Current Affairs

Mahendra Lodha appointed interim MD & CEO of PFS

PTC India Financial Services Ltd (PFS), on Wednesday informed the exchanges that its newly appointed Director (Finance) Mahendra Lodha will take over the responsibilities of the MD & CEO till the appointment of a regular MD & CEO.



PM Modi-Led Yoga Session At UN Sets Guinness World Record

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Yoga celebration at the UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday created a Guinness World Record for the participation of people of most nationalities.

PM Modi, who is in New York on the first leg of his maiden state visit to the US at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, led a historic event at the UN Headquarters to commemorate the 9th International Day of Yoga, attended by top UN officials, diplomats and prominent personalities.

The Yoga celebration led by Prime Minister Modi at the UN headquarters created the Guinness World Record for participation of people of most nationalities, officials said.



Google Cloud Launches Anti-Money-Laundering Tool for Banks, Betting on the Power of AI

Financial institutions have long relied on human judgment to calibrate systems that help spot potentially risky transactions and customers. Now, Google Cloud wants them to let its artificial intelligence technology take greater control of that process.



Odisha cabinet approves outlay of over Rs 1,000 cr for transforming Puri

Odisha Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik have approved the revised cost of Rs. 4224.22 Crore (with an additional outlay of Rs 1016.22 crore) under Augmentation Basic Amenities and Development of Heritage and Architecture (ABADHA) Scheme for the development of Puri into a world-class heritage city and to preserve and revitalize the city and its heritage. "The State Cabinet had earlier approved the scheme with a cost outlay of Rs.3208 Crore. A number of projects are under implementation under the scheme. During the course of execution of the projects, some changes were effected to the approved projects and some additional projects have been taken up, which has resulted in an increase in the total cost outlay of the scheme to Rs.4224.22 Crore." said a statement from Odisha government.



President appoints retd Allahabad HC judge as DERC chief

President Droupadi Murmu has appointed Justice (Retired) Umesh Kumar of Allahabad High Court as the chairperson of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC). Notably, this is also the first such order after the promulgation of the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Ordinance, 2023.

Delhi’s ruling AAP government had earlier proposed the name of Justice (Retd) Rajeev Kumar Shrivastava of the Madhya Pradesh HC for the position.

While the L-G House said Justice Kumar was appointed after Justice Shrivastava expressed his inability to take up the job, Delhi’s power minister Atishi Wednesday called the move “illegal and unconstitutional.”



Govt appoints SBI MD Janakiraman as RBI DG

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) on Tuesday approved the appointment of State Bank of India’s (SBI) Managing Director Swaminathan Janakiraman to the post of Deputy Governor (DG) of the Reserve Bank of lndia (RBI) for a period of three years. He will succeed M K Jain, who will retire on June 21, 2023.

At SBI, Swaminathan is in charge of corporate banking and subsidiaries. He has vast experience in the areas of retail and international banking, trade finance, digital banking and transaction banking products.



Estonia becomes first Baltic nation to approve same-sex marriage

Estonia has become the first Baltic nation to legalise same-sex marriage.

The Estonian parliament voted in favour of a government bill that allows gay and lesbian couples to marry and win the same rights as heterosexual couples in a landmark ruling on Tuesday.

“Everyone should have the right to marry the person they love and want to commit to. With this decision we are finally stepping among … all the rest of the democratic countries in the world where marriage equality has been granted,” Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in a statement.



Trai unveils easier regulations for submarine cable landing stations

In a move to ease the rules for setting up submarine (undersea) cable landing stations (CLS) in India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has released its recommendations on the licensing framework and regulatory mechanism for the sector.
On Tuesday, Trai recommended amending the existing system of permits to include two categories of CLS locations. These include the main facility and the fibre distribution point, known as the ‘point of presence’ (PoP) in the industry.



Senior IAS officer Amit Agrawal appointed as CEO of UIDAI

Senior IAS officer Amit Agrawal has assumed charge as the new CEO of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). He was appointed to the position on June 19, following the retirement of Saurabh Garg.

Agrawal is a 1993-batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre. He has held a number of important positions in the government, including Secretary in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He is also the current Chairman of the National Digital Communications Policy Committee.



India hosts the 18th Session of the India - Iraq Joint Commission Meeting at New Delhi

Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Housing & Urban Affairs, Government of India, hosted H.E. Mr. Hayan Abdul Ghani Abdul Zahra Al Sawad, Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs, and Minister of Oil of the Republic of Iraq, at the 18th India - Iraq Joint Commission Meeting (JCM), held in New Delhi today.

The Confederation of Indian Industry organized a Business Roundtable on 19th June 2023, between the Business Leaders of both countries.

During the Joint Commission Meeting held on 20th June 2023, Shri Hardeep Puri, in his opening remarks, highlighted the natural and traditional synergies which exist between the two countries, on account of India’s position as the growing energy demand centre of the World. He called for the strengthening of relations between the two sides including the Oil & Gas Sector, Capacity Building and Diversification of trade baskets between the two countries. He underlined the readiness of Indian companies to explore investment opportunities in Iraq, upgradation of infrastructure facilities of the oil & gas sector and their amenability for  sourcing of increased quantities of crude oil from Iraq based on appropriate pricing regime.