Current Affairs: Daily Gk Updates 02nd March 2017 PDF

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We bring you the Latest  Gk, Daily Current Affairs news, Events, General awareness Today  02nd March 2017 Section in FREE PDF (English & Hindi), a section which outlines the latest important news, Events headlines which are hardly covered elsewhere.

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NATIONAL NEWS

NMCG Signs MoU with Rotary India for the Success of Namami Gange 

In its effort to make Namami Gange programme a mass movement with the involvement of more and more voluntary organisations, National Mission for Clean Ganga under Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation signed an MoU with Rotary India in New Delhi today. 
●    Rotary India will support clean Ganga mission through their ‘WASH in Schools’ program in various schools. The program includes the implementation of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services in the targeted government schools and sensitizing all the stakeholders including school children, teachers, school management communities and communities etc. on practicing positive health behaviors for improving awareness on sanitation. 
●    This will be achieved through an integrated learning environment and enabling children to serve as agents of change for their siblings and communities at large. Rotary India has planned to undertake WASH in Schools programme in 20,000 Government Schools. 
●    It may be recalled that Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti has been advocating the involvement of voluntary organization and NGOs into the Namami Gange programme to make it a mass movement. 
●    The MoU was signed by Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga Shri UP Singh and Vice Chairman of Rotary India Shri PT Prabhakar.

NATIONAL NEWS

CBDT signs 10 unilateral APAs with taxpayers

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on 28 February 2017 signed ten Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) with taxpayers. 
●    The APAs were signed in various sectors of the economy like Telecom, Pharmaceutical, Banking & Finance, Steel, Retail and Information Technology, etc.
●    In the current financial year, a total of 76 APAs have already been signed by CBDT. 
●    With this, the total number of APAs entered into by the CBDT reached 140 in number. This includes 10 Bilateral APAs and 130 Unilateral APAs. 
●    The CBDT expects more APAs to be signed before the end of the current fiscal.
●    Two of these ten agreements are Bilateral APAs with the United Kingdom and Japan. While, seven of these agreements have rollback provisions in them. 
●    The APAs entered into over the last week pertain to various sectors of the economy like Telecom, Pharmaceutical, Banking & Finance, Steel, Retail, Information Technology, etc. 

NATIONAL NEWS

Govt. Notifies Law to Criminalise Possession of Banned Notes

The government has notified the law that makes holding of more than 10 scrapped notes punishable with a minimum fine of Rs 10,000.
●    The Specified Bank Notes Act, 2017, was passed by Parliament last month with a view to eliminating the "possibility of running a parallel economy" using the old Rs 500/1,000 notes that have been demonetised.
●    The law, signed by President Pranab Mukherjee on February 27, also provides for a minimum fine Rs 50,000 for false declaration by persons who were abroad during the demonetisation period and given time to deposit such scrapped notes with RBI till March 31.
●    With the law coming into force, possession of more than 10 pieces of the old notes by individuals and more than 25 pieces for study, research or numismatics purpose will be a criminal offence, attracting fine of Rs 10,000 or five times the cash held, whichever is higher.
●    The Act also ends the liability of the Reserve Bank and the government on the demonetised currency notes.

SPORTS

Kohli First to be Named India's Best International Cricketer Thrice

India skipper Virat Kohli, who has been on a roll with the willow, was on Wednesday named for the prestigious Polly Umrigar award while all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin will be presented the Dilip Sardesai award at the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) annual awards on March 8 here.
●    Kohli, who first received the award in 2011-12 and in 2014-15, will become the first Indian cricketer to be bestowed with the honour on three occasions.
●    Ashwin, who won the Dilip Sardesai award in 2011, will become the first Indian cricketer to receive the honour twice.
●    The Chennai tweaker, who was adjudged the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Test cricketer of the year, was instrumental in India’s Test series wins against New Zealand, England and Bangladesh with both the bat and the ball.
●    The BCCI Annual Awards committee consisting of N. Ram, Ramachandra Guha and Diana Edulji had nominated former domestic cricketers Rajinder Goel and Padmakar Shivalkar for the Col. C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award.

ECONOMY

 Govt. Asks Banks to Get all Accounts on Net Banking by March 31

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which recently took over the responsibility of promoting the digital payments ecosystem in the country from Niti Aayog, has asked the banks to enable all bank accounts with net-banking facility before March 31. 
●    Most banks in the country, including both public and private, charge for net banking services such as electronic fund transfer, and some lenders even levy a charge for providing internet banking services to their customers.
●    On February 15, the Government of India (Allocation of Business) rules were amended through a notification entrusting the IT ministry to promote digital payments. 
●    Earlier, the government had set up a panel under the Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant to push adoption of online transactions in the backdrop of demonetisation. 

ECONOMY

HDFC, ICICI, Axis to Levy Rs. 150 after Four Transactions a Month

Banks including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank on Wednesday began charging a minimum amount of Rs 150 per transaction for cash deposits and withdrawals beyond four free transactions in a month.
●    The charges would apply to savings as well as salary accounts effective from Wednesday, leading private sector player HDFC Bank said in a circular.
●    The bank would also cap the third party cash transactions at Rs 25,000 per day, while cash handling charges would be withdrawn effective today, the circular added.
●    In case of ICICI Bank, the charges are same as they were before the demonetisation move announced on November 8, while there is an increase in such fees in case of some others.
●    For non-home branches, ICICI Bank would not charge anything for first cash withdrawal of a calendar month and Rs 5 per thousand rupees thereafter subject to a minimum of Rs 150.

NATIONAL NEWS

LPG Prices Raised by Rs. 86, Steepest Hike in India's History

In the steepest hike in Indian history, the price of non-subsidised cooking gas (LPG) was hiked by Rs 86 cylinder on Thursday, due to change in international trends.
●    The hike is not applied to all the cylinders, but only on Non-subsidised LPG, bought by those who have either given up their subsidies or exhausted the quota of 12 bottles of 14.2-kg in a year at below market price.
●    The LPG was yesterday priced at Rs 651.50 per 14.2-kg cylinder which raised to cost Rs 737.50 today.
●    The steepest hike comes only a month after the price of a cylinder was hiked by Rs 66.5 on February 1.
●    LPG rates have received several upswings since October 2016. 
●    In September, a non-subsidised LPG cylinder was priced at Rs 466.50 in Delhi and has risen by Rs 271 per bottle or 58 per cent in six instalments.