DAILY GK UPDATE - 1 Feb 1. Yellen take charge as Fed Chief i. Janet Yellen, the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve in its 100-year history, had take over the reins of the US central bank today and formally be sworn in next week, the Fed said on Thursday. ii. Yellen, 67, who begins her post as the Fed unwinds its unprecedented efforts to boost the US economy, will be sworn in at 9 am EST (1400 GMT) on February 3. iii. She will have full authority as the top central banker from Saturday until the swearing-in ceremony, according to the Fed. iv. She succeeds Chairman Ben Bernanke, whose second four-year term expires on Friday. Yellen will be sworn in by Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo, a Fed official said on condition of anonymity. 2. Nepal, India amend transit treaty i. Nepal and India have amended a bilateral transit treaty to facilitate the export of goods from a third country through India. ii. Earlier, only goods of Nepalese origin were allowed to be exported through India to third countries. The amendment to the export procedure in the Memorandum to the Protocol to the Treaty of Transit of 1999 will facilitate the transit of goods of third country origin exported from Nepal, said a statement issued on Friday by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. iii. The amendment will facilitate the re-export of goods imported to Nepal for fairs and exhibitions. It will also facilitate re-export of third country origin capital goods from Nepal for repair and return as well as re-export of rejected goods from Nepal. iv. The change will facilitate Nepalese businesses as it will lead to re-export of goods imported from third countries after value addition, for which a legal provision was made in Finance Act of 2009. v. The two sides discussed other important trade facilitation measures during the IGC meeting, including allowing the movement of imported vehicles on their own power from Kolkata to Nepal and facilitating the import of bulk cargo to Nepal by operationalising the multimodal transport link from Kolkata port through Jogbani-Biratnagar and Sunauli-Bhairahawa land routes, the statement said. 3. NTPC threatens to cut power supply in Delhi from Feb 11 i. NTPC Ltd on Saturday issued a notice to BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) threatening to regulate the electricity supply from February 11. ii. This may impact electricity supply to over 32 lakh customers spread across southern, eastern, central and western parts of Delhi. Payment security mechanism i. NTPC in its notice has said that the discoms have not been able to re-instate the payment security mechanism (commonly known as letter of credit or LC) within seven days as per norms in the power purchase agreement. ii. The LC was enchased on January 31 after the discom failed to clear its dues to the power generating company. “So, the shortfall in LC with effect from February 1 is ₹ 271.61 crore (in the case of BRPL),” NTPC said. Power purchase agreement NTPC would regulate 1,261 MW of supplies to BRPL and another 811 MW for BYPL. As per the power purchase agreement (PPA), maintenance of LC of adequate amount and timely replenishment of LC on negotiation is a pre-requisite for availing power from NTPC stations. 4. Harish Rawat to be new Chief Minister of Uttarakhand i. Harish Rawat will be the new Chief Minster of Uttrarakhan. He has been elected leader of the state Congress Legislative Party at its meeting in Dehradun today. ii. This was announced by party observer Janardan Dwivedi after the meeting. The election was done in the presence of central party observers Ambika Soni, Janardan Dwivedi and Ghulam Nabi Azad. The new Chief Minister will take oath at the Raj Bhawan. 5. India’s first monorail service launched in Mumbai Today i. India’s first monorail service has been launched in Mumbai. Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan inaugurated the first phase of Mumbai Monorail comprising today. ii. The first phase covers 8.9 km long Wadala-Chembur section.Commercial operations will begin from tomorrow. iii. Mumbai Monorail service will initially operate between 7 am and 3 pm at an interval of 15 minutes. The fully air-conditioned monorail’s minimum fare will be five rupees while maximum fare will be twenty rupees. iv. Mumbai brand new mode of transport will flaunt itself in three colours, green, pink and sky blue. The first phase, constructed at the cost of 1,900 crore rupees will have seven stations. The service connecting Mumbai’s central and eastern suburbs is expected to reduce the travel time between Wadala and Chembur from 40 minutes at present to 21 minutes. v. The mono rail has the glittering features like advanced passenger driver communication and CCTV cameras and it will use regenerative braking system saving 25 percent in power consumption. 6. Asia’s first SBTF commissioned into Indian Navy at Goa i. India has joined the elite group of nations when the Shore Based Test Facility (SBTF) was commissioned into the Indian Navy at INS Hansa in Panaji, a Naval official said in Panji on Saturday. ii. The SBTF, which was commissioned recently, is primarily used for flight testing of Naval aircraft that operate from aircraft carriers, he said. iii. The SBTF has two parts including the Take-off Area with a ski-jump facility and the Landing Area with arresting wire facility, both of which are a replica of INS Vikramaditya, a press release by the Indian Navy, said. iv. This is also being replicated onboard India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant being built at Kochi. Note: This is the third such facility in the world, after the United States and Ukraine. 7. Tennis: India defeat Chinese Taipei in Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group-I i. India have taken a 3-Nil winning lead over Chinese Taipei in the Asia-Oceania Group-I Davis Cup Tennis tie. At Indore today, India won the second Singles when Somdev Devvarman beat Ti Chen, 6-7, 7-6, 1-6, 6-2, 9-7. ii. The match had remained unfinished yesterday due to bad light. Later, the duo of Rohan Bopanna and Saketh Myneni brushed aside the challenge of Hsien-Yin Peng and Tsing Hua Yang , 6-0, 6-7, 6-3, 7-6 to win the Doubles. iii. India will now take on Korea in April, the winner of which will play in World Group play-offs. 8. Rajasthan withdrew its approval for FDI in multi-brand retail i. Rajasthan on 1 February 2014 scrapped its approval for the foreign direct investment in multi-brand retailing. The approval was given earlier by the previous Congress state government led by former Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot. ii. Vasundhara Raje, the Chief Minister of Rajasthan has written a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister of India, Anand Sharma for revising the FDI in multi-brand retail in a letter. iii. With this decision of scrapping the approval over FDI made Rajasthan the second state after Delhi to withdraw approval for FDI in multi-brand retail. iv. These two decisions of Delhi and Rajasthan came just after the change of government. Earlier, Rajasthan was one of the 12 states that agreed to allow FDI in the retail sector. 9. Narendra Modi free to apply for American visa: US i. BJPs prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was free to apply for an American visa and a decision on it would be made on the process that we have in place, said a senior US official. ii. We said he (Modi) is free to apply for a visa and well make a decision based on the process that we have in place here, State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf told reporters at her daily news conference on Friday. iii. In 2005, the State Department had revoked a visa that Modi had for travelling to US in the wake of the 2002 riots in Gujarat. iv. United States has repeatedly said that there is no change in its long-standing visa policy relating to Modi but he is free to apply for a visa and await a review like any other applicant.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 12:35:31 +0000
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