Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 24 August 2015

:: International ::

Isis destroys ancient Palmyra temple

Islamic State militants are believed to have blown up the temple of Baal Shamin, one of the central jewels of the ancient desert city of Palmyra, days after they executed its elderly chief archaeologist.
Reports of the temple’s destruction, which emerged last night, fulfilled the worst fears of archaeologists and historians since the ancient site was overrun by Isis extremists in May.

:: Business ::

Chandrashekhar Ghosh's Bandhan in its commercial bank avtaar

Kolkata-based microfinance institution (MFI), Bandhan Financial Services formally converted itself into a full service commercial bank, thus becoming the latest private sector bank in the country.
Bandhan is one of the two entities, which were given full-service banking licences by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in April, 2014, from a list of 25 aspirants that included big business houses. The other is IDFC.
The brand new Bandhan bank is hitting the ground running with an initial loan book of Rs 10,500 crore, 501 branches, over 10 million customers and a net worth of Rs 2,570 crore.
Going by the size of the loan book, on the first day of its operations itself, Bandhan bank will overtake some of the existing private sector banks such as DCB, Catholic Syrian and Dhanlaxmi.
RBI couldn’t have chosen a better candidate than Bandhan while awarding licences to the third set of private banks in India with the primary objective of promotion of financial inclusion.
In the previous two rounds, when the RBI gave permits the major aim was to introduce competition in the banking sector, dominated by public-sector banks (PSBs).
There aren’t too many like Bandhan’s founder Chandrashekhar Ghosh, who understands the true sense of financial inclusion in a country, where half of the adult population is still unbanked.
Ghosh, who have started as a filed worker in the microfinance business, has tremendous experience in finding a business model in the low-income customer segment.
For most existing private sector banks, financial inclusion has remained an activity forced by regulation than commitment or a viable business proposition.

Investors lose over 7 lakh cr.

The Sensex on Monday crashed over 1,700 points or 6.22 per cent in the pre-close trade. The overall investors’ wealth, measured in terms of total valuation of all listed stocks, also plunged nearly by Rs. 7 lakh crore.
The loss suffered by the 10 biggest companies in terms of market capitalisation was itself close to Rs. 2 lakh crore.
Interestingly, eight out of the top-10 intra-day falls took place in the year 2008. Monday’s fall is biggest since January 21, 2008 when the Sensex crashed by 2,062.2 points.
The market was witnessing all-round heavy selling across realty, power, oil&gas, bankex, auto, metal, capital goods and IT sectors.

‘Turmoil in currency long-coming’

Amid free fall in stock markets, the rupee crashed to 66.49 against the dollar, plunging a whopping 66 paise. The rupee has not seen such a low level in almost two years in opening trade.
Slowing Chinese economy and the devalued Chinese currency Yuan, hit the global financial markets.
Global markets have crashed following weeks of reports regarding China’s low economic growth as its consumption story falters.
This is in addition to other irritants such as Europe’s woes and a general slowdown in economies across the globe. The US rebound story too is yet incomplete.

205 stocks hit 52-week low

Stocks that hit their 52-week low included Aban Offshore, ABG Shipyard, Adani Power, Gail, ICICI Bank, NTPC, ONGC, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, VST Industries, among others.
Similarly, other stocks that touched their one-year low were Financial Technologies, HCC, MOIL, Mysore Bank, NHPC, NDMC, Orbit Corporation, PFC, RCom, SAIL, Sobha Developers, Simplex Projects, UCO Bank, Vijaya Bank and Zuari Agro Chemicals, among others.

:: Sports ::

Usain Bolt retains World Championship title

Usain Bolt once again produced his best when it mattered most to retain his 100 metres world title and reassert his status as the number one sprinter on the planet at a rocking Bird's Nest Stadium on Sunday night.
The Jamaican had struggled for form and fitness all season, stumbled his way through the semi-finals and got nowhere close to the times that his rival Justin Gatlin had been posting.
Back at the arena where he first exploded onto the world stage at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, however, Bolt surged past the in-form American over the last 30 metres and crossed the line in 9.79 seconds, his fastest run of the year.

England lost final Ashes test

Alastair Cook made a call to arms prior to the fifth Ashes Test but the skipper admits England phoned it in during the dead rubber.
Cook contacted teammates from his family farm between the fourth and fifth Tests, the squad having dispersed after taking an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-Test series.
He implored the side to be ruthless in the series finale, highlighting the way Australia never took their foot off the throat in winning the previous series 5-0.
They failed to bowl well after Cook sent Australia in at The Oval then lost seven wickets in a session and were asked to follow-on.

U Mumba win pro kabaddi league

The raiders became wary of taking undue risks and the final of the STAR Sports Pro Kabaddi League’s second season dished out dismal fare in the presence of partisan and vociferous home fans at the National Sports Club of India here on Sunday.
The defenders of both sides either fell in a heap over the raider or hoisted him to win points. On this count U Mumba’s Vishal Mane and Rishank Devadiga, and Bengaluru Bulls’ Dharmaraj Cheralathan excelled.
The defensive tactics employed by the teams was the highlight of the final, and eventually U Mumba, which held the advantage at half time, sustained its effort in the second session to prevail 36-30 over a persevering opponent.
U Mumba skipper Anup Kumar was ejected to the bench twice within the first eight minutes and when it happened again in the 34th minute of the second half that resulted in the Bulls taking the lead for the first time at 24-23, there were signs of the home team cracking under pressure.