Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 14 March, 2014

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

State-owned ONGCBSE -0.17 % and Oil India LtdBSE 0.66 % (OIL) have bought a 10 per cent stake in Indian OilBSE -1.69 % Corp (IOC) from the government for Rs 5,340 crore.
Oil and Natural Gas BSE -0.17 % Corp (ONGC) and Oil bought 5 per cent stake each at Rs 220 per share.
An Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram had on February 28 decided to sell the stake in IOC, the nation's largest oil firm, at a discount of 10 per cent through an off-market deal.
The sale of the 10 per cent stake, or 24.27 crore shares, happened in an off-market transaction, with ONGC and OIL buying 5 per cent each.

A brood of the highly elusive nocturnal forest bird, the Great Eared Nightjar, had been spotted in Kerala.
A team of the nature lovers’ forum Warblers and Waders, on its annual bird survey at the Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary in Kollam during February, was able to record a Great Eared Nightjar sitting on brood in the forest. The Warblers and Waders team claim “it is the first record from the State”.
An earlier sighting had been recorded from the Siruvani foothills in Tamil Nadu in May 1995. The Great Eared Nightjar (Eurostopodus macrotis bourdilloni) belongs to the nightjar family. It gets its name from the two erect earlike tufts of feathers on its head, behind the eyes.
The Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary is rich in biodiversity and the Warblers and Waders has been conducting bird surveys there in association with the Kerala Forest Department since 1995.
Significant bird species recorded were the Painted Bush Quail, Sri Lankan Frogmouth, White-Bellied Black Woodpecker, Great Indian Pied Hornbill, Black Baza, Blue-Bearded Bee-eater, Red-Winged Crested Cuckoo, Great-eared Nightjar, Lesser Fishing Eagle, Mountain Hawk Eagle, Booted Warbler, Blue Rock Thrush, Malay Bittern, Brown Fish Owl, Black-capped Kingfisher, Thick-billed Warbler, Speckled Piculet, Wayanad Laughing Thrush, and the Nilgiri Wood Pigeon.

Indian archers won two gold and one silver in team events in the ongoing 1st Asian Grand Prix Archery Championships in Bangkok.
Compound women team of Gagandeep Kaur, V Jyothi Surekha and P Lily Chanu defeated Iran in the final team event and took the first gold for the country by a good margin of 15 points (219 vs 204). They eliminated Taipei team (224 vs 220) in the semi-final and Lao (224 vs 214) in the quarter-final.
Recurve men trio of Jayanta Talukdar, Tarundeep Rai and Kapil clinched the gold by thrashing Taipei in a one-sided final (6-0) in set system.
Recurve women team lost to Japan in the bronze medal match.

Indian telecom equipment-maker Vihaan Networks Ltd (VNL) is powering a communications revolution in Africa, particularly in villages and remote locations, through its innovative, green mobile tower solutions.
The latest to join its client list is Ghana, which has chosen VNL's solar-powered ‘WorldGSM’ mobile tower architecture — an environment-friendly and cost-effective mobile system — to deliver affordable services in villages.
VNL is already present in Nigeria, Uganda and Benin, while it is in talks with other African nations to deploy its cheap and green telecom solutions. In Latin America, VNL has deployed its network in Bolivia and Peru. In Bolivia, it has partnered with Entel S.A., state-run telecom operator, for deployment of GSM mobile tower sites in remote locations under the ‘Cobertura Movil Rural’ (rural mobile coverage) project.