Daily GK Update - 30th December 2014

1. Dhoni retires from Test cricket

i. Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni on Tuesday retired from Test cricket with immediate effect, citing strain of playing all formats, after his team lost the Border - Gavaskar Trophy to Australia.

ii. “One of India’s greatest Test Captains under whose leadership India became the No. 1 team in the Test Rankings M.S. Dhoni, has decided to retire from Test Cricket citing the strain of playing all formats of Cricket,” the BCCI said in a statement.

iii. “Virat Kohli will be the captain of the Indian Team for the Fourth and Final Test against Australia to be played in Sydney from the 6th of January 2015”.

iv. The wicketkeeper-batsman remains one of the most successful captains ever for India, having led the side to the top of ICC rankings in Tests and ODIs.

   

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	90	144	16	4876	224	38.09	8249	59.11	6	33	544	78	256	38

Dhoni's Test Career in numbers

2. Virat Kohli named captain

i. Virat Kohli is named the new captain of the Indian Test team.

ii. Kohli will be the 32nd Indian Test captain and will take the reign in the full time manner from the Sydney Test.

iii. Kohli first captained India as a stand in captain in the first test of the series at Adelaide. 

3. 8 FDI proposals worth Rs 35 crore cleared

i. Government has cleared eight foreign investment proposals worth about Rs 34.77 crore, including that of CSC Computer Sciences International Operations and Life Positive Pvt Ltd.

ii. CSC has sought permission for setting up a proposed LLP with an investment of about Rs 30 crore.

iii. While, Life Positive seeks to increase foreign equity participation from existing 96 per cent to 99 per cent and induction of further FDI of about Rs 4.61 crore by foreign collaborators.

iv. Among others, government cleared proposals of Mahanagar Gas Limited, Medicamen Biotech Ltd, TutorVista Global Private Ltd, Ventura (India) Pvt Ltd, Syssmart Services LLP and Mahindra CIE Automotive Ltd.

4. Super 30 among top 3 pioneering education initiatives

i. A Japanese media group has selected Mathematician Anand Kumar’s Super 30 among three pioneering initiatives in the field of education.

ii. Apart from Anand Kumar’s Super 30, two others academic institutions, namely Japan’s educational club, which works for education to children from lower and middle classes, and France’s reading and writing club, working with a mission to arrest declining educational standards in the country, find berth as initiatives across the world by Japanese media group Asahi Shinbun.

iii. Anand Kumar himself could not go to Cambridge University to pursue higher education despite getting admission due to acute financial constraints, but the pangs of poverty intrigued him and resulted in the birth of Super 30 for children from underprivileged sections.

iv. Earlier, media from Japan, France, UK, Canada and various other countries had made films on Anand’s Super 30.

5. Union Cabinet approved hike of government stake in IFCI to 51 percent

i. The increase in government stake will be through infusion of 60 crore rupees by way of acquisition of preference shares from existing share holders. 

ii. As a result, India’s oldest financial institution IFCI will now become a government owned company.

iii. The current shareholding of Union government in IFCI after inclusion of the preference share capital was 47.93 percent. Therefore, IFCI was not a Government Company under section 2(45) of the Companies Act, 2013.

iv. IFCI was set up in 1948 and it is a statutory corporation under the Industrial Finance Corporation Act, 1948. 

6. RBI liberalised norms for Overseas Direct Investment by Indian companies

i. The liberalization of norms was part of series of amendment done by RBI from time to time in the Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue of any Foreign Security) (Amendment) Regulations, 2004.

ii. Liberalised norms - 

• Bank may permit creation of charge on the shares of the Joint Venture/Wholly Owned Subsidiary/Step down Subsidiary (JV/WOS/SDS) of an Indian party in favour of a domestic or overseas lender for securing funded and/or non-funded facility.

• The loan availed by the JV/WOS/SDS from the domestic/overseas lender shall be utilized only for its core business activities overseas and not for investing back in India in any manner whatsoever.

• Bank may permit creation of charge on the domestic assets of an Indian party in favour of an overseas lender for securing the funded and/or non-funded facility.

• Bank may permit creation of charge on the overseas assets (excluding the shares) of the JV/WOS/SDS of an Indian party in favour of a domestic lender for securing the funded and/or non-funded facility.