Daily Current Affairs : 23rd October 2013

1. India and China on Wednesday reached a comprehensive agreement to avoid border tensions and army face-offs along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) by deciding that neither side will use military capability to attack the other side nor tail patrols along the border. The Border Defence Cooperation Agreement (BDCA) was on Wednesday signed after extensive talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People. 

2. Reserve Bank on said it has received USD 10.1 billion under two schemes which were announced last month to attract foreign funds. RBI had come out with the special measures to arrest declining value of rupee, which was triggered by widening CAD, that touched a historic high of 4.8 per cent of GDP in 2012-13. Soon after taking over as RBI Governor on September 4, Raghuram Rajan announced the opening of a swap window facility to encourage banks to lure NRI funds. Under the facility, banks are permitted to swap fresh FCNR(B) dollar funds, mobilised for a minimum tenor of three years, at a fixed rate of 3.5 per cent per annum for the tenor of the deposit.

3. Moscow, the Capital of Russia hosted the 14th India-Russia Annual Summit on 21 October 2013. Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin co-chaired the summit. During the summit both nations discussed priority areas of bilateral cooperation on current international and regional issues. Both nations emphasised their continued commitment to promote and strengthen their special and privileged strategic partnership.

4. GAIL India Ltd on signed an agreement for development of natural gas infrastructure and city gas network in Bihar. GAIL signed a Gas Cooperation Agreement (GCA) with the Department of Industries, Government of Bihar, the company said in a statement here. The agreement was signed in the presence of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and GAIL Chairman and Managing Director B.C. Tripathi in Patna. GAIL is laying a 2,050 kilometre gas pipeline from Haldia in West Bengal to Jagdishpur in Uttar Pradesh, of which about 621 km will pass through 14 districts of Bihar.

5. Canara Bank signed a MoU with industry body CII to facilitate cheaper credit access to micro, small and medium enterprises. Under the MoU, Canara Bank shall extend a concessional credit of 50 basis points on the applicable card rate of interest to MSME units which are members of CII.

6. Bank Internasional Indonesia (BII) marked its re-entry into India after five years by opening a branch in Mumbai. The bank was operational in India from 1996 to 2008. In 2008, BII was bought over by Malaysia-based Maybank, which holds 88 per cent in BII. The foreign bank’s India operations became inactive after 2008.

7. India Post on 22 October 2013 released a commemorative postage stamp on the Golden Jubilee of Bhakra Dam. A two-inch stamp marking the 50th anniversary of Bhakra Dam was  released in Nangal by Union minister of water resources Harish Rawat. The dam was dedicated to the nation by the then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru on 22nd October in 1963. 

8. The Finance Ministry decided to pump in Rs 2,000 crore in State Bank of India and Rs 1,800 crore each in IDBI Bank and Central Bank of India as part of the Rs 14,000 crore capital infusion plan for the current fiscal. 

9. India Ratings & Research (Ind-Ra) expects India's GDP growth to remain sluggish at 4.9 per cent in the current financial year, due to a mix of domestic and external factors.

10. India will launch the first interplanetary probe, Mars Orbiter Spacecraft onboard the PSLV C-25 on the fifth of next month from Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota. The vehicle will lift off at 2.36 pm on that day. The mission is provided with communications and navigational support from NASA. The Mars orbiter will take around 300 days to reach the targetted mission after the scheduled launch.

11. Lawrence R Klein, Nobel Prize winning economist died on 20 October 2013 in Gladwyne, near Philadelphia. He was 93 years old. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then he joined the Penn faculty in 1958. He developed the statistical models there known as the Wharton Models which got him his Nobel Prize in 1980 in Economics.

12. Aung Suu Kyi on 23 October 2013 received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought at Strasbourg, France. She was choosen by the European Parliament in 1990. The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought announced by the European Parliament in 1990 when she was under house arrest.

13. Singer Noel Harrison has died at his home in Devon, aged 79 on 22 October 2013. He was the son of the actor Rex Harrison. He was best known for recording the hit song The Windmills Of Your Mind on The Thomas Crown Affair soundtrack.  It won best song at the 1968 Oscars and was later covered by artists including Dusty Springfield.

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