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Mars
Mission: India creates history as Mangalyaan successfully enters Mars
orbit in first attempt
India
>
Mars Mission >September 24
Creating history,
ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) successfully entered the orbit of
the red planet. India joins the United States, Russia and Europe in
successfully sending probes to orbit or land on Mars. Apart from
India, none managed to succeed on their first attempt.
The mission also makes
India the first country in Asia to reach Mars, after an attempt by
regional rival China failed to leave Earth's orbit in 2011. ISRO's
MOM is also the cheapest such mission till now. The Mars Orbiter
Mission was achieved on a budget of $74 million, nearly a tenth of
the amount the U.S. space agency NASA spent on sending the Maven
spacecraft to Mars.
SBI
signs $500 million line of credit with Korea Eximbank
Corporate
>
SBI >September 26
State Bank of India
(SBI) has signed a line of credit (LoC) of $500 million with
Export-Import Bank of Korea (Korea Eximbank). This line will be in
addition to (LoC) of $200 million signed between the two institutions
on January 16, 2014 to support Indian companies importing goods and
services from Korea. The LoC can be utilised to finance SBI's clients
in India and its neighbouring countries having business relationships
either by way of equity participation or regular trade with Korean
companies globally, as well as joint ventures or subsidiaries of
Korean companies.
Google
inks pact with Andhra Pradesh for state's IT vision
Corporate
> Google >September 30
Google India has signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with the Andhra Pradesh government to
support AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's vision of
transforming the state of Andhra Pradesh to 'Digital AP'. Under the
pact, Google India would work with the AP government to get women as
well as small and medium business online and help them gain from the
internet economy. The highlights of the MoU include helping AP
government make their websites mobile-ready and accessible in the
local language, promoting internet safety amongst children and
government officials, improving and getting more local language
content online and collaborating with the AP government to scale
initiatives to promote digital literacy amongst women and helping
small medium businesses in AP to gain from the Internet economy and
going digital.
The MoU was signed by
Google India Vice-President and Managing Director Rajan Anandan and
AP secretary Sanjay Jaju in the presence of AP Chief Minister N
Chandrababu Naidu.
Others
US
jury finds Arab Bank liable for backing terrorism
World
>
US > September 24
A federal jury found
Jordan-based Arab Bank liable for knowingly supporting terrorism
efforts connected to two dozen attacks in the Middle East, the first
time a bank has ever been held liable in a civil suit under a broad
antiterrorism statute. Arab Bank, a major Middle Eastern bank with
$46 billion in assets, was accused of knowingly supporting specific
terrorist acts in and around Israel during the second Palestinian
uprising of the early 2000s. The plaintiffs in this case, about 300
victims of 24 terrorist attacks, said the acts had been carried out
by Hamas, and accused Arab Bank of supporting the organization by
handling transfers and payments for Hamas members.
The case focused on
transactions Arab Bank handled during the second Palestinian
uprising. The plaintiffs accused Arab Bank of handling transactions
for a number of well-known terrorists, and helping to route
transactions for a charity called the Saudi Committee. That charity,
the plaintiffs argued, sent payments to the families of Hamas suicide
bombers, pointing to a Saudi Committee spreadsheet that included the
names of relatives of some of those bombers.
India
rolls Liar’s Dice for the Oscars
Awards
>
Oscars > September 24
Hindi road drama Liar’s
Dice will be India’s nomination for the Best Foreign Film at the
Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, which will be given away
in Los Angeles in 2015.
The movie, directed by
Kerala State award-winner Geetu Mohandas, stars national award
winners Geetanjali Thapa and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Set along the
Himachal-Tibet border, the movie deals with distress migration.
Microsoft
to train 1 million women under tech initiative
Corporate
>
Microsoft > September 24
Microsoft, under its
initiative to bring more women into the Indian IT industry, along
with partners will train and mentor 1 million women in the next 12
months. Microsoft’s 'Women in Tech' initiative aims to double the
number of women IT professionals in India from the present one
million in the next few years. The initiative will include girl
school students, young women students in STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Maths) colleges, women IT professionals and
entrepreneurs.
‘Women in Tech’ is
designed to help aspiring IT professionals, by associating with them
from the time they are in high school till they take up a IT job or
start their own IT venture. Under the initiative, Microsoft will
engage with 750,000 women in STEM courses in the next 12 months and
will also train 250,000 women IT professionals.
Besides, the programme
will look towards building local communities for girls and women to
meet, network and learn from each other by sharing ideas and
learnings across the board.
Amul
becomes fastest growing dairy organisation in world
Corporate
>
Amul > September 25
The Gujarat Cooperative
Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets the popular Amul
brand of milk and dairy products, is the fastest growing dairy
organisation in the world and has risen to the 15th rank among top
global dairy companies in 2014.
As per a statement
released by the GCMMF, Amul has been ranked 15th among the top dairy
organisations of the world by International Farm Comparison Network
(IFCN), a global dairy knowledge organisation.
Amul was on the 20th
spot on the IFCN list in 2012.
Amul (GCMMF) has
been ranked the 15th largest dairy organisation in the world, both in
terms of total milk procurement and in terms of turnover per litre of
milk procurement.
Tata
Steel wins Asian CSR leadership award
Corporate
> Tata
Steel > September 26
Sukinda Chromite
Mine of Tata Steel in Odisha has bagged the Asian Corporate Social
Responsibility Leadership Award for Community Development. The award
was presented by World CSR Congress at Dubai. Voluntarily, several
officers of Sukinda Chromite Mine have been sponsoring orphan tribal
girls of nearby schools of Sukinda.
Due to ‘Improvement
Activities’ done by employees in the work place, they receive prize
money. Even that they donate to the needy school kids for buying
books and school uniform.
O
Panneerselvam sworn in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu
India
>
Tamil Nadu > September 29
Tamil Nadu Finance
Minister O Panneerselvam was sworn in as the new chief minister of
the state. Panneerselvam, 63, the elected leader of the AIADMK
legislature party, succeeds J Jayalalithaa, who was sentenced to four
years in prison for indulging in corruption.
Several AIADMK
legislators were also sworn in as ministers. He became the chief
minister of Tamil Nadu in 2001 in similar circumstances. He was also
leader of the opposition when the AIADMK was voted out in 2006.
Syed
Muazzem Ali is new Bangladesh envoy
India
>
Bangladesh
Envoy > September 29
Retired diplomat and
former Foreign Secretary, Syed Muazzem Ali, has been appointed the
new Bangladesh High Commissioner to India.
Mr.
Ali will replace Tariq A. Karim, who has been in office for the past
five years. He played a major role in setting up the embassy of
independent Bangladesh in the U.S. Mr. Ali served as the Bangladesh
Ambassador to Bhutan, Iran and France, and also worked at Bangladesh
missions in Washington, Warsaw, New Delhi and Jeddah in different
capacities. He had retired as the Foreign Secretary in 2001.
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