Here’s the current affairs round-up for this week:
1. ISRO successfully launches GSLV-D6 carrying GSAT-6 satellite
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched India’s communication satellite GSAT-6 using its heavy rocket Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D6) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. This is the second consecutive success with indigenous cryogenic engine capable of carrying 2-2.5 tonne class of spacecraft.
More Details: Business Standard
2. China’s Central Bank Cuts Interest Rates
China stepped up its credit-easing efforts by slashing interest rates and flooding its banking system with new liquidity, its second such combo move in two months aimed at battling a deepening economic slowdown and its worst stock-market selloff in decades.
More Details: Wall Street Journal
3. ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins
Militants from the Islamic State set off explosions at a temple in the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria, activists and government officials said on Sunday, continuing a pattern of destruction that they have visited upon historical sites across the territory they control there and in Iraq.
More Details: New York Times
4. FM Arun Jaitley inaugurates Bandhan Bank as full-fledged scheduled commercial bank
India gets its first private bank in 11 years with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurating Bandhan Bank as a full-fledged scheduled commercial bank on Sunday, ushering in a new era in country’s financial sector, which will now see innovation taking the centrestage to reach out to the unbanked population.
More Details: Economic Times
5. Usain Bolt secures 11th World Championships gold with relay win
Usain Bolt collected his 11th World Championships gold medal as Jamaica won the 4x100m relay in Beijing. It was Bolt’s third gold of the championships after victories in the 100m and 200m.
More Details: BBC
6. Infosys launches three new service offerings under ‘Aikido’ branding
Infosys, India’s second largest information technology (IT) services company, launched three new services which, it said, would work as a catalyst in positioning it as a next-generation services company. The three initiatives together would be known as ‘Aikido’, name of a popular Japanese martial art.
More Details: Business Standard
7. ‘Turnaround man’ Ashwani Lohani to head Air India
Ashwani Lohani, an engineer-turned-bureaucrat, was on Thursday appointed Chairman and Managing Director of the struggling state-run carrier Air India.
More Details: The Hindu
8. Hardik Patel to launch nationwide protest
The Patidar agitation, so far confined to Gujarat, spilled over to the National Capital on Sunday. In a half-hour interaction with the national media, Hardik Patel, the 22-year-old convenor of the Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti, gave a call to launch a nationwide stir to demand OBC reservation for the Patel community.
More Details: Hindu Business Line
9. Wickremesinghe sworn in as Sri Lankan prime minister
Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in on Friday as Sri Lanka’s prime minister after winning a general election, and agreed with President Maithripala Sirisena’s party to form a national unity government to push ahead with reforms.
More Details: Reuters
10. RBI’s Raghuram Rajan fobs off clamour for a rate cut, says taming inflation is essential
As the rupee weakened by more than a percentage point and stocks tumbled by their sharpest in more than seven years, Rajan was quick to fob off clamour for a rate cut, saying that India was in better shape than most and that he would not commit the mistakes of other central banks in looking to prop up markets.
More Details: Economic Times
