Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams - 21 June, 2014

Current Affairs For Bank, IBPS Exams

Syndicate Bank is planning to expand its overseas operations by opening branches in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, China and Thailand, bank Chairman and Managing Director Sudhir Kumar Jain said here on Saturday.
Addressing a press conference here, Mr. Jain said at present the bank had a overseas branch in London. Besides overseas branches, the bank had plans to open 25 more mid-corporate branches to cater to micro, small and medium enterprises.
As part of the expansion, the bank had recruited about 5,000 personnel this year to give a boost to current and savings accounts.
Around 750 of them would be specialised officers, he said, and added that the bank planned to identify 100 executives for giving them vigorous training to groom them to take future assignments.

Foreign investment of 10 per cent or more in a listed company will now be treated as foreign direct investment (FDI) as the government has accepted the report of a committee on rationalising definitions of FDI and FII.
The Finance Ministry in a statement said the government had accepted the report of the committee headed by Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram.
It said an investor may be allowed to invest below 10 per cent and “this can be treated as FDI subject to the condition that the FDI stake is raised to 10 per cent or beyond within one year from the date of the first purchase“.

Suggesting uniform tax treatment for all investors, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman U. K. Sinha, said the government needed to come out with a detailed policy on the matter to remove the existing ‘anomalies’ in the bond market.
At present, tax rates vary for entities making investments in bonds.Mr. Sinha said the more difficult issue pertained to tax treatment or the withholding tax for investors in bond market.
Noting that there were ‘certain anomalies’, the SEBI chief said the level of withholding tax for an FII investing in infrastructure bonds was different from that of others.
Emphasising that procedures had been simplified for the corporate bond market, he said SEBI was in dialogue with industry to encourage them to come out with more issuances.At present, $10 billion is the maximum investment limit allowed for entities such as sovereign wealth funds in government securities.

President Pranab Mukherjee has cleared the elevation of the Chief Justices of Calcutta and Orissa High Courts Arun Mishra and Adarsh Kumar Goel, respectively, and senior lawyers Rohinton Nariman as Supreme Court judges.
Earlier this week, the Law Ministry sent the file to the President after removing the name of the former Solicitor-General Gopal Subramanium. The Centre returned his name to the collegium headed by Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha for reconsideration.

Kanyashree Prakalpa, a West Bengal government scheme that provides scholarship to girls from economically-backward backgrounds, has been given international recognition by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and UNICEF. State representatives have been invited to the Girl Summit 2014 in London, in June, and to talk about the scheme to a global audience.
The conditional cash transfer scheme for school girls was inaugurated by the Trinamool Congress government on October 1, 2013, with the express purpose of ensuring the education of girls and thereby preventing forced child marriage.
Under the scheme, the government provides an annual scholarship of Rs. 500 to girls between 12 and 18 years (class eight to class 12) to continue with their studies, provided they are unmarried. A one-time grant of Rs.25,000 is also provided to the girl, once she reaches the age of 18, to pursue higher studies.