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Australian
State Approves $2 Billion Rail Line for Adani Coal Project
World
> Adani
Coal Project
Adani Mining has got the state approval to build a
rail line for its $15 billion Carmichael coal project in Australia,
bringing it a step closer towards making a final decision on whether
to go ahead with the massive scheme. The state of Queensland approved
the A$2.2 billion ($2 billion) North Galilee Basin Rail project, a
300 kilometre (186 mile) railway to connect the Carmichael mine and
potentially other mines in the untapped Galilee Basin to the east
coast port of Abbot Point.
Adani recently signed an agreement with POSCO
Engineering & Construction Co Ltd to build the rail line. Costs
and other details of the contract are due to be set by the end of
this year.
RBI
imposes restriction on free usage of same-bank and cross-bank ATM
transactions
Bank
Specific >
ATM Transactions
The usage of ATMs will become expensive as the RBI
has imposed a restriction of three transactions per month from ATMs
of other banks and five transactions from ATMs of same bank in six
metropolitan cities. The customers will be required to pay a fee of
up to Rs. 20 for using ATMs beyond the permitted numbers of
transactions in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and
Hyderabad. These rules will not be applicable to customers having
basic or small savings bank accounts in these cities. Transactions
can be both financial and non-financial. Taking out a mini-statement
or even changing PIN will amount to a transaction. Currently, banks
are not allowed to charge their own customers for use of the ATM
network, regardless of the number of transactions. However, RBI has
said that a bank may offer more than three free transactions at other
bank ATMs to its account holders if it so desires. The RBI has
imposed the limit following a request by the Indian Banks’
Association (IBA) to levy charges on transactions at other banks’
ATMs to cope with the growing cost of ATM deployment and maintenance
incurred by banks. At present, each balance enquiry costs the bank
Rs. 11, while a transaction costs around Rs. 18.
Dot
Bharat domain to roll out on August 21
India
> Dot
Bharat Domain
Minister of Communications and IT Minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad would be unveiling the dot Bharat domain name on
August 21 in New Delhi, which would facilitate multi-lingual Internet
access. It is being said that having domain names in the Indian
languages would boost Internet penetration in the country and would
help drive the local content and related services in the remote and
rural areas of the country.
The autonomous body National Internet Exchange of
India (NIXI) and the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing
(C-DAC) is working together to provide the dot Bharat domain name and
it can be registered in several languages with Devnagari scripts.
Some of the languages include Marathi, Nepali, Konkani, Bodo and
Maithili.
Others
Vijayawada
likely to be interim Andhra capital
India
> Andhra
Capital
Andhra Pradesh chief
minister Chandrababu Naidu has decided to make Vijayawada the
temporary capital until a permanent one is constructed. In a meeting
with the central government’s advisory committee on the new Andhra
Pradesh capital, Naidu said that the new capital should be built in a
way that it should have world class infrastructure and other
facilities and should also become a tourist attraction.
Meanwhile, the K S
Sivaramakrishnan committee appointed by the Centre to examine and
recommend suitable places to build the new AP capital is all set to
submit its report on August 26 or 28. After receiving the report, the
final decision of the state government on the new capital will be
made public.
RBI
board approves Rajan’s proposal for overhaul, Nachiket Mor
frontrunner for COO
Bank
Specific >
RBI
The Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) board has approved RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s proposal for
major reforms aimed at revamping the Central Bank and removing
bottlenecks. Among his recommendations is the appointment of a Chief
Operating Officer (COO) who will be responsible for pushing financial
inclusion, differentiated banks and developing new structures for
financial markets. It will not interfere with the existing structures
that administer banks and financial markets. The new position may not
be ranked at deputy governor level as sought by Rajan, at least for
the time being. Nachiket Mor is the front-runner for the COO's job.
Mor is a former executive director of ICICI Bank and also headed the
RBI committee on financial inclusion. Rajan also proposed bringing
all aspects of the RBI under 5 functional departments to be
supervised by the COO and 4 Deputy Governors. He also wants to merge
similar departments of the bank to avoid overlap and is keen on
making lateral hires from the private sector.
Rajni
Razdan appointed chairman of UPSC
India
> UPSC
Rajni Razdan, a 64-year-old
former Indian Administrative Service officer from the Haryana cadre,
has been appointed the next Union Public Service Commission chairman.
She will replace Professor D.P. Agrawal. Razdan has been a UPSC
member since April 19, 2010 and has held several important
administrative posts throughout her long career. She worked as Joint
Secretary, Ministry of Food, and Additional Secretary, Ministry of
Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. She retired as Secretary,
Department of Pension and Administrative Reforms and Public
Grievances in 2007.
Government
launches insurance, pension scheme for senior citizens
India
> Pension
Scheme for Senior Citizens
Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley has re-launched an insurance scheme for senior citizens that
will provide monthly pension ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 5,000. The
revived scheme, called the Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana (VPBY),
would be available between August 15, 2014 and August 14, 2015 for
the benefit of citizens aged 60 years and above. The scheme would be
administered by LIC and the minimum investment (purchase price) for
the scheme would be Rs 66,665 and the maximum over Rs 6.66 lakh. The
pension will start from next year of purchase of insurance. The full
purchase price will be refunded to the nominee in case of death of
the insured. VPBY introduced earlier in 2003-04 by then NDA
Government, covered 3.83 lakh senior citizens. LIC collected Rs 7,100
crore under the scheme.
The Finance Minister hoped
LIC will cover a much larger number of people this time.
HDFC
Bank unveils `ForexPlus’ card for Haj, Umrah pilgrims
Corporate
> HDFC
Bank
HDFC Bank Ltd has launched
an exclusive ‘ForexPlus’ card for people making the Haj and Umrah
pilgrimages.
Pilgrims can use the card to
make all payments during the pilgrimage in a convenient and secure
manner and thus avoid carrying Saudi Riyals, which might get
misplaced. ForexPlus card can be used to withdraw money from ATMs as
well. Both HDFC Bank customers and the general public can avail of
the product.
Google
acquires image-recognition startup Jetpac
Corporate
> Google
Google has acquired Jetpac,
makers of an app that recommends destinations based on an analysis of
publicly shared Instagram photos. The Jetpac employees will join
Google's Knowledge team, which is attempting to build a more
sophisticated understanding of the real world into search results.
It's not clear exactly what
Google will do with Jetpac's technology for finding things like
popular bars and scenic vistas, but the startup has several
technologies that mesh with Google's priorities. First, its
technology works automatically, extracting information from large
numbers of publicly available photos instead of relying on curation
or other human processes. Google's search algorithms use the same
broad approach to analyzing the Web, working at a scale and speed
impossible for humans.
Jetpac's City Guides app
offers personalized recommendations based on photo attributes like
smiles, lipsticks, and blue skies.
34
state-owned PSUs operate without a chief executive despite Companies
ACT 2013 mandate
Politics
and Government >
PSUs
As of July 15, more than 34
central PSUs are operating without a chief executive or a full-time
chairman or managing director for the last 4 years. Reasons for the
vacancies include the scrapping of recommended panel of candidates by
the government, delays in obtaining vigilance clearance or approval
of competent authority and court cases filed by those lower down in
the empanelment process. According to the new Companies Act 2013,
delays in appointments of the top posts in companies are in
violations of the provisions of the legislation. Also according to
the Companies Act 2013, appointment of a MD, chairman or CMD is vital
to the enforcement of corporate governance norms. The CMD’s post is
lying vacant in such state-owned companies as Coal India Ltd, , BSNL,
NHPC, IRCTC, ONGC Videsh and MTNL to name a few.
Government
revamping rules for senior-level appointments in PSU Bank boards
Bank
Specific >
Appointments
Following the alleged
Syndicate Bank bribery scandal, the government is taking prompt
action to revamp and clean-up the entire process of senior-level
appointments in state-run bank boards. The government has decided to
split the post of the chairman and managing director. The chairman
would be a reputed person from the industry or a professional while
the MD would have a fixed term of three years, which would be
extendable by two more years. The primary focus would be to make the
boards free of any political interference and induct reputed
professionals such as economists, management professionals and other
experts. A new set of guidelines will also be announced for the
appointment of independent directors. They are expected to bring in
expertise from their respective fields and provide an oversight on
the management. Similarly, a person appointed as an executive
director must be an expert on risk management. The government is also
likely to bring a provision to transfer an MD if a bank slips,
marking a clear shift from the past practice.
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