Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 06 January, 2014

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

06 January 2014

Largest corporate learning centre

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), country's largest software services firm, will set up the world's largest corporate learning and development centre in Thiruvananthapuram with a total capacity to train 50,000 professionals every year.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the facility.
The learning facility will be built over area of 6.1 million square feet and will have the capacity to train 15,000 professionals at one time and 50,000 professionals annually, TCS said in a statement.
Located on a 97-acre property in the Technopark area of the city, the campus will also have residential accommodation for professionals and faculty at the centre.
The TCS Learning Campus will be the new benchmark for corporate learning worldwide and this iconic facility will produce world class professionals to meet the future needs of the IT industry.
The project will provide direct employment to over 2,000 skilled and unskilled local people for a period of 4 years.

Cash transfer to 10% cooking gas users

The oil ministry is transferring cash subsidy for cooking gas in bank accounts of more than 10% of all customers in Delhi and Mumbai, moving swiftly after the scheme was launched in these cities on New Year's day, and is confident that all consumers in the two cities will be covered by April.
With the launch of the sixth phase, almost half of the country is covered by this scheme. The Congress-led UPA government, with an eye on the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, has so far disbursed over Rs 2,000 crore to 66 million customers in 184 districts since the scheme was launched last June.
While this may please the ruling party as well as the finance ministry, the LPG dealers are unhappy. They say the new system is causing great inconvenience to customers and "overload" for distributors.
Dealers are planning an agitation against several issues including direct cash transfer. More than 10% of 4.8 million customers in the national capital and 13% of 2.4 million customers in Mumbai have already started getting cash subsidy in their bank accounts.
The scheme, which is officially known as the direct benefit transfer for LPG or DBTL, now covers 9.5 crore cooking gas consumers in 291 districts. India has approximate 15 crore LPG consumers.

Evidence of Slowdown in China’s Economy

China’s economy showed clear signs of a slowdown in December, with business surveys across both manufacturing and services sectors weakening together for the first time in months.
Four purchasing managers’ indexes—two compiled by the government and two by HSBC Holdings PLC—all dropped last month, the first time that has happened since April. The HSBC Services PMI,, fell to 50.9 for December, compared with 52.5 the month before. A figure above 50 indicates expansion, while below that level indicates contraction.
HSBC’s privately collected manufacturing and services PMIs compete for the attention of markets with the government’s official measures. The PMIs are based on responses from thousands of companies about changes in business conditions. Taken together, the indexes suggest a softening of China’s economy.
China looks set for gross domestic product growth of about 7.6% in the final quarter of 2013, down from 7.8% in the third, economists say. That slowdown partly reflects tightening credit conditions as China’s central bank tries to bring a rapidly growing debt pile under control.
The seven-day repo rate, a benchmark of banks’ funding costs, reached 8.9% in December, its highest level in six months. With banks struggling to find liquidity, they are reluctant to extend credit to customers.
All four PMIs remained in narrowly positive territory for December, indicating that expansion continues, albeit at a slow pace. But that masks difficulties for individual companies in some sectors. Conditions are worsening for small and medium-size businesses, according to the official manufacturing PMI. The subindex for large companies, which has performed best in recent months, also fell in December, though it remains above the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction.
The data show manufacturers cut back stocks of both raw materials and finished goods, suggesting they are expecting weaker sales ahead.

Chennai Open Title

Stanislas Wawrinka’s has been a well documented struggle with self-confidence. For someone who has fought that as long and as hard as him, it is tough to throw out the demon forever. While the end of 2013 was the first step in banishing that, 2014 will be a year in which he would like to finally believe he is up there.
The quest for the same has started perfectly. A 7-5, 6-2 win over seventh seed Edouard Roger-Vasselin in the final on Sunday gave him his second Aircel Chennai Open title and his fifth overall.
One of Wawrinka’s problems in 2013 was that he found it tough to close out matches. After a nervy first set here it was important for the old ghosts not to return.
Fourth seeds Johan Brunstrom of Sweden and Frederik Nielsen of Denmark clinched the doubles title at the Aircel Chennai Open after defeating the unseeded Croatian pair of Mate Pavic and Marin Draganja 6-2, 4-6, 10-7.
The Scandinavian pair broke twice, in the sixth and the eight games, to take the first set 6-2 only for the Croats to level it at one set apiece by taking the second 6-4.

Brisbane title

Australia's Lleyton Hewitt delighted his home fans when he battled to a typically gutsy 6-1 4-6 6-3 victory over Swiss top seed Roger Federer in the Brisbane International final.
Federer, who led Hewitt 18-8 in meetings between the former world number ones going into the contest, committed 22 unforced errors on his way to being broken three times in the first set after reaching the final without dropping serve once.
The victory secured Hewitt's first ATP title since Halle in 2010 when he also beat Federer in the final, ending a 15-match losing run against his opponent.
The match was Federer's last competitive outing before the Australian Open begins on Jan. 13, where the Swiss will be seeking to add to his record 17 grand slam titles with a fifth Melbourne crown.