Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 8 July 2015

:: National ::

India has halved its incidence of extreme poverty, from 49.4% in 1994 to 24.7% in 2011 ahead of the deadline of 2015 set by the United Nations, shows the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report 2015 it released on Tuesday.
The report set the limit for extreme poverty as those living on $1.25 or less a day.
However, this reduction in poverty is still less than that achieved by several of India’s poorer neighbours.
Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh have each outstripped India in poverty reduction over comparable time periods.
While the report says India is on-track to achieving the hunger targets, it still remains home to one quarter of the world’s undernourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children, and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people
The report is especially important because it marks the deadline by which the MDG should have been achieved. India has already achieved 11 out of 22 parameters in the report—spanning issues like education, poverty, health, and education— and is on track to achieve one more by the end of 2015.

The Centre is looking at raising Rs.15,000 crore in the current fiscal through the gold bond scheme, for which a Cabinet note is likely to be moved for consideration later in the month.
The interest rate for the scheme, which was announced by the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech, would be close to the rates on government securities,
The Finance Ministry last month came out with a discussion paper on the sovereign gold bond scheme. It had suggested that the scheme be linked to the government borrowing programme.
“We are targeting to raise Rs.15,000 crore, and the issuance would be for retail investors in tranches,” the official added.
The proposed scheme, which aims to shift part of the estimated 300 tonnes of physical gold bar purchased every year to demat gold bond, will be marketed through post offices and brokers on commission basis.
“The final contours and timing will be decided by the Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA), which is the RBI. The Finance Ministry will get a Cabinet nod for it,” the official said.
The government plans to borrow Rs.6 lakh crore in current fiscal, of which Rs.3.6 lakh crore would be done in the first-half.
The bonds would be issued in 2, 5, 10 gram of gold or other denominations, it said adding that the tenor of the bond could be for a minimum of 5 to 7 years so that it would protect investors from medium-term volatility in gold prices.

In a first, the government has appointed a private sector executive Sriram Kalyanaraman as Managing Director and CEO of National Housing Bank.
The appointment of Kalyanraman to the housing finance sector regulator is unique as he is the first person form the private sector to head a public sector financial institution, a Finance Ministry official statement said. At present, Kalyanaraman is Director-Business Development, Equifax Credit Information Services.

London Olympic bronze medallist Yogeshwar Dutt and Narsingh Yadav on Tuesday qualified for the world wrestling championships.
While Yogeshwar Dutt overcame a fighting Amit Kumar Dhankar of Haryana 6-3, Narsingh Yadav put it past Praveen Rana.
In the background of Amit Kumar going to court about the selection of the national team for the Commonwealth Games last year without the trials, there was tremendous interest in Yogeshwar’s bout and thousands turned up at the K.D. Jadhav wrestling arena at the Indira Gandhi Stadium.
In the 74kg category Narsingh Yadav made the cut with a 6-5 closely-fought win over Praveen Rana. Sushil Kumar, who recently sustained an injury to his right shoulder and opted out of the World Championship, was on hand to witness the proceedings.
The 16-member team will first compete in a preparatory event in Kazakhstan. Sonu of Services has been selected only for the Kazakhstan event in freestyle, and will have a final trial against Commonwealth Games and world championship medallist Bajrang Kumar, who could not attend the trial owing to an injury.
The world championship will offer the first set of qualification berths for the Rio Olympics.

Amateur boxing in India could have never been at such a vulnerable stage. At a time, when the sport in India doesn't have a proper federation and is being run by an international body-appointed ad hoc committee, Tuesday came a news that the a new professional governing body will be launched in India on Wednesday.
The new professional body is a brainchild of former Indian Amateur Boxing Federation (IABF) secretary general P.K. Muralidharan Raja, and is said to have the backing of promoters from around the world. The pro body will work as a bridge between its affiliated boxers and promoters to strike deals.
The new body will also have on its board Indian pro boxers - Gurcharan Singh, US-based who finished fourth at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and Pradeep Sihag, Australia-based World Boxing Council's Asia middleweight champion.
There are five major International sanctioning bodies of pro boxing, but there is a strong possibility that Raja's body will be affiliated to the World Boxing Council as Sihag and Nagra are associated with it.