Daily GK Update - 7th and 8th June 2015

1. K.V. Chowdary is new CVC; Vijai Sharma new CIC

i. Former Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, K.V. Chowdary, was on Monday, appointed as the new Central Vigilance Commissioner, while the senior-most Information Commissioner, Vijai Sharma, is the new Chief Information Commissioner.

ii. A selection panel headed by the Prime Minister, which includes leader of the principal opposition party, and senior cabinet ministers selects the CVC, CIC, vigilance commissioners and information commissioners.

iii. The Central Vigilance Commission is headed by a CVC and comprises two vigilance commissioners and today’s appointment constitutes the full Commission.

iv. In the CIC, there are vacancies of four Information Commissioners. The incumbents are Basant Seth, Yashovardhan Azad, Sharat Sabharwal, Manjula Prasher, M A Khan Yusufi and Madabhushanam Sridhar Acharyulu.

2. Yes Bank reappoints Rana Kapoor as MD

i. Yes Bank’s shareholders have approved 12 resolutions which included the re-appointment of Rana Kapoor as MD & CEO of the bank with a majority vote of 99.97%, sans the vote of the Madhu Kapur family.

ii. In the bank’s annual general meeting on Saturday, the shareholders also approved through a special resolution the issuance of non-convertible debentures and bonds up to Rs 10,000 crore and also increased the borrowing limit of the bank to Rs 50,000 crore from Rs 30,000 crore currently. 

iii. The bank got a majority vote to increase the combined foreign portfolio investors (FPI) and foreign institutional investors investment (FII) limits to 74% of the paid-up capital of the bank.

iv. Shareholders also re-appointed M R Srinivasan as non-executive non-independent director (previously the chairman of Yes Bank) with a majority vote. Also, Diwan Arun Nanda and Ajay Vohra have been appointed as independent directors.

3. Federal Bank slashes base rate by 25 bps to 9.95%

i. Federal Bank today cut the base rate, or the minimum lending rate, by 0.25 per cent to 9.95 per cent.

ii. The new rates will be effective from June 18, 2015.

iii. Soon after RBI's second bi-monthly policy review for 2015-16 on June 2, a number of banks, including largest public sector lender SBI, have cut the minimum lending rates.

iv. Among others, Allahabad Bank, Dena Bank, Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India and Syndicate Bank have announced cut in base rates.

4. IOC to invest Rs 15,000 crore to raise Panipat refinery capacity

i. Indian Oil Corp, nation's largest oil firm, plans to invest about Rs 15,000 crore in raising capacity at its Panipat refinery in Haryana by 34% to 20.2 million tonnes (MT) by 2020.

ii. IOC owns and operates eight refineries and has only a few weeks back added ninth refinery at Paradip in Odisha.

iii. Its eight refineries have a cumulative refining capacity of 54.2 MT of crude oil and addition of 15 MT at Paradip refinery has helped it regain the top refiner slot in the country.

iv. Essar Oil is the only other private refiner having a 20 MT a year unit at Vadinar in Gujarat.

v. Panipat Refinery was commissioned in 1998 with a capacity of six MT per annum. The refining capacity was doubled to 12 MT in 2006 and then raised by a further three MT to 15 MT in 2010.

5. Deutsche Bank makes John Cryan CEO after co-CEOs Anshu Jain, Juergen Fitschen quit

i. Deutsche Bank appointed John Cryan as its new CEO on Sunday after co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen resigned following criticism from investors.

ii. John Cryan, 54, has been on the bank’s supervisory board since 2013 and was a former chief financial officer of UBS. He will replace Anshu Jain from July 1 and become the sole CEO when Juergen Fitschen steps down next year, the bank said.

iii. Making Anshu Jain directly responsible for cutting Deutsche Bank’s costs by 4.7 billion euros ($5.2 billion), selling its Postbank retail business and paring back its investment bank put huge pressure on the former trader.

6. SpiceJet signs deal to sell tickets to waitlisted railway travellers

i. IRCTC's public relations officer Sandip Dutta explained that the Railways have entered the tie-up with SpiceJet and Go Air.

ii. It enables a train traveller whose ticket is wait-listed to cancel the train ticket and instead get on to a flight of either airline by paying some incremental fee.

iii. There are no fixed sectors to which the scheme applies, no fixed number of tickets either airline must make available to IRCTC and no fixed rates. 

iv. This scheme only applies to tickets booked at least three days prior to the date of the journey, these train tickets can only be cancelled on a specific website and flight tickets are available only for the day of the train journey or a day prior to it.

v. SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh pointed out that this tie-up is promising for the airline and he expects "significant" passenger volumes to be generated through this scheme.

7. Stan Wawrinka stuns Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams wins French Open after beating Lucie Safarova in final

i. Williams emerged with a 20th grand slam title thanks to a 6-3, 6-7 (2-7), 6-2 victory over the Czech Lucie Safarova.

ii. The American is now two short of Steffi Graf, the open era leader, and four off Margaret Court, the all-time leader

iii. Her win over Safarova was her fifth three-set victory of a tournament that was a struggle almost from day one.

iv. Stan Wawrinka played magnificently in a 4-6 6-4 6-3 6-4 victory at Roland Garros.

v. Wawrinka, 30, brought an end to Djokovic's 28-match winning streak as he claimed his second Grand Slam title.

vi. The victory makes him only the second Swiss to win at Roland Garros after Roger Federer, the man he beat in the quarter-finals.

8. Tintu Luka finally strikes gold as India finishes 3rd at Asian Athletics Championships

i. Tintu Luka bagged her maiden gold in a major international event by winning the women's 800m finals as India finished with five medals on the final day of competitions to sign off third in the 21st Asian Athletics Championships here today.

ii. India secured a medal haul of 4 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze in the championships to finish third behind China (15, 13, 13) and Qatar (7, 2, 1). Japan (4, 3, 11) and Bahrain (3, 3, 2) finished fourth and fifth respectively.

iii. This was India's best finish after 2007 in Amman, Jordan where the country was placed second.

National record holder Luka clocked her season's best timing of 2:01.53 to clinch the gold at Wuhan Sports Center.

iv. This was 26-year-old Luka's first individual title in a major international event after breaking into the scene in 2008-09 with a lot of promise under the tutelage of the legendary P T Usha.