Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

23 January, 2014

WEF Annual Meeting

• While the rich and famous from across the world have assembled at Davos for their annual talk-fest and networking for business, many top Indian business leaders like Mukesh Ambani and Rahul Bajaj have given this year's WEF Annual Meeting a miss.

• Others who have been here earlier but could not make it to the ongoing meeting include Anand Mahindra, Kumar Mangalam Birla and Chanda Kochhar.

• Among these, people like Bajaj, Mahindra and Kochhar have been very active in WEF meetings and used to speak on a host of issues very vocally, although leaders like Ambani and Birla have always kept a low profile.

• But what is not missing is a highly informal atmosphere which corporate and political leaders from India are enjoying here in this Swiss ski resort town -- which generally remains a rarity amid watchful public eye back in India.

• Despite these dropouts, Indian delegation still runs into about 125 business and political leaders, which makes India's presence fourth largest after the US, UK and the host country Switzerland.

• Those present here include Tata group chief Cyrus Mistry, top executives of TCS and a host of other IT firms such as Infosys, Tech Mahindra and iGate, Bharti group's Sunil Mittal, Ravi Ruia and Prashant Ruia of Essar group, bankers Uday Kotak and Rana Kapoor, as also a host of CEOs from many medium-to- large Indian companies.

• Among the Indian-origin global business leaders, PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi and ArcelorMittal's Lakshmi Mittal are also present.

• In addition, Finance Minister P Chidambaram is here along with his cabinet colleagues like Anand Sharma and Kamal Nath, as also Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram and Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithvi Raj Chavan.

Old currency notes to be removed from Indian economy

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country's central bank, says it will withdraw all currency notes printed prior to 2005 from 31 March.
• The move is being seen as an attempt to curb the circulation of "black money" - cash that has not been declared or taxed.
• According to some estimates, India's underground economy accounts for 50% of its gross domestic product (GDP).
• The RBI said consumers will be able to exchange old notes at retail banks.
• The bank added that the notes issued before 2005 "will continue to be legal tender".
• This would mean that banks are required to exchange the notes for their customers as well as for non-customers.
• However, it said that after 1 July anyone who is not a bank's existing customer will have to furnish proof of identity and residence if they are looking to change more than 10 notes of 500 and 1,000 rupees denomination.
• The central bank said that notes issued prior to 2005 can be identified easily as they do not have the year of printing marked on them.

Top 100 BPO cities list

• Manila is now the world's second most important place for business process outsourcing, dislodging Mumbai from the position, according to the Tholons Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations for 2014

• Seven Philippine cities were listed in the Top 100 rankings, as Manila and Cebu – No. 8 – were in the Top 10 of the Tholons list.

• Up a notch onto 69th place is Davao City. Sta. Rosa, Laguna moves two places to 82nd and Bacolod is up also by a notch to 93rd while Iloilo slips to 95th from 93rd and Baguio City is holding on to the 99th place.

• Cities of India remained dominant on the Top. Bangalore continued to occupy the top spot, followed by Mumbai (No. 3), which Manila dislodged from No. 2), Delhi (No. 4), Chennai (No. 5),Hyderabad (No. 6), and Pune (No. 7).

• Krakow, Poland is No. 9, and Dublin, Ireland is No. 10.

Li Na moves towards her second Grand Slam

• Chinese trailblazer Li Na marched towards a second Grand Slam title by blasting past teenager Eugenie Bouchard and into the Australian Open final, where she will face Dominika Cibulkova.
• The fourth seed steamrolled the rising Canadian 6-2, 6-4 to continue her stellar form at Melbourne Park where she has now reached three finals, as well as another semi-final and the fourth round over the past five years.
• After an agonising defeat to Victoria Azarenka in last year's decider on Rod Laver Arena, when she dramatically twice rolled her ankle and briefly blacked out, she is desperate to go one better.

India loses No1 ranking

• New Zealand pushed India off the No. 1 position in ODIs with another clinical performance although India's middle order demanded that their bowlers stay at it till the end.

• Largely, though, the match followed the first ODI's script. Jesse Ryder went bang bang for too brief a while, Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor scored fifties to set up a final assault, Corey Anderson nearly blasted the fastest ODI fifty too, India had a big chase at hand and were kept alive by Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni but New Zealand kept producing timely wickets to pull India back every time they brought some semblance of parity to the chase.

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