1. Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan kept the repo rate unchanged in Bi‐Monthly Monetary Policy on 1st April since retail inflation still remains 'sticky', but introduced steps to increase liquidity and contain volatility in the money market.
i. Bank Rate – 9 %
ii. Cash Reserve Ratio – 4 %
iii. Statutory Liquidity Ratio – 23 %
iv. Repo Rate – 8 %
v. Reverse Repo Rate – 7 %
vi. Marginal Standing Rate – 9 %
2. The 86th Annual Academy Oscar Awards 2014 –
The best picture award was won by 12 Years A Slave of Steve McQueen.
Best Actor – Matthew McConaughey (Film-Dallas Buyers Club),
Best Actress - Cate Blanchett (Film - Blue Jasmine),
Best Director - Alfonso Cuaron (Film – Gravity).
3. The 61st National Film Awards for 2013 was announced in New Delhi on 16 April 2014 by the Directorate of Film Festivals.
i. Ship of Theseus directed by Anand Gandhi was selected as the Best feature film.
ii. Best Actor – Raj Kumar for Shahid in hindi and Suraj Venjaramoodu for Perariyathavar in Malyalam
iii. Best Actress – Geetanjali Thapa for Liar’s Dance in Hindi
iv. Best Direction – Hansal Mehta for film Shahid
4. The 15th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards 2014 was held in Tampa Bay, US from 23 April to 26 April 2014.
i. Best Picture ‐ Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra‐ Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
ii. Best Direction ‐ Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra ‐ Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
iii. Performance in a Leading Role (Male) ‐ Farhan Akhtar ‐ Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
iv. Performance in a Leading Role (Female) ‐ Deepika Padukone ‐ Chennai Express
v. Music Direction ‐ Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari, Jeet Ganguly ‐ Aashiqui 2
vi. Outstanding Contribution To International Cinema ‐John Travolta
vii. Lifetime Achievement ‐ Shatrughan Sinha
Recommended Books for SBI PO Exam
5. Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha was appointed as 41st Chief Justice of India. He will succeed Justice P.Sathasivam.
6. Justice G Rohini was appointed as the Next Chief Justice of Delhi High Court.
7. Ratan Tata was appointed as a member of the Board of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA). The post is a rare distinction for an Indian in the Chinese government‐backed influential body.
8. R Gandhi was appointed as the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India for a period of three years. He replaced Anand Sinha.
9. India‐born poet Vijay Seshadri has won 2014 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category for his collection of poems “3 Sections.”
10. Ratan Tata received the Knight Grand Cross award by UK Government.
11. Union Government announced that legendary poet and film lyricist Gulzar was selected for the 45th Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2013.
12. Koyal Rana won the 51st edition of the Femina Miss India 2014 crown.
13. Election Commission confirmed Amir Khan as its national icon for the Lok Sabha elections 2014. The other four national icons were A P J Abdul Kalam, M S Dhoni, Saina Nehwal and Mary Kom.
14. India successfully test fired indigenously developed surface‐to‐air Akash missile from at Chandipur Wheelers island Odisha.
15. Admiral Robin K Dhowan took over as the 22nd Chief of Indian Navy. He is a successor of Admiral DK Joshi, who resigned taking moral responsibility of the accident on INS Sindhuratna in Mumbai.
16. India and Nepal started a joint military exercise named Ex‐Surya Kiran Drills VI at Saljhandi in Rupandehi district of Nepal.
17. India is now the world's third largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, ahead of Japan and behind the US and China. This was revealed by the 2011 round of the World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) released.
18. After launching accounts on Facebook and Youtube, SBI took one more step by launching a twitter account.
19. IDFC Ltd and Bandhan Financial Services Pvt Ltd won banking licences, with the Raghuram Rajan's RBI approving permits for only two of the 25 applicants.
20. Reserve Bank asked banks not to levy penal charges on customers who don't maintain a minimum balance in basic savings bank accounts.
21. Ajay S. Shriram has been elected President of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for 2014‐15. He succeeds S. Gopalakrishnan.
22. The RBI‐appointed Urjit Patel panel, in its report, has set CPI target of 8 per cent by 2015 and 6 per cent by 2016.
23. India marched towards establishing its own navigation system when its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV‐C24) put into precise orbit the country’s second navigation satellite, the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS‐1B). IRNSS‐1B will form part of a constellation of the seven navigation satellites. It was the 25th success in a row for the PSLV, after it majestically lifted off from the first launch pad at Sriharikota.
24. State Bank of India has hit the overseas bond market with a dual tranche benchmark issue of 5‐ year and 10‐year maturity to raise up to $1 billion.
25. Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) imposed a fine of Rs.1.77 crore on Reliance Life Insurance for violation of various norms.
26. Supreme Court recognised the transgender community as a third gender along with male and female.
27. State Bank of India launched three digital banking facilities at the customer’s door step using TAB banking; one for customers opening Savings Bank accounts and another for Housing Loan applicants. The third is e‐KYC (Know your Customer).
28. Reserve Bank of India has suggested that banks introduce two stage authentications to ensure security of transactions. The banks have been mandated to issue EMV (card with chip and pin) to certain category of customers and for the others, banks have been given option to either issue EMV cards or adopt Aadhaar biometric authentication as additional factor of authentication.
29. Siddharth, a Hindi film by Indian Canadian director Richie Mehta, was the winner at the Beijing film festival.
30. The small Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is taking on the United States and the world’s eight other nuclear armed nations. The island group that was used for dozens of U.S. nuclear tests after World War II was filing a suit against each of the nine countries in the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.
31. Sunil Gavaskar was appointed as the interim president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) by the Supreme Court. Sunil Gavaskar replaced the present BCCI chief N Srinivasan.
32. The much publicised Inflation Indexed Bonds (IIBs) failed to attract investor interest, either retail or institutional, in the last financial year. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is now planning to launch again this product in a restructured form.
33. Rajiv Takru was appointed as the Revenue Secretary. He will succeed Sumit Bose.
34. Japanese architect Shigeru Ban won the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2014.
35. Govind Mishra, the renowned Hindi author will receive Sarawasti Samman for the year 2013 for his book Dhool Paudho Par published in 2008.
36. The new Corporate Responsibility Regulations notified recently was not applicable to the State Bank of India, but it would comply voluntarily as SBI was created under SBI Act.
37. Khushwant Singh, the renowned author and journalist died. Famous book – Train to Pakistan.
38. A multi-pronged National campaign on Dengue, U & Me Against Dengue, was launched to eradicate dengue across six Indian cities with public private partnership.
39. President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2014 that would pave way for the creation of the State of Telangana, and approved the Cabinet’s recommendation to impose Central rule in the State.
40. Two fund houses of SBI and Axis have filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to start mutual fund schemes linked to inflation-indexed bonds.
41. Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) will celebrate International Women's Day by organising financial literacy camps for women. All the 12 branches of the bank will organise financial literacy camps on March 8.
42. A high-power committee under the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) has been set up to find ways for the banking sector to comply with Basel-III capital norms. The decision was taken at a sub-committee meeting of FSDC chaired by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan.
43. Rakesh Sethi took over as Chairman and Managing Director of Allahabad Bank.
44. Crimea declared independence from Ukraine and applied to rejoin Russia. Nearly 97 percent of voters said “yes” to revert to Russia.
45. Bank of India launched IMT (Instant Money Transfer), which allows cardless cash withdrawal at its IMT-enabled ATMs, a first-of-its-kind initiative by any public sector bank. The sender initiates IMT by providing receiver’s mobile number, four digits sender code and the IMT amount. Monthly withdrawal limit prescribed for IMT transaction is Rs.25,000 for receiver, and per transaction limit of Rs.10,000. IMT, once issued, is valid for 14 days.
46. After having launched its first ATM a year ago, Tata Communications Payment Solutions Limited (TCPSL) which is the first non-banking firm to launch its ATM network or white label ATMs said it plans to roll out 15,000 ATMs across India by June 2016.
47. The Reserve Bank of India extended the transitional period for banks to complete the full implementation of Basel-III capital regulations up to March 31, 2019, instead of March 31, 2018.
48. Government has set up a Tax Administration Reform Commission comprising officials from public and private sector agencies. Parthasarathi Shome is the chairman this Commission.
49. Country's largest lender the State Bank of India (SBI) will sell bad loans amounting to Rs 3,000 crore in the last quarter of the ongoing fiscal to the Asset Reconstruction Companies.
50. RBI has decided to withdraw the pre-2005 currency notes from circulation and asked the holders of such currency to exchange them by January 1, 2015.
51. Harish Rawat was appointed as the 8th Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. He succeeded Vijay Bahuguna.
52. Manoj Vaish took charge as the MD and CEO of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd.
53. Former Supreme Court Justice, Ashok Kumar Mathur was appointed as the Chairman of the 7th Pay Commission. Its recommendation would be implemented from 1 January 2016.
54. M Teresa kho was appointed as Asian Development Bank’s new Country Director for India.
55. Satya Nadella was appointed as CEO of Microsoft. Satya Nadella will succeed Steve Ballmer as the third CEO of the Microsoft firm. Bill Gates is the founder and first CEO of Microsoft. Nadella is the first Indian to head the Microsoft in its 38-year history.
56. Jatinder Bir Singh was appointed CMD of Punjab and Sind Bank.
57. R.K.Tiwari was appointed as the new chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes.
58. Arunima Sinha received Amazing Indian Award. She was awarded for scaling Mount Everest despite being physically challenged.
59. Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour was conferred on cricket maestro Sachin Tendulkar and eminent scientist Prof CNR Rao by the President of India. Sachin became the first youngest and sportsperson to be conferred with the honour of Bharat Ratna. Prof CNR Rao (Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao) is the third scientist who has been conferred with the award. He received the honour after CV Raman and APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India. Rao is recognized international authority on solid state and materials chemistry.
60. Rishang Keishing the oldest Parliamentarian of India decided to retire. He is 94. He joined politics as the member of the first Lok Sabha in 1952 after being elected from Socialist Party. He had served the nation for seven decades. He joined Congress in 1962.
61. Hamid Ansari, the Vice President of India released a commemorative postage stamp in the honour of Maulana Hasrat Mohani who was a freedom fighter and an eminent poet.
62. The Parliament of Nepal elected Sushil Koirala as next Prime Minister of Nepal.
63. Union Cabinet approved the setting up of an Equal Opportunities Commission. The proposal for EOC was made by the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs on the recommendations of the Justice Sachar Committee on Social, Economic and Educational Status of Muslim Community in India.
64. Government increased the workdays under MNREGA from 100 to 150 for tribals from 1 April. Those tribals who have received land rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 will be eligible for additional 50 days of wage employment.
65. Finance Minister P Chidambaram retained the 10 per cent surcharge on those earning over Rs 1 crore annually. The government also decided to continue a 5 per cent surcharge on domestic companies with total annual income of more than Rs 1 crore but less than Rs 10 crore. Those with income exceeding Rs 10 crore will pay a surcharge of 10 per cent.
66. As part of a major reform travellers arriving in India from up to 180 countries can avail of the “visa on arrival’’ facility in the near future.
67. RBI has issued Certificate of Authorisation to Tata Communications Payment Solutions Ltd., Prizm Payment Services Pvt. Ltd., Muthoot Finance Ltd., and Vakrangee Ltd. for setting up and operating white label ATMs. Of these, three have already launched their services.
68. Penguin India has agreed to withdraw American Indologist Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus: An Alternative History from the Indian market following an out-of-court settlement with Delhi-based complainants, who had moved the court alleging “distortion” aimed at “denigrating Hindu traditions.”
69. SEBI Chairman U. K. Sinha has got a two-year extension till 2016 to continue.
70. Lakshmi Swaminthan, who hails from Chennai, has been elected as the President of the Administrative Tribunal of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
71. President Pranab Mukherjee has given his nod for the nomination of P.P. Rao, senior advocate, as jurist member of the selection committee of the Lokpal, the anti-corruption ombudsman, despite objections from Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj.
72. Securities and Exchange Board of India will hike the minimum net worth requirement for asset management companies (AMCs) from Rs.10 crore to Rs.50 crore.
73. Centre has informed the Supreme Court that Kachatheevu could not be retrieved from Sri Lanka as demanded by DMK party president, M. Karunanidhi.
74. The Union Ministry of Tourism has declared Sikkim the best State in the implementation of rural tourism projects.
75. The Union Cabinet approved Odia as a classical language. Now Odia has become the sixth language in the country to get classical language status after Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
76. Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with New India Assurance Company to deliver three unique innovative health insurance policies for women account holders of the bank. The policies — BMB-Sakhee, BMB-Nirbhaya and BMB-Parivar Suraksha — provide customised health insurance package for women.
77. The Uttar Pradesh Government approved the proposal for establishing a tiger reserve in Pilibhit.
78. The Union Government appointed IPS Aruna Bahuguna as chief of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderbad. She is the first woman on this post.
79. Anand Kumar, a mathematician and founder of Super30 classes was conferred with the 2014 Ramanujan Mathematics Award.
80. At the 59th Idea Filmfare Awards, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag grabbed seven awards. Best Actor award was given to Farhaan Akhtar for Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Deepika Padukone was Best Actress for Ramleela. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag won Best Film award, and its director Omprakash Mehra won Best Director award.
81. The Pravasi Bhartiya Divas was organised in New Delhi from 7 to 9 January 2014. The theme for the year was Engaging Diaspora: Connecting across Generations.
82. Expert Committee constituted by Information and Broadcasting Ministry to review the institutional framework of Prasar Bharti has submitted its report. The committee was headed by Sam Pitroda.
83. A panel of Reserve Bank of India led by Nachiket Mor has suggested to set-up specialized banks to cater to the low income households. These banks will ensure that every citizen have a bank account by 2016. It has limited the maximum balance for an individual customer to 50000 rupees.
84. Dhruva-3 was inaugurated by Avinash Chander, DG DRDO in Hyderabad. Dhruva-3 an indigenous High Performance Computing System was designed to solve critical Defence Research and Development applications by DRDO.
85. Tejas, India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) set a new record on 27 December 2013 of flying 500 sorties in 2013. This is the highest sorties achieved in a calendar year so far.
86. Gorakhpur railway station’s platform number one of Uttar Pradesh has entered into the Limca Book of Records as longest rail platform in the world with the length of 1355.40 meters.
87. WHO reported that Pakistan is the only polio-endemic country in the world. Pakistan had 83 polio cases in 2013.
88. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the chief guest of 65th Republic Day parade at Rajpath in Delhi.
89. Army Chief General Bikram Singh took over as the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee (CoSC). He succeeds IAF chief N.A.K. Browne.
90. The Reserve Bank of India extended the time for issuance of inflation-indexed bonds to March 31, 2014, from the earlier date of December 31, 2013. The RBI in consultation with government earlier this month launched Inflation Indexed National Saving Securities-Cumulative (IINSS-C), which was open for subscription between December 23 and 31. “On review, now it has been decided to extend the issuance of Inflation Indexed National Saving Securities-Cumulative till March 31, 2014. The issuance can be closed earlier than March 31, 2014, with a prior notice,” the RBI said in a release.
91. Latvia officially adopted the euro on 1st January 2014 and became 18th member of eurozone.
92. An inter-State committee of Secretaries chaired by Union Food Secretary Sudhir Kumar has recommended that the Central government may share with the States 50 per cent of the cost of distribution of the foodgrains meant for the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) under the recently passed National Food Security Act (NFSA).
93. Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5), powered by an indigenous cryogenic engine, effortlessly put the 1,982-kg GSAT-14 communication satellite into a perfect orbit after 17 minutes of flight. The cryogenic engine is built by ISRO.
94. The Reserve Bank of India allowed Non-Banking Finance Companies to lend up to 75 per cent of the Loan-To-Value ratio of gold jewellery, up from 60 per cent, with immediate effect.
95. On 13th January, it completes three years without reporting any case of polio. It is only the second time in the history that a disease is being eliminated in India through immunisation after small pox in May 1980.
96. Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Girija Vyas launched the Housing Start Up Index (HSUI) logo, web site and monitoring tool called Integrated Urban Poverty Monitoring System for the Rajiv Awas Yojana. The HSUI is a joint initiative of the Ministry’s National Building Organisation and RBI. The HSUI is an index that tracks the number of houses being constructed every year across the country.
97. The Reserve Bank of India will pump Rs.10,000 crore into the market by buying government securities to ease the liquidity situation.
98. The Union Cabinet granted minority status to the 50 lakh strong Jain community, enabling it to avail itself of benefits in government schemes and programmes. This would make them the sixth community to attain minority status after Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis.
99. Uttarakhand became the first State to adopt the provisions of the Lokpal Act with the Vidhan Sabha passing the Uttarakhand Lokayukta Bill-2014.
100. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that it would establish a fund to be called ‘Depositor Education and Awareness Fund’, which would comprise unclaimed funds of depositors. The Fund will be created by taking over inoperative deposit accounts which have not been claimed or operated for ten years.
101. Asia’s biggest botanical garden will come up in Naya Raipur with the Chhattisgarh government initiating work on the ecotourism project.
102. World famous yoga guru, B.K.S. Iyengar, and former chief of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) R.A. Mashelkar have been awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honour.
103. China has overtaken India to become the largest contributor of Foreign Direct Investment to Nepal over the first six months of the current fiscal year, underlining the rising Chinese economic presence — and strategic influence — in the country.
104. K. Prasad Babu, a Greyhounds Inspector who laid down his life combating Maoists in the Andhra Pradesh-Chhattisgarh border region last April was awarded the highest peace time gallantry award, Ashok Chakra, on the occasion of Republic Day.
105. Country’s first Monorail finally made its debut with Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan inaugurating the service in Mumbai. The commercial operations of the 8.9-km first phase started.
106. The term of the 14th Finance Commission led by former RBI Governor YV Reddy is likely to be extended by at least three months to enable it to submit its report by the end of this year.
107. Oriental Bank of Commerce became first bank which introduced the e-KYC (electronic Know Your Customer) facility, which instantly verifies a customer's identity and address proof after the Aadhaar number is keyed in to the system. Last month, private sector HDFC Bank also launched eKYC facility.
108. India Post has drawn a massive plan to install as many as 3,000 ATMs and 1.35 lakh micro-ATMs at the ubiquitous post offices across the country for savings account holders by September 2015.
109. Cyber security sleuths have detected a "black" private information stealing virus in the Indian online banking transactions space and have alerted consumers who swipe debit or credit cards at shopping counters to make payments.
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