9 th Ministerial WTO Meet kicked off in Bali, Indonesia
- 4 day Ministerial WTO Meet started from 3 rd December, 2013 and will continue will 6 th December, 2013.
- US Trade Representative: Michael Froman
- India Commerce Minister: Mr. Anand Sharma
- WTO is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
- WTO is headed by Mr. Roberto Azavedo. He hails from Brazil.
- The main focus will be impact on India-US after Bali package on agricultural subsidies.
- 1 st Ministerial WTO Meeting started in December, 1996 in Singapore.
Rajpal Yadav jailed for 10 days for contempt of court.
- He was held guilty for contempt of court in connection with a pending suit of recovery of Rs. 5 Crore along with his wife.
Uttar Pradesh Government grants pension to Muzaffarnagar violence victims.
- Rs. 400/- to be granted to the seriously injured people in violence that stuck Muzaffarnagar and nearby districts in September, 2013.
- The monthly pension would be given under Rani Laxmi Bai Pension Scheme.
No outgoing calls from BSNL Network.
- A technical snag in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh stopped pre paid subscribers from making outgoing calls from their BSNL network for around 8 hours on Tuesday.
Supreme Court sets March 31, 2014 as the deadline for all states to draft rules for sale of acids.
EGoM approves Merger and Acquisition (M&A) Norms for Telecom Sector
- The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) headed by Union Finance Minister, Mr. P. Chidambaram approved guidelines on Mergers and Acquisition for Telecom Sector, which states that market share of a merged entity, should not exceed 50% of the subscriber base.
- He also cleared the sale of over 400 MHz of 2 G Spectrum that would help immensely the cellular phone market in our country.
India Telecom 2013 to be inaugurated by Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
- Three day international exhibition cum conference will start from December 5, 2013 in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
- It’s organized by Department of Telecommunications in collaboration with FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Rs. 600 Crore penalty on Idea Cellular by DoT.
- Department of Telecommunications has imposed this hefty fine due to violation of license condition in its merger deal with Spice Communications.
- The amount to be paid in next 15 days.
Titan launches helmet under FASTRACK brand.
CIC or Core Investment Companies can raise fund via ECB.
- Reserve Bank of India allowed CIC’s to raise funds through External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) for project use in Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV’s) involved in infrastructure sector.
- ECB can be used either for fresh capital expenditure or for refinancing of existing rupee loans from domestic banking system.
- Conditions: a) Maximum 25% of ECB raised by the infrastructure company can be utilized for refinancing of the rupee loans availed from the domestic banking system. It will be 40% in case of power sector. b) The ECB for SPV can be raised for 3 years.
China’s currency Yuan is the second most used currency in trade finance.
- Yuan overtook Euro in October to become the second most used currency in trade finance as per SWIFT.
- US Dollar tops the list with 81.08%.
- Top 5 countries using Yuan are China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany and Australia.
- SWIFT stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, headquartered in Belgium. SWIFT Chairman is Mr. Yawar Shah from Pakistan and CEO is Mr. Gottfried Leibbrandt from Netherlands.
Indian Captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the winner of ICC’s LG People’s Choice Award.
- Second Indian to win this award after Mr. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar.
- 3 Indians were also included in ICC ODI team of the year.- Shikhar Dhawan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja.
- Cheteshwar Pujara and Mahendra Singh Dhoni finds spot in ICC Test Team of the year where as Ravichandran Ashwin kept as 12 th man.
