Daily GK Potion – 19th January 2016

  1. Gunter Butschek is Tata Motors chief
    • Gunter Butschek has been appointed Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director of Tata Motors, ending a long search for a suitable candidate for the post.
    • The country’s largest auto maker across segments has been leaderless since the death of its former chief Karl Slym in Bangkok in January 2014.
    • Butschek, who is expected to join the company by February 15, joins Tata Motors after his last assignment at Airbus Group where he served as CEO and Member of the Group Executive Committee.
    • The 55-year-old graduate in Business Administration and Economics who holds a diploma from the University of Cooperative Education Stuttgart, Germany, brings functional and general management skills and experience to his new role at Tata Motors.
  2. Economic emergency declared in France
    • French President Francois Hollande has announced what he called “a state of economic and social emergency” involving a €2 billion plan to revive hiring and catch up with the world’s economy.
    • Hollande announced plans for training half a million jobless workers, greater use of apprenticeships, and €2,000 aid for small businesses that hire young workers.
    • Hollande’s socialist government has been failing to boost long-stagnant French growth or cut chronic unemployment, which has been about 10 percent for a long time.
  3. BSE launches algo trading test facility
    • BSE today launched an algorithm trading test facility for investors on its equity and derivatives platform. The new service is free-of-cost for market participants.
    • Algorithmic trading or algo trading refers to orders on bourses that are generated using high-frequency, automated execution logic.
    • The new service for algorithm trading test environment has been launched in partnership with Symphony Fintech Solutions Pvt Ltd, BSE said in a statement.
  4. Sikkim becomes India’s first organic state
    • Sikkim has become India’s first fully organic state by implementing organic practices on around 75,000 hectares of agricultural land.
    • Around 75,000 hectares of agricultural land was gradually converted to certified organic land by implementing organic practices and principles as per guidelines laid down in National Programme for Organic Production.
    • It was 12 years ago in 2003 when the Pawan Chamling-led government decided to make Sikkim an organic farming state through a declaration in the legislative assembly.
    • Organic cultivation is free of chemical pesticides and chemical fertilisers as it tries to strike a harmonious balance with a complex series of ecosystems.In the long term, organic farming leads in subsistence of agriculture, bio-diversity conservation and environmental protection.
  5. Life ban for Chandila; Shah gets five years
    • Haryana offspinner Ajit Chandila was slapped with a life ban for his involvement in the 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal, while Mumbai batsman Hiken Shah was handed a five-year suspension for making a corrupt approach to a fellow player as the BCCI disciplinary committee sealed their fate after a meeting in Mumbai.
    • The committee, headed by BCCI president Shashan Manohar and comprising Jyotiraditya Scindia and Niranjan Shah, deferred a decision on Chandila’s co-accused Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf till February 12, giving him a final deadline of February 9 to file his reply.

Read next : Daily GK Potion – 20th January 2016 ››
Read previous:
 « Daily GK Potion –  18th January 2016

« Back to current affairs