1. RBI imposes Rs 1 crore fine on State Bank of Travancore
4. Volkswagen sued by US for emissions cheating
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a monetary penalty of one crore rupees on State Bank of Travancore, an SBI associate bank for violation of some of its instructions.
- The monetary penalty was imposed on State Bank of Travancore for violation of its instructions including reporting of data to Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC).
- CRILC has been established by RBI to collect, store, and disseminate data on all borrowers’ credit exposures.
2. Periodic table gets four new elements
- The periodic table has been given four new elements, changing one of science’s most fundamental pieces of knowledge.
- Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 will now be added to the table’s seventh row and make it complete, after they were verified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry on 30 December. But they are yet to receive their final names or symbols.
- The new elements were discovered by team from Japan, Russia and the USA, who will all get to name their own new elements.
- The decision was taken by the IUPAC as the four elements met the discovery of elements of the IUPAP/IUPAC Transfermium Working Group (TWG) 1991 Discovery Criteria.
- All of the four new admissions are man-made.
- For the moment, the elements are named after their number: element 113 is called ununtrium (which means 113-ium), and has the symbol Uut. Element 115 is referred to as ununpentium or Uup; 117 is called ununseptium or Uus; and 118 is called ununoctium or Uuo.
- Former defence secretary R.K. Mathur was on 04 Jan 2016 sworn in as the eighth Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) by President Pranab Mukherjee at a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi.
- As the CIC, Mr. Mathur will have tenure of about three years, till he attains the age of 65 years.
4. Volkswagen sued by US for emissions cheating
- The US has sued Volkswagen alleging that nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles, including all its brands, had illegal defeat devices installed resulting in excess harmful emissions and the German automobile giant faces penalties well above $20 billion.
- In a the lawsuit filed, the Department of Justice alleged that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act by selling, introducing into commerce, or importing into the US motor vehicles that are designed differently from what Volkswagen had stated in applications for certification to EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
- A friendship bus service between India and Nepal was flagged off via Champawat district in Uttarakhand after a gap of 27 years.
- The resumed bus service has been regularised and will run between Kanchanpur in Nepal close to the Banbasa border in Champawat district and Anand Vihar in New Delhi. People travelling in these buses do not require any special documents to travel.
- These buses are air conditioned and provide free wi-fi connectivity to passengers.
- The India-Nepal friendship bus service was suspended 27 years back in the wake of the Indo-Nepal Trade and Transit Treaty.
- Tiger Global Management emerged as the biggest investor in Indian businesses in 2015 on 3rd Jan 2016.
- The New York-based investment company, doing so through venture capital funds in Indian e-commerce start-ups, put in as much as $2.58 billion (Rs 17,100 crore) across 34 deals in 2015.
- This includes a $700 million investment in Flipkart and $900 million (two deals) in ANI Technologies, the company that operates taxi-hailing service provider Ola.
- Tiger Global, founded by billionaire Chase Coleman, has become the largest investor in Indian e-commerce.
- The Indian Army has successfully completed user-assisted trials of Pinaka II, a multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL) system, at Pokhran field firing range in Rajasthan, India.
- Carried out over three days, the trials were carried out by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Pune-based Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) laboratory.
- Designed to replace the army’s Russian-built BM-21 Grad launchers, the Pinaka is capable of destroying opposition communication centres, air terminal complexes, and gun / rocket locations, as well as solid structures and bunkers.
- The mobile wallet and e-commerce platform Paytm on 04 Jan 2016 announced the acquisition of Delhi-based startup Shifu, a consumer behaviour prediction platform, for $8 million.
- Shifu analyses the smartphone usage patterns of users and makes personalised and relevant recommendations to them.
- Through the acquisition, Paytm aims to leverage the tech infrastructure of Shifu to enrich the customer experience it offers to its users.
- LIC is offering a ‘New Year gift’ to the public in the form of a limited-premium, non-linked and with-profit endowment assurance plan ‘Jeevan Labh’ from 04 Jan 2016.
- The highlight of the plan is that premium is payable for a limited period while risk is covered for the whole policy term.
- The plan is available from ages 8 to 59 years with a choice of policy term of 16, 21 and 25 years and premium-paying terms of 10,15 and 16 years respectively.
- Minimum basic sum assured is ₹2 lakh with maximum basic sum assured having no limit.
- British writer Kate Atkinson on 4 January 2016 won the novel-of-the-year prize at Britain’s Costa Book Awards 2015 for the second time in three years.
- She fetched the award for A God in Ruins, a story of war and its aftermath. With this, Atkinson became the first author to receive the Costa novel prize three times: for A God in Ruins in 2016, Life After Life in 2013 and Behind the Scenes at the Museumin 1995.
- Mumbai teenager Pranav Dhanawade on 05 Jan 2016 scripted history by becoming the first batsman ever to notch up a four-figure score by smashing an unbeaten knock of 1009 in an inter-school tournament in Mumbai.
- The 15-year-old, playing for KC Gandhi Higher Secondary School, reached the gigantic score in just 323 deliveries with a strike rate of 312.38 in the game against Arya Gurukul in the Bhandari Cup inter-school tournament organised by the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA).
- Pranav now holds the record for the highest individual score in any form of cricket, bettering AEJ Collins’ 628 not out for Clark’s House against North Town in 1899 in the UK.
- Maharashtra government has announced to look after the education and coaching expenses of the schoolboy.
- Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on 3 January 2015 won the 26th Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey tournament.
- To win the title, the ONGC defeated Indian Railways 3-0 on penalties in the final match held at the Shivaji Stadium in New Delhi.
- The Player of the tournament was awarded to Simrandeep Singh (Railways).
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