1. Deputy RBI Governor Gandhi to look after monetary policy department
The senior most Deputy Governor in the Reserve Bank, R Gandhi, has been given the charge of monetary policy department, including forecasting and modelling unit, which was earlier under new Governor Urjit Patel.
The Reserve Bank "revised the portfolios" of its Deputy Governor, on a day of handover of governorship from Raghuram Rajan to Patel. Government is yet to appoint a Deputy Governor in place of Patel, who has been elevated as the Governor. The Deputy Governor handling monetary policy department is also likely to be nominated to the new rate setting panel MPC (Monetary Policy Committee).
The panel will also have three members to be appointed by the government, besides RBI Governor and one more person from the central bank.
2. Seven Indian institutes listed in top 400 in world: survey
Seven Indian institutes have been listed in the top 400 educational institutions in the world by a UK survey which saw Cambridge slipping out of the top three global universities for the first time.
According to ‘QS World University Rankings 2016’ survey, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hold on to the top spot, followed by two other American universities – Stanford at second position and Harvard at third position.
Indian universities continue to lag behind in the global top 200, with Indian Institute of Science dropping five notches to 152 from 147 last year and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi at 185 from 179 in 2015, the survey said,
Other Indian universities that make the cut within the top 400 on the list are the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) — Bombay (219), Madras (249), Kanpur (302), Kharagpur (313) and Roorkee (399).
Cambridge University has fallen out of the global top three for the first time in the latest university rankings released.
Cambridge, which was ranked a joint third with Harvard last year, slips to fourth with British competitor Oxford retaining its sixth rank.
The rankings include 916 universities from 81 countries, with 33 countries featured in the Top 200.
The US dominate, with 48 institutions, ahead of the UK (30), Netherlands (12), Germany (11), Canada, Australia (9), Japan (8), China (7), France, Sweden and Hong Kong (5).
3. Anjum Chopra honoured with MCC Life Membership
Former Indian women’s team captain Anjum Chopra has been awarded a honourary life membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) along with former men’s team stalwarts Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag. She is the first Indian woman cricketer to get the prestigious life membership of MCC.
4. Pak-American nominated to federal judiciary bench by Obama
American President Barack Obama has nominated a Pakistani-American 'Abid Riaz Qureshi' on the federal judiciary bench for the US District Court of Columbia. Qureshi is the first Muslim to be nominated on the federal judiciary bench for the US District Court of Columbia.
Abid Riaz Qureshi is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Latham & Watkins LLP, where he specialises in cases involving the False Claims Act, health care fraud, and securities violations. He currently serves as the Global Chair of the firms Pro Bono Committee, a position he has held since 2012.
5. Thithi wins Best Film honour at 1st BRICS Film Festival
Raam Reddy’s Kannada film Thithi was conferred the Best Film award by Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu at the closing ceremony of the 1st BRICS Film Festival.
Thithi, which earlier won various honours at 68th Locarno International Film Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival, 19th Shanghai International Film Festival and 63rd National Film Awards, is a dramatic comedy about how three generations of sons react to the death of the oldest in their clan, a man named Century Gowda — a locally renowned, highly cantankerous 101-year-old man.
South African actor Thabo Rametsi won the Best Actor (Male) award for his role in Kalushi, Russian actress Yulia Peresild was given the Best Actor (Female) honour for her film “The Battle for Sevastopol” and Chinese director Huo Jianqi was announced as the Best Director for helming Indo-Chinese co-production film, Xuan Zang.
Meanwhile, a Special Jury award was given to Phillipe Barcinski for Brazilian film “Between Valleys”, and Special Mention was given to Songs of the Phoenix from China and “14+” of Russia.
The festival featured 20 films in the competition section which focussed on a variety of issues and themes ranging from discrimination, love, history and relevant social challenges being faced by BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The next edition of the BRICS Film Festival will take place in Chengdu, China.
6. Federal Bank launches Digital Personal Loans
Federal bank has launched 'Digital Personal Loan' service for its customers, under which customers can log into bank’s website and avail personal loans in a minute.
Upon the acceptance of the offer by the customer, the loan money is credited to his account immediately. This facility neither requires the customer to visit the branch nor does he have to put his manual signature on any document. The facility can be accessed round the clock.
Speaking on the launching of the Digital Personal Loan, K A Babu, Head, Digital Banking, pointed out that Digital personal loans comes as third in the series of BYOM (Be Your Own Master) digital retail loans the bank has rolled out, previous offerings being digital car loans and loan against term deposit.
Mr Babu said, “We remain committed to the vision that banking should be a joyful experience. Digital personal loans is an end to end paperless product. The first phase of the launch will see this product being rolled out to our existing select customers pan India. We will roll out this product to all our customers with the product being available on mobile and ATM platforms.”
"Bank has already seen 75 per cent annualized growth in digital channels usage this financial year. With such convenient products and a host of other digital innovations in the pipeline, we expect 200 per cent growth in digital penetration this year,” he added.
7. Dharmendra Pradhan launches Gas4India campaign to promote use of natural gas
Dharmendra Pradhan, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas launched #Gas4India campaign.
The campaign is aimed at promoting the use of gas in the country.
Public and private sector companies working in the sector have joined hands to promote the natural gas sector.
Pradhan also launched the website, Twitter handle, Facebook page and theme song of the campaign.
Key highlights of the campaign
• Gas4India is a unified cross-country, multimedia, multi-event campaign.
• It promotes the national, social, economic and ecological benefits of using natural gas as the fuel of choice.
• The campaign includes social engagement via social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, and its official blogsites.
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