Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 06 May, 2014

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

06 May, 2014

E-auction of iron ore

The Goa Mines and Geology Department will hold its third e-auction of iron ore on May 12, wherein six lakh tonnes of ore, lying at jetties and the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) would be e-auctioned.
The State, through MSTC Ltd., has auctioned 1.62 million tonnes of iron ore through two e-auctions in February and March, realising around Rs.260 crore, which would go to the State treasury.
These e-auctions are held under the supervision of a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee, headed by U. V. Singh.
The Supreme Court, partially relaxing its October 5 ban on iron ore activities in the State, in December last had permitted the Goa Mines Department to auction about 15 million tonnes of iron ore lying at jetties, mining leases, plots, beneficiary plants and port, all under the supervision of its committee.
However, on April 21, the apex court lifted its ban on mining activities, but putting a cap of 20 million tonnes for annual production and ruling that since the renewal of all the deemed mining leases in the State had expired on November, 2007, and the operations carried out, thereafter, have been termed illegal, the mining lessees will not be entitled to the sale value of the ore sold in e-auction but to the approximate cost (not actual cost) of the extraction of the ore.
Making government the custodian of the money collected through e-auction, the court directed the State to pay 50 per cent of wages of all the workers who were laid off or were not paid salaries since the time the mining operations were suspended.

Metro AG

German retailer Metro AG plans to have 50 wholesale stores in India by 2020 and make the country one of its 'focus expansion' markets alongside Russia, China and Turkey.
India has always been an important future growth market of Metro .
The Dusseldorf-based company was the first global player to enter the cash-andcarry wholesale segment in India, back in India. It currently operates 16 outlets in the country.

No impact of global warming

A New Study Done By Researchers From Florida State University (FSU) Claimed That Though The World Has Been Warming Over The Past 100 Years, There Are Some Areas In The World Which Are Still Cooling.
The researchers analyzed global land and surface temperature trends since 1900 and concluded that the arctic and subtropical regions in both hemispheres were first to witness global warning. It is to be noted that the researchers did not look at temperatures from Antarctica.
According to researchers, the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude regions witnessed maximum amount of heating, but some areas of the world, including the some equatorial regions, actually cooled down.
The findings of the study are published in the journal Nature Climate Change. "The global climate has been experiencing significant warming at an unprecedented pace in the past century" the FSU study aid. "This warming is spatially and temporally non-uniform, and one needs to understand its evolution to better evaluate its potential societal and economic impact" .

New RCA president

Following the election of Lalit Modi as president of Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA), the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) hits back by 'indefinitely' suspending the association. The cricket board also appointed an ad-hoc body to run RCA's cricket affairs.
Modi was elected President of RCA, setting the stage for yet another round of legal tussle between him and the Board, which had threatened to ban the state association in anticipation of this result.
The RCA elections were held in December last year but the results were sealed following a Supreme Court directive. And it was opened recently by a court-appointed observer with the former Indian Premier League commissioner defeating his opponent, Rampal Sharma. Ouf of the 33 votes, Modi got 24, while Sharma got five.
The BCCI had asked the RCA to dissociate itself from Modi, or face action after the latter was banned for life for financial irregularities in the IPL in September 2013.
However, Modi – riding on the Rajasthan Sports Act 2005, contested the election for the post of president. The former Commissioner of the IPL was seeking to return to cricket administration.