--> He took over as Director, ISAC from S K Shivakumar, who superannuated on March 31, 2015.
--> As Project Director, Annadurai made the most crucial contribution to the realisation of India's first Lunar Mission, Chandrayaan-1, which won many appreciations and awards including the prestigious Space Pioneer Award, 2009.

2) World Health Day observed:
--> World Health Day (WHD) 2015 was observed globally on 7 April 2015.
--> The theme for the year is From farm to plate, make food safe.
--> The theme was selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to bring focus on growing global burden of food borne diseases and underscore the need for coordinated cross-border action across the entire food supply chain i.e. from farm to plate. 

3) IPL 8 Opening ceremony held at Kolkata:
--> Bollywood-style opening ceremony kick started the eighth edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket after a one and a half hour delay (due to rain) at the decked-up Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata on 7 April 2015.
--> Bollywood stars Anushka Sharma, Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar and Shahid Kapoor rocked the IPL opening ceremony with some sizzling performances.
--> The eight skippers led by India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni signed the MCC Spirit of Cricket pledge to start IPL-8 formally in front of Ravi Shastri before they posed for a formal group photo.

4) First bi-monthly monetary policy review- RBI kept rates unchanged:
--> Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan on 7 April 2015 kept policy rate unchanged awaiting clarity on impact of unseasonal rains on food inflation even as he anted banks to pass on benefits of previous two rate cuts.
--> The repo rate, at which RBI lends to the banking system, will continue to be at 7.5 per cent and the cash reserve ratio (CRR), which is the amount of deposits parked with the central bank, will remain at 4 per cent.

5) TRAI recommended '112' as single emergency number for India:
--> A single number '112' can be used for all emergency phone calls across the country including for police, fire and ambulance, telecom regulator TRAI proposed on 7 April 2015.
--> Similar to the '911' all-in-one emergency service in the US, government can integrate all existing emergency numbers such as 100, 101, 102 and 108 into the proposed '112' helpline number, TRAI said in its recommendations on emergency number.
--> TRAI has also recommended that access to emergency facility should not be allowed from mobile handsets or devices which do not have a SIM.

6) Gujarat won Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy:
--> Gujarat cricket team on 7 April 2015 won the 2014-15 Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy played at the KIIT Cricket Stadium, Bhubaneshwar.
--> Gujarat defeated Punjab by two wickets in the final.
--> The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy is a domestic Twenty20 cricket championship organized by Board of Control for Cricket in India, among the teams from Ranji Trophy.

7) Sumit Mazumder is the new president of CII:
--> Sumit Mazumder, Chairman & Managing Director, TIL Limited, has been elected as the President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for the year 2015-16. 
--> He succeeds Mr Ajay Shriram as the new President. 
--> Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice-Chairperson, Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Limited has been elected as Vice-President.

8) Union Cabinet approved release of additional installment of DA and DR:

--> The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi on 7 April 2015 gave its approval to release an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners with effect from 01 January 2015 at the rate of six percent increase over the existing rate of 107 percent.

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