Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 30 November, 2013

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

The deceleration in India's economic growth appears to be bottoming out and the GDP is likely to grow by 4.7 per cent in 2013, according to Capital Economics Ltd .
Growth accelerated to 4.8 per cent year-on-year in Q3 of this fiscal from the more than four-year low of 4.4 per cent in Q2.
The manufacturing sector returned to growth, but its 1.0 per cent year-on-year increase in output last quarter was still pretty tepid.
There were stronger out-turns from agriculture and especially, services.
The expenditure-side data were not consistent with the headline GDP figures, but they point to a pick-up in investment and exports last quarter alongside continued weakness in consumption.
High consumer and wholesale price inflation would keep household and corporate budgets under pressure. In addition, the central bank's hawkish posture means that monetary policy would not provide support anytime soon.

Triggering a potential deposit war among banks, the Reserve Bank of India gave commercial banks the option of paying interest on savings and term deposits at intervals less than three months. The RBI move, announced in a notification, is expected to make banks woo depositors more aggressively with a little extra interest payment.
Interest calculated with shorter periodicity will yield a little higher sum in absolute term for savings account and term deposit holders. Public deposits traditionally are the cheapest source of funds for lenders, which have been struggling to raise money from common people.
Increasing the frequency of interest payment — mentioned in the central bank's second quarter monetary policy in October — may put margin pressure on banks. Lenders have already been facing strains on their interest rate margins as they are compelled to pay high rates to depositors, while the government has directed them to lower lending rates.
Currently, banks calculate interest on a quarterly basis for deposits. Some of them do make monthly payment, but they pay a little less after discounting their losses for early payment. For example, if quarterly interest is Rs 300, they do not pay Rs 100 a month to depositors for three months. They pay a little less on monthly basis.

India-born senior Microsoft executive Satya Nadella is among the top two likely candidates whose name is being considered for becoming the next chief executive of the world's biggest software company, replacing longtime chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Mr Nadella is executive vice president for cloud and enterprise at Microsoft. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a member of the technology staff at Sun Microsystems.
A native of Hyderabad, Mr Nadella earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University, a master's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

Indian weightlifters has continued to break new records at the Commonwealth Youth, Junior and Senior Championships, taking their overall medal tally to an unprecedented 102, including 53 gold, on the penultimate day of the event in Penang, Malaysia .
The biggest contributors to the tally were the youth boys, who notched up 24, including 16 gold.
The youth girls were not too far behind with 21 medals, inclusive of a dozen gold.
The senior men and women have so far won 21 medals in all, nine of them being gold.

India has beaten Kazakhstan 84-71 to remain in Level 1 of the FIBA Asia U16 Championship for women.
India started off well in their match and took the lead in the first quarter, finishing at 20-14 but Kazakhstan bounced back soon, winning the second quarter 22-16.
However, India returned to its winning ways in the second half and won both the third and fourth quarters.
Ritu Verma top scored with 24 points for the Indian team.
Earlier, China and Japan ensured their way into the final of the championships.