Current Affairs Updates: 18 October 2014

Written By Admin on October 20, 2014 | Monday, October 20, 2014

1) Union Cabinet deregulated diesel price, approves new gas price formula: In much-awaited reform, the government on Saturday deregulated diesel prices, a move that will result in cut of Rs 3.37 per litre in diesel price. Finance minister Arun Jaitely said the Cabinet in its meeting decided to deregulate or free diesel prices. As a result, retail diesel rates will now reflect international movement in oil prices. This is the first reduction in diesel rates in over five years. Diesel rates were last cut on January 29, 2009 when they were reduced by Rs 2 a litre to Rs 30.86.

2) Karur Vysya Bank gets IDRBT award: Karur Vysya Bank has bagged the Best Bank Award for Business Intelligence Initiatives among small banks. The bank's Managing Director and Chief Executive, K Venkataraman, received the award from the Governor of Reserve Bank of India, Raghuram G Rajan. The IDRBT(Institute for Development and Research in Banking) Banking Technology Excellence award is for 2013-14. IDRBT has recognised KVB for this award for the sixth year in a row. 

3) New Twitter feature allows users to listen to music: Twitter will now allow users to play podcasts, music and other audio clips direct from their timelines for the first time, the microblogging site has said. The social networking site has added a new feature to allow its users to listen music directly from the twitter stream on mobile devices. “The world’s most influential musicians and media producers already share unique audio content through Twitter every day. Today we’re introducing a new way for you to experience audio directly on Twitter,” Twitter said in a blog post.

4) Corporation Bank launched ‘e-Mandate’ service: To provide robust platform for large volume of repetitive payments, Corporation Bank has launched the ‘e-Mandate’ (digital mandate) service. A press release by the bank said that the ‘e-Mandate’ service will be beneficial to the utility companies for monthly subscriptions/bill payments; insurance companies for premium payment by policy holders; NBFCs and other finance companies for instalment payments; education institutions for school fee payment; and manufacturing companies. Now most of these transactions are done either through post-dated blank cheques or through Electronic Clearing Services (ECS). Both the above payment modes involve physical handling and movement of paper-based instruments such as cheques and mandate (in ECS).