Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 24 December, 2013

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

HDFC Mutual Fund has signed a definitive agreement to acquire all the eight schemes of Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund (MF) in India. The details of the transaction were not disclosed.
The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals as required. The average combined assets under management of the eight schemes for quarter ended September 30, 2013 was Rs. 3,290 crore.
HDFC Mutual Fund is acquiring only the schemes and not the company. But since all the schemes are being acquired, Morgan Stanley MF India would be a shell company for all practical purposes.
Morgan Stanley MF India has about Rs. 1,400 crore of equity assets under management, and this is one of the main reasons why HDFC MF is going for this acquisition.

Brushing aside suggestions that the RBI has shifted focus from inflation management to growth, the central bank today said fighting rising prices will continue to be its priority and a call on raising interest rates will be taken after factoring in more data.
He said the Reserve Bank will wait for next set of data on inflation and industrial growth before taking a call on interest rates.
Rajan had increased the key interest rate twice by 0.25 per cent each in successive monetary polices, but refrained from hiking it further at its December 18 mid-quarter monetary policy review despite high inflation. The repo rate is currently 7.75 per cent.
Retail inflation climbed to a nine-month high of 11.24 per cent in November, while wholesale price inflation rose to a 14-month high of 7.52 per cent last month. The next policy review is scheduled on January 28.

India evacuated 11 executives of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) from its oil projects in Sudan after violence escalated on December 15, which claimed 500 lives, including two Indian soldiers working as United Nations peacekeepers.
All the 11 executives working on the 40,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Greater Nile Oil Project and Block 5A were airlifted.
The ONGC executives had shut down the oilfields . ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of ONGC had deputed the 11 employees.
OVL owns 25-per cent stake in the Greater Nile Oil Project and 24.125 per cent in Block 5A, which produces 5,000 bpd.
South Sudan seceded from neighbouring Sudan in July 2011 and took three-quarters of the formerly united country's oil output.
Landlocked South Sudan has sub-Saharan Africa's third- largest oil reserves after Nigeria and Angola.

Ronjan Sodhi won the double trap gold in the 57th National Shooting Championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, New Delhi. Ronjan Sodhi defeated Ajay Mittal of Haryana as he shot 27/30 against Mittal's score of 25/30.
Meanwhile, Olympian Sanjeev Rajput bagged the yellow metal in the 50m Rifle 3 position event by defeating Olympic bronze medal winner Gagan Narang. Sanjeev shot 456.1 to win the gold, while Gagan scored 448.6 to claim silver medal. Chain Singh of Army shot 437.1 to win the bronze.
Delhi's team of Narendra S. Rawat, Manmohan Singh and Rijul Kala also won a bronze medal in 50m Rifle 3 position civilian championship team event with a score of 3285. Gold went to Railways with 3331 while Tamil Nadu won the silver medal.

A display of determination turned out to the theme of the day with an all-attacking K. Srikanth, ranked 37th in the world, coming up with a standout performance.
Earlier the duo of Pranav Chopra and Akshay Dewalkar besides the together-again pair of G. Jwala and Ashwini Ponnappa proving a point on the big stage by winning their grudge-matches.
Second seed P.V. Sindhu easily regained the title she lost last October by overpowering fellow-18-year-old Rituparna Das 21-11, 21-17 in 30 minutes.
There were plenty of cheers for Jwala and Ashwini as they upstaged top seeds Pradnya Gadre and Sikki Reddy to regain the title won in the 2009 edition.
Having lost to Pradnya and Sikki in Mumbai, Jwala and Ashwini controlled the match and were never seriously challenged in the 34-minute match.
All doubles winners received Rs. 84,000 and the runners-up, Rs. 40,000