Daily GK Potion – 17th August 2015

 

  1. Ajit Seth appointed PSEB chairman
    • The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the name of former cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth as the chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PSEB)
    • The ACC also approved appointment of Gauri Kumar and Anshuman Das as PSEB members.
    • Seth and the three PSEB members will serve for three years or till attaining the age of 65, whichever is earlier.
  2. Standard Life to up stake in HDFC Life to 35%
    • HDFC has announced that it will sell a 9 per cent stake in HDFC Life Insurance to its British joint venture partner Standard Life for a little over Rs. 1,700 crore.
    • The transaction — once approved by Indian regulators — would lead to Standard increasing its stake in HDFC Life to 35 per cent from the current 26 per cent.
    • HDFC’s shareholding in the joint venture will fall to 61.65 per cent.
    • HDFC Life Insurance, launched in 2000, was the first private life insurer to be granted a licence to operate in India.
  3. MHA to setup national fingerprint database to record pan-India criminal data
    • The home ministry has decided to establish a national fingerprint database of nearly 28 lakh convicts and those arrested for criminal offences, by collating records from all the states.
    • The move is expected to aid in the speedy identification of criminals and investigation of crimes across the country.
    • At present, the Delhi-based Central Finger Print Bureau (CPFB) has data of over 9.7 lakh finger print records of convicted or arrested persons in digitized form. But over 18 lakh finger print records with finger print bureaus of states and Union Territories are not linked to this central database.
    • The National Informatics Centre is creating a ‘cloud’ for this integration.
  4. Housing.com acquires HomeBuy360 for $2 million
    • To rapidly expand its portfolio and reach, property portal Housing.com has acquired HomeBuy360, a cloud-based sales lifecycle management platform that connects developers, agents and buyers, for $2 million.
    • This is the second acquisition made by the company in 2015, after it bought Indian Real Estate Forum (IREF), a platform providing unbiased property information to consumers and realty business intelligence to empower property buyers and financial institutions to assess risks and take informed decisions.
    • With this acquisition, Housing.com is now the only online real estate listing platform to own a developer CRM company.
  5. India-US Combined Military Training Exercise YUDH ABHYAS 2015 will be held from 9th September 2015 at Joint Base Lewis McChord in United States.
  6. Saina Nehwal settles for silver at World Badminton Championship after losing to Carolina Marin in final
    • Saina Nehwal lost in straight games to badminton World Championships title holder Carolina Marin as her quest to become the first Indian world champion in badminton ended in heartbreak in Jakarta
    • Legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone was the first Indian to win a bronze at the 1983 edition.
  7. Taj Mahal becomes ‘first monument’ to debut on Twitter
    • With the launch of Taj Mahal’s twitter account on Saturday (August 15), the 17th century mausoleum became the “first historical monument” to have an official handle on the micro-blogging site.
    • Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today launched the official twitter account of the monument– @Taj Mahal at his residence in the state capital

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