Current Affairs Updates - 4th April 2018
Unknown Published on: April 04, 2018
Current Affairs Updates for 4th April 2018 has all the Latest and Current News Report under different sections of National, International, Schemes, Obituary, and Banking. These have been given in bullet points and the headlines has been marked in bold. Some of the noteworthy points can be found in the section Ranking and Indexes and Banking. These are quite important for the upcoming government examinations and can really help one to prepare for such kind of examinations like Bank, IBPS PO, SBI, RRB, RBI, SSC CGL, SSC CHSL and other similar examinations. You may also like the Daily Current Affairs Quiz and One Liner GK and Static Note Down Points.
New Appointments: National
Arun jaitley has been re-appointed as Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha.
Mr Naidu said that the term of Mr Jaitley as member of the Hosue had expired yesterday and now he has been re-elected to the House.
The President of India appointed M L Srivastava, Joint Secretary (Academies), Ministry of Culture as Protem Chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi.
Srivastava will continue to hold the office till a regular Chairman is appointed.
RBI in News
RBI lets banks spread out provisioning for bond market losses over 4 quarters
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday allowed banks to spread out the provisioning to cover losses on their government bond portfolio across four quarters, in a relief for lenders who would have otherwise faced an immediate hit to their bond portfolio due to rising yields.
Banking, Economic & Financial Affairs
Asia Index, a joint venture between S&P Dow Jones Indices and BSE, has launched arbitrage rate index.
The S&P BSE Arbitrage Rate Index will equally weigh long positions in the Sensex and equivalent short positions in the futures contracts
The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), compiled by IHS Markit, declined to 51 in March from 52.1 in February.
Since a reading above 50 indicates growth and one below it denotes contraction, March's figure means manufacturing activity remained in expansion mode.
The Reserve Bank of India dropped Axis Bank from a list of banks it has cleared to import gold and silver in the current financial year that began April 1.
Axis Bank and the Reserve Bank of India were not immediately reachable for comment.
Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank and Bank of Nova Scotia were among the 16 banks allowed to import bullion.
Rankings & Indexes
India ranks 37th in global startup ecosystem in 2017
India ranked 37th in the global startup ecosystem in 2017, according to a report released by global startup ecosystem map Startupblink.
The list, measuring startup ecosystem strength and activity, was topped by the United States followed by the United Kingdom. Interestingly, India ranked below Latin American countries Mexico and Chile which stood at 30 and 33 respectively.
Mukesh Ambani, four other Indians in Bloomberg Billionaires Index's top 100
As many as 24 Indians feature in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index 2018 of the world's 500 richest people.
As per the index, Reliance Industries (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani is the richest person in India with a net worth of 38 billion dollar.
Also, the RIL chief is the third richest Asian as per the list.
E-way bill for inter-state movement of goods rolled out
Nationwide electronic or e-way bill system for inter-state movement of goods was rolled out today, with GSTN officials saying that the platform is working smoothly.
Karnataka is the only State which has implemented the e-way bill system for moving goods within the State.
Ola acquires ticketing app Ridlr to enable mass transit integration
Homegrown ride-hailing major Ola has acquired end-to-end public transport ticketing app Ridlr in an all-stock deal at an undisclosed valuation as it looks at integrating its own services with mass transit infrastructure that exists in cities.
India's direct tax collections for FY 2017-18 at a net of Rs 9.95 lakh crore grew at 17.1 per cent over the previous fiscal
Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the collections had already exceeded the Budget Estimates (BE) figure.
Defence & Railway News
The Indian Coast Guard and the Korea Coast Guard will hold a joint exercise "Sahyog - Hyeoblyeog 2018" off Chennai on April 5.
The joint exercise, named Sahyog - Hyeoblyeog 2018 is part of a proposed establishment of a MoU between the two Coast Guards to improve maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region.
With the aim to help the first-line workforce become more productive, Microsoft enabled digital payments services on its enterprise social network app "Kaizala" in the country.
To begin with, Microsoft has integrated payment services of YES BANK and MobiKwik. Payment integration with Microsoft Kaizala will enable users to quickly send or receive money without having to leave the "Kaizala" application.
Agreements/ MoUs Signed
A Chinese energy conglomerate and SoftBank Group Corp. signed a 930 million dollar agreement to produce and sell solar equipment in India, a country that is trying to bolster local manufacturing and curb reliance on clean energy imports.
Golden Concord Group Ltd. will invest in a 40 percent stake in the joint venture, with Japan's SoftBank taking the rest, according to a March 31 statement from a unit of the Chinese company to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has signed an agreement with the Government of India to provide loan assistance of 8,082 million Japanese Yen (approximately Rs 500 crore) for installation of intelligent transport systems in the Chennai.
The objective of the project under the agreement is to construct an efficient traffic system to meet increasing traffic demands in Chennai Metropolitan area by installing Intelligent Transport Systems and to mitigate traffic congestion and economic growth
Summit /Conference / Events
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman met Russia's minister of industry and trade Denis Manturov and discussed strategies to strengthen defence production cooperation between the two countries.
Sitharaman is on a three-day visit to Russia to attend the seventh Moscow Conference on International Security here. This is her first visit to Russia in her capacity as the Defence Minister
Awards & Honours: Miscellaneous
Guntur doctor wins Natgeo award for physical therapy app
A neuro physical therapist from Guntur has won the National Geographic Chasing Genius Challenge in the U.S. for designing a web/mobile application that helps patients with home exercise programmes in their native language.