Daily Current Affairs : 15th November 2013

1. Sachin Tendulkar is Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Moment’. Accolades continued to pour in for the retiring Sachin Tendulkar with the ‘Time’ magazine naming the legendary Indian batsman its “Person of the Moment” while as he plays his last Test in Mumbai.

2. Maldives President Mohamed Waheed on Friday stepped down as President as the country prepared to hold the second round of the Presidential election. The second round of the Presidential election will take place on Saturday with the Maldives Democratic Party candidate and former President Mohamed Nasheed being the frontrunner.

3. Siddhartha Birla, founder and Chairman of Xpro India Ltd, and Chairman Digjam Ltd, will be the next President of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Birla will head the chamber in 2014. Presently Ms. Naina Lal Kidwai is the President of FICCI.

4. Internet giant Google and investment firm KKR will invest $400 million in six solar plants in California and Arizona, the companies announced on Thursday. The plants are currently being developed and are expected to be operational by January 2014. They will be managed by Recurrent Energy, a California solar developer.

5. Max Bupa Health Insurance has entered into a bancassurance tie-up with Deutsche Bank. With this alliance, Max Bupa will offer its comprehensive health insurance plans to Deutsche Bank customers. This tie-up follows the insurance regulator IRDA’s guidelines allowing banks to act as corporate agents of one standalone health insurance company in addition to their existing one life and one non-life insurance companies.

6. The country’s largest bank State Bank of India plans to raise tier-II capital in the range of about Rs 5,000 crore before March. Besides, the Government has also promised to infuse Rs 2,000 crore through a preferential allotment of shares.

7. Professor Mushirul Hasan, the former Vice-Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia on 14 November 2013 was conferred with the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund. The title of the Hasan’s fellowship project is Roads to Freedom – Prison, Prisoners and the Raj.

8. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and British Prime Minister David Cameron, on Thursday, expressed satisfaction that trade ties between the two countries had been resilient despite the continuing global economic slowdown and difficulties in the Euro Zone. The two Prime Ministers discussed the Bangalore-Mumbai Economic Corridor (BMEC) and were happy at the progress that had been made, sources said.

9. RINL setting up 120-MW plant on waste gas from blast furnace. The Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (Visakhapatnam steel plant) is taking all steps to enhance its captive power capacity and is also using waste gas heat to generate power, according to sources. The steel plant is currently having five turbo generators, three each of 60 MW capacity and two each of 67.5 MW capacity, taking the total captive power generation capacity to 315 MW.

10. Lenovo launches Yoga Tablet. Aiming at a higher market share, leading personal computer maker Lenovo on Friday announced the launch of its new Yoga Tablet priced between Rs 22,999 to Rs 28,999.

11. India is No. 2 in seeking user info from Google while the US topped the list with 10,918 requests, India followed with 2,691 during the January-June period this year.

12. Google wins book scanning case. A federal judge rejected a lawsuit on Thursday by authors aimed at stopping Google’s book scanning project, ruling that Google’s plan to scan and digitise 20 million books constitutes fair use under US copyright laws.

13. Reliance Life Insurance Company has signed up to support Sudhir Kumar Chaudhary, one of the greatest fans of master blaster Sachin Tendulkar. As part of its corporate social responsibility, Reliance Life will offer financial aid to Sudhir to help him continue his passion of loving the sport. This private life insurer has also launched a new campaign with Sudhir with a view to supporting this big fan. The campaign is also aimed to give out a larger message that retirement is definitive and needs to be properly planned.

14. India’s 1st ever mountain biking race on Nov 17. Cycling enthusiasts of the country will get to witness their own version of ‘Tour the Himalayas’ with India’s first-ever mountain biking race all set to be held here on November 17. Being organised jointly by the Mountain Track Biking Association (MTBA) of Uttarakhand, Cycling Federation of India (CFI) and Artsmith Concepts and Visions with support from the state government and the Indian Army, the event will have races in three categories for the elite riders (20kms), the amateurs (15kms) and the teens (10kms), MTBA, Uttarakhand president Rahul Jain told reporters here today.

15. Veteran journalist R.K. Mukker passed away on 13 November 2013 after prolonged illness. He was 88 years old.  He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter. He died at Sahibabad in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district. 

Note : if any important news left, you may add on in comment :)