Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 28 March, 2014

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

A recent and most modern acquisition of the Indian Air Force from the United States, the C-130J Super Hercules military transport aircraft, crashed near Gwalior, killing all five IAF personnel on board.
The wreckage of the aircraft was strewn along the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border, near Karauli district, about 165 km from Jaipur. Those killed in the crash are Wing Commander Prashant Joshi, Wing Commander Raji Nair, Squadron Leader Kaushik Mishra, Squadron Leader Ashish Yadav (navigator) and Warrant Officer Krishnapal Singh (flight engineer), IAF officers said.
The aircraft took off from Agra for a routine flying training mission. A court of inquiry has been ordered to investigate the cause of the accident.

India took the first step towards the liftoff of the experimental mission of its gigantic Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mark III when the rocket’s core stage, weighing more than 110 tonnes, was flagged off from the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, Mahendragiri, near Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu, to Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.
The significance of the mission is that it will be a forerunner to India sending its astronauts to space. For, the GSLV-Mk III in this flight will carry a crew capsule without astronauts. The capsule will return to earth with the help of parachutes. The mission will take place in June or first week of July.
The Indian Space Research Organisation calls its mission to send Indian astronauts to space the Human Space Flight (HSF) programme.
GSLV-Mk III is the “muscular sibling” of GSLV-Mk II which has an indigenous cryogenic engine. GSLV-Mk III can put a communication satellite weighing four tonnes into geo-synchronous transfer orbit or a 10-tonne satellite into low-earth orbit.

If any proof was needed that the firestorm of controversy from home had not blown as far as Bangladesh, India provided it in resounding fashion.
M.S. Dhoni’s men advanced to the semifinals of the ICC World T20 rather imperiously at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium mauling a hapless Bangladesh by eight wickets.
India needed 139 to win, and matters were wrapped up with nine balls to spare.

India’s total external debt stock stood at $ 426.0 billion on 31 December 2013, 5.2 per cent higher than that on 31, March, 2013. The external debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio has marginally worsened from 23.3 percent to 21.8 per cent.
The increase in external debt was due to long-term debt, especially Non Resident Indian (NRI) deposits.
Component-wise, according to the release, commercial borrowings accounted for 31.5 per cent of the total external debt, followed by NRI deposits (23.2 per cent) and multilateral debt (12.3 per cent). Government sovereign external debt stood at $76.4 billion, (17.9 per cent of total external debt) on 31 December 2013 against $81.7 billion (20.2 per cent) on 31 March 2013.