Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 26 June 2015

::India & world::

BCIM Corridor

In Kunming, the leafy International Regional Cooperation Office of Yunnan, is at the centre of the plans to develop the BCIM corridor.
In a free-wheeling conversation, its Deputy Director-General Jin Cheng said India is upgrading the road segment between Silchar in Assam and Imphal in Manipur.
From the West Bengal capital, the corridor will head towards Benapole, a border crossing town in Bangladesh. After passing through Dhaka and Sylhet, it will re-enter the Indian territory near Silchar in Assam.
The rest of the passage will be connected with Imphal and then pass through the India-built Tamu-Kalewa friendship road in Myanmar.
Mandalay will be the next focal point of the corridor before the road enters Yunnan, after crossing Lashio and Muse in Myanmar.
The Chinese stretch extends from Ruili before reaching Kunming through Longling and Dali.
The central corridor can be connected with two supplementary passages to the north and the south.
Starting from Kunming, the northern passage heads towards Myitkyina, capital of Kachin state in Myanmar, before extending to Ledo in Assam.
After crossing Dibrugarh and Guwahati, this road enters northern Bangladesh and joins the central corridor inside the country, before reaching Kolkata.
At present, this route is problematic because it enters a small portion of Arunachal Pradesh over which India and China have a territorial dispute. Besides, a part of this stretch is insurgency-prone, and therefore unsafe.
Starting from Kunming, the southern corridor enters Bangladesh through Myanmar, with one branch heading towards the Cox Bazar port, while the other rejoins the central corridor in Dhaka.

::Business::

Rajan warns about another depression

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has asked central banks from across the world to define 'new rules of the game' as he warned that the global economy may be slipping into problems similar to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Rajan, who has been warning against competitive monetary policy easing by central banks, however, said the situation is different in India where RBI still needs to bring down lending rates to spur investments.
He expressed concern that the world may be slipping into the kind of problems of the depression of the 1930s and an international consensus was needed to be built over time.
The RBI governor was addressing the 'Perspectives' conference organised by AQR Asset Management Institute at the LBS campus on the subject of 'The Central Banker Perspective'.

New deadline for Pre-2005 currency exchanged

Reserve Bank of India on Thursday extended the deadline for exchanging pre-2005 currency notes of various denominations, including of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, by six months till December 31, 2015.
RBI had, in December 2014, set the last date for public to exchange these notes as June end.
It is easy to identify pre-2005 notes. The currency notes issued before 2005 do not have the year of printing on the reverse side. In notes issued post 2005, the year of printing is visible at the bottom on the reverse.

Will notes be exchanged for their full value?

The central bank said that the notes can be exchanged for their full value. RBI also clarified that all pre-2005 notes continue to remain legal tender.
The rationale behind the move to withdraw banknotes printed prior to 2005 is to remove them from the market because they have fewer security features compared with banknotes printed after 2005.
Explaining the move, RBI said the banknotes in Mahatma Gandhi series have now been in circulation for a decade.
A majority of old banknotes have been withdrawn through bank branches.

What will happen to pre-2005 currency notes?

Over 164 crore pre-2005 currency notes of various denominations, including of Rs 1,000 were shredded in regional offices of Reserve Bank in 13-month period ending January. The face value of the shredded currency notes was around Rs 21,750 crore.
As many as 86.87 crore pieces of Rs 100, 56.19 crore pieces of Rs 500 and 21.75 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 were shredded.

::Sports::

Satnam Singh: new basketball sensation

Indian sports personalities have often made India proud at national and international levels.
The latest feather in India's cap is Satnam Singh Bhamara joining the NBA. Satnam has become the first Indian to be drafted by the NBA after he was selected by the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Draft.
The 19-year-old has become the talk of the town because of his presence in the court in NBA circles.
He is seven feet two inches tall and weighs above 131 kg. Bollywood celebs took to Twitter to congratulate him on this achievement.

New responsibility to Tendulkar

The new Cricket Improvement Committee (CIC) of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) on Thursday roped in former batting great Sachin Tendulkar as a special invitee to attend its meeting and share valuable tips and views whenever he is available in the city.
File picture o
Other members of CIC are former India Indian captain Ajit Wadekar, former India Test batsman Sanjay Manjrekar, ex-Test batsman and coach Pravin Amre, former India and Mumbai pacer Ajit Agarkar, domestic batsman Amol Muzumdar, former India women cricket Diana Eduljee and MCA managing committee member Deepak Patil.
Vengsarkar, who was also an ex-chief selector, said a new disciplinary committee would be formed under MCA and the body would be strict towards cricketers who break the rules.