(General Awareness For Bank's Exams) Science & Technology

February - 2015

Raj Jain: new CEO of Bharti Retail

Former Walmart India president Raj Jain will be heading the retail operations of Bharti Enterprises.

Bharti Retail had roped in Jain as its group advisor after the company split with world’s top retailer Walmart last year, but the company appointed him as the CEO.

Jain will report to Rajan Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman and managing director, Bharti Enterprises.

In fact, Jain will not be the first former Walmart India official to join Bharti Group.

Golf Digest 50 list

World number one Tiger Woods has cracked USD 1.3 billion in career earnings by leading the Golf Digest 50 with USD 83 million in income last year, the magazine reported on its website.

Woods, a 14-time major champion, topped the list for the 11th time in its 11-year history with $83,091,508, including an estimated $71 million off the course and more than $12 million in prize money.

The story says Woods' winnings of more than $155 million reflect less than 12 per cent of his career earnings, with $1.16 billion coming from endorsements since his pro debut in 1996, a figure that continues to increase even in the wake of an infamous sex scandal and ensuing divorce.

Second on the Golf Digest list for 2013 income was Phil Mickelson at $52,009,156, with an estimated $45 million in endorsements and other non-prize money income.

The US left-hander won last year's British Open and hopes to complete a career Grand Slam by winning this year's US Open, an event where he is a record six-time runner-up.

Tata’s fourth international nodal office

• Tata Group has opened its fourth international nodal office in Singapore to help group companies grow faster in ASEAN region (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
• Tata Sons the investment holding company of the group today said that it appointed K V Rao, a former civil servant of Singapore, as resident director for ASEAN – Tata Sons. Rao is also managing director of Trust Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Tata Power.
• ASEAN comprises ten countries located in Southeast Asia including Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei ,Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. More than 15 companies of Tata Group already has their presence in Singapore in diverse areas employing over 3,100 people and assets over $7 billion.
• Tata Technologies, the engineering and design company of the group, has its headquarter in Singapore. Besides group firms such as Tata Motors and Tata Power have respectively made inroads in countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
• The $100 billion Tata Group is aiming for $500 billion turnover target by 2022. This would require aggressive inorganic route across the globe to seek new opportunities. Group’s recent focus on Africa and ASEAN would help it achieve the same.

Mumbai’s new airport terminal

Mumbai unveils its long-awaited $2 billion new airport terminal recently . Hemmed in by Mumbai's sprawling slums, the renovated Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport was delayed for nearly two years and overran its construction budget by 25 per cent. The project was dogged by political disputes, regulatory snarls and difficulty reclaiming more than 300 acres of airport land near the runway occupied by tens of thousands of squatters.

The Mumbai airport's developer and operator, a public-private venture led by GVK Group, is betting that passengers will find the result worth the wait for its sleek and airy design, abundant greenery and some 7,000 pieces of Indian art.

The art works make up the centerpiece of the terminal, embedded in a 3-kilometer (1.9-mile)-long internal wall that runs along the departure and arrival gates of the four-story building. The check-in facility has a gleaming white, 11-acre roof with dozens of skylights that resemble the plumage of a peacock, India's national bird. The 700,000-square-foot retail and gateway areas feature more than 1,000 lotus-flower-shaped chandeliers.

Aiming high, Mumbai International Airport Ltd. has declared the facility will be "one of the best airports in the world that consistently delights the passengers."

The airport will shift all international carriers to the new terminal within a few weeks and hopes that most domestic airlines will operate from a lower level in the same building in about a year after it demolishes the current terminal and finishes the fourth leg of the new, X-shaped building.

Millennium Bus Depot removed

In a move that has been welcomed by environmental activists, the Millennium Bus Depot, constructed as a temporary structure on the Yamuna river bank during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, will be shifted out.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that the government would clear its stand on the controversial depot before the high court through an affidavit. The case will come up for a hearing . The CM also announced that no further construction would be allowed on the river bed.

Kejriwal stressed that it was not just a question of safeguarding the environment but also the important issue of ensuring that the city's natural resources are protected. "It is a catchment area for water which cannot be meddled with," he said.

Millennium Depot is one of the biggest depots that the DTC operates at present. Spread over 60 acres, the depot houses four units within the complex. These four depots in turn park 800 low-floor buses— the single depot to have so many low-floor buses.

Besides the buses, the depot also has four CNG filling stations, workshops, ETP, automated washing plants and air-inflation plants. Delhi government had spent over Rs 60 crore to construct the depot in 2010 with more funds being pumped in to build the existing infrastructure.

Moody's rating

A rating downgrade for India is not on the cards according to a report, citing Moody's rating analyst Thomas Byrne.

Moody's has an investment grade rating of Baa3 on India with a stable outlook.

Last month, Moody's had said India's economic growth rate remains weak and there is little chance of recovery next year.

The May elections open possibility of better governance . The global rating agency had also earlier cautioned that low growth and high inflation could weaken the country's debt profile and raise financing cost.

If current lower growth and high inflation persist over the medium term, the domestic financial system's capacity to absorb government debt could fall quite considerably.

This could change the structure of government debt, raise debt financing costs and weaken government debt ratios.

Sameer Goel: Cipla India Head

Drug major Cipla has announced the appointment of Sameer Goel as Country Head - India,. Goel, who comes to Cipla from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), will be reporting to company's Managing Director and Global CEO Subhanu Saxena.

Goel, in his last assignment, led a USD 0.4 billion business based out of Johannesburg, with responsibility for 44 markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. In his last India-based role at GSK, he led the sales team comprising 4,500 direct and indirect field executives.

Top 100 BPO cities list

Manila is now the world's second most important place for business process outsourcing, dislodging Mumbai from the position, according to the Tholons Top 100 Outsourcing Destinations for 2014

Seven Philippine cities were listed in the Top 100 rankings, as Manila and Cebu – No. 8 – were in the Top 10 of the Tholons list.

Up a notch onto 69th place is Davao City. Sta. Rosa, Laguna moves two places to 82nd and Bacolod is up also by a notch to 93rd while Iloilo slips to 95th from 93rd and Baguio City is holding on to the 99th place.

Cities of India remained dominant on the Top. Bangalore continued to occupy the top spot, followed by Mumbai (No. 3), which Manila dislodged from No. 2), Delhi (No. 4), Chennai (No. 5),Hyderabad (No. 6), and Pune (No. 7).

Krakow, Poland is No. 9, and Dublin, Ireland is No. 10.

Airbus A380 superjumbos

India will allow Airbus A380 planes to land at the country's four main airports, lifting restrictions on the superjumbos flying into the country.

The four airports equipped to handle the A380s are in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The ban on A380s was mainly due to concerns that foreign carriers may further hurt state-run Air India by grabbing a larger share of international traffic.

The rule change will benefit carriers like Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Lufthansa and British Airways that operate the super-jumbo and fly to India, as well A380 customers like Etihad and Qatar Airways who have yet to take delivery of the aircraft.

Lee Yong-dae banned

South Korea's Olympic badminton gold medallist Lee Yong-dae has been hit with a one-year ban for missing doping tests, said the Badminton World Federation (BWF) .

The 25-year-old won mixed doubles gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing and a bronze medal in the men's doubles in London four years later. Another Korean player, Kim Ki-jung, was also banned for one year.

The ban was effective until Jan. 23, 2015, the federation said in a statement, meaning the players would miss the Asian Games in Incheon later this year.

Highest base price bracket in IPL auctions

Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh have retained their highest base price bracket of Rs.2 crore for the upcoming IPL auctions.

There are 46 capped Indian players on the list of 208 international players who have enrolled for the auction.

Kiwi sensation Corey Anderson’s base price is a relatively modest Rs.1 crore.While Michael Clarke has pulled out of the auction, Ashes hero Mitchell Johnson’s base price is Rs.2 crore.

Like Sehwag and Yuvraj, Ashish Nehra is also expected to fetch atleast Rs.2 crore or more at the auction, going by his highest bracket base price.

Dinesh Karthik, who was widely tipped to be retained by Mumbai Indians, also has a base price of Rs. 2 crore.

Yusuf Pathan is in the highest bracket too despite three poor seasons with Kolkata Knight Riders.

Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, M. Vijay, Manoj Tiwary and Robin Uthappa are the other capped Indian players in the highest bracket.

Record set by Anirban Lahiri

• Confident Top-ranked golfer Anirban Lahiri made his intentions clear by gaining a two-shot lead at the end of the first round of the PGTI Ahmedabad Masters
• The Bangalorean’s round one exploits helped him set the KBG course record which is staging its first ever professional event. Angad Cheema, who was part of group comprising Lahiri and Rashid Khan, posted a creditable six-under-66 to lie second.

Satya Nadella : the next Microsoft CEO

• Technology giant Microsoft is likely to name Indian-American top executive Satya Nadella to replace longtime chief Steve Ballmer as the new Chief Executive Officer, capping a five-month search for the only third CEO in the company's history.
• The Hyderabad-native, who is the executive vice president of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group, has been among the front-runners being considered for the top job.

First woman to chair US Fed

• Janet Yellen, the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve in its 100-year history, will take over the reins of the US central bank and formally be sworn in soon.
• She succeeds Chairman Ben Bernanke, Yellen will be sworn in by Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo,
• Yellen will be one of a handful of women heading central banks globally. Her main task will be to navigate the US central bank's way out of its extraordinary stimulus, beginning with a further dialing down of its massive bond-buying programme, and deciding when to raise rates.
• The Fed has already announced a $20 billion reduction in its monthly asset purchases and is expected to completely shut down the program by year-end.

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