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India's Biggest Ever Spectrum Sale

India’s biggest auction of telecom spectrum kicked off on Saturday morning with seven operators in fray for a total of 2,354.55 MHz across seven bands, towards which a reserve price of Rs 5.66 lakh crore ($85 billion) has been fixed by the government. 
●    The companies that are participating in the auction are Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Reliance Jio Infocomm, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Tata Tele — who have together furnished a total earnest money of Rs 14,653 crore.
●    The 2,300-plus MHz of airwaves on the block for telecom operators are in seven bands — 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz. 
●    This spectrum auction comes right after the ongoing battle between COAI and Reliance Jio for interconnection points. 
●    Trai has intervened to resolve the matter but the war of words and failed calls continues without any immediate solution.

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Kotak Mahindra Bank buys BSS Microfinance

Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) has decided to acquire 99.49% of BSS Microfinance (BSS) for an aggregate all-cash consideration of Rs 139.2 crore. 

●    As of June 30, 2016, BSS has a networth of approximately Rs 73 crore and microfinance loans of Rs 483 crore in its books. 
●    It will be a subsidiary of Kotak after receiving regulatory and other approvals. BSS has a commercially established model in the microfinance segment. 
●    This acquisition gives Kotak access to BSS’s growing customer base, which currently stands at over 2,17,000 and network of 78 branches (as of June 30, 2016), the Mumbai-based bank said.
●    This acquisition offers Kotak a deeper reach in the low income segment.
●    Kotak Mahindra Bank is an Indian private sector banking headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. In February 2003, Reserve Bank of India gave the licence to Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd., the group's flagship company, to carry on banking business.
●    It offers a wide range of banking products and financial services for corporate and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and specialized subsidiaries in the areas of personal finance, investment banking, life insurance, and wealth management.

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3rd ISL Season to begin

The official Hero Indian Super League ISL 2016 schedule, match fixtures & time table have been released by the Football Sports Development Limited. 
●    The 3rd season of the ISL, Hero Indian Super League 2016 will take place from 1st October 2016 and ends on 18th December 2016. 
●    The 2016 ISL schedule featuring 61 games which will be played across 79 days in a home-away league format followed by two-legged semi-finals and the final.
●    The football league was founded in 2013 and now it is most popular football tournament in India. The Indian Super League 2016 season will feature eight teams and each team will play 14 matches.  
●    Mumbai City FC, Pune City FC, Atletico de Kolkata, Chennaiyin FC, Kerala Blasters FC, Goa FC, North East United and Delhi Dynamos are the eight participating teams in ISL 3.

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Telugu Kalakaluri Enoch conferred with Moortidevi Award of Bharatiya Jnanpith

Noted Telugu writer Prof. Kalakaluri Enoch was on 29 September 2016 conferred with Moortidevi Award of Bharatiya Jnanpith for the year 2015 at function in New Delhi. The award was given for his novel Ananta Jeevanam.
●    Born on 1 July 1939, Prof. Enoch is a former vice-chancellor of SV University.
●    He has been awarded the Padma Shri.
●    The noted Dalit voice, poet and academician was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, in 2014 for his contributions to the field of literature.
●    He has credited over 180 poems, 180 stories, 9 novels and 30 plays.
●    Moorti Devi award was founded by Bharatiya Jnanpith and is given away to the authors who have contributed in the field of contemporary creative writing in modern Indian languages.
●    Books written in English and all Indian languages are considered for the Prize, which comprises a cash award of four lakhs rupees, a Saraswati statue and a citation plaque.


 

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Series of Economic Decisions - Stake Sale of Bharat Pumps, CBEC'S GST Integration, Saksham


The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 28 September 2016 approved ‘Project SAKSHAM’. It is a New Indirect Tax Network (Systems Integration) of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).
●    It will help in integrating system of Central Board of Excise and Customs with the GST network before the roll out in April 2017. 
●    The total project cost involved is 2256 crore rupees which will be incurred over a period of seven years.
●    The project SAKSHAM will help in
●    Implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST)
●    Extension of the Indian Customs Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade (SWIFT)
●    Other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital India and Ease of Doing Business of Central Board of Excise and Customs
●    The implementation strategy for the project will be to ensure readiness of CBEC's IT systems by 1 April 2017, when GST is to be introduced. 
●    The upgrade of the IT systems will be carried out while keeping the existing Tax-payer services running.

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2016 BRICS Labour & Ministerial Meet in New Delhi

The 2016 BRICS Labour & Employment Ministerial Meet was held in New Delhi from September 27- 28, 2016 to deliberate on issues including job creation and social security for workers. 
●    The two day meeting saw the participation of the five major emerging BRICS economies viz. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. 
●    The meeting had dedicated sessions on employment generation, social security, inclusive development and formalization. 
●    Fruitful discussions on areas of common labour and employment issues among the BRICS countries were held. 
●    They also agreed to pursue bi-lateral social security agreements amongst the BRICS member states. 
●    They also acknowledged the need to develop a network of lead labour research and training institutions in BRICS member states.

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Asian Beach Games : India Women's Kabaddi Team wins Gold

Indian women’s Kabbadi team on 28 September 2016 bagged gold medal at the 5th Asian Beach Games. 
●    This was fifth gold in succession for the Indian team. 
●    The Indian women's kabaddi team had been winning the gold since 2008.
●    For Thailand, it was the fifth time in a row they had lost to India in a final.
●    Indian men's beach kabaddi team settled for the Silver medal. 
●    India had won gold in men's beach kabaddi the 2008 and 2010 editions.
●    In Kurash, Amisha Tokas won silver in women’s 70kg category after losing to Nguyen Thi Lan of Vietnam in the final.
●    In beach bodybuilding, Manoj Kumar Majumdar won a bronze in up to 158cm category.
●    India has so far won six medals including one gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze, in the Games. 
●    India is now at 15th spot in the medal table.


 

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Syed Shamshul Haq Passes Away


Syed Shamsul Haq, one of Bangladesh’s best known writers passed away 27 September 2016 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 
●    He was known for equal mastery over novels, poetry, essays and plays. 
●    He was also vocal against religious fundamentalism. About Syed Shamsul Haq He was Born on 27 December 1935 in Kurigram in Bengal. 
●    His notable works include Boishakhey Rochito Ponktimala, Ekoda Ek Rajjey, Birotihin Utsab, Protidhwonigon and Opor Purush. 
●    He has been awarded with Bangla Academy Literary Award (1966), Ekushey Padak (1984) and Swadhinata Padak (2000), the highest civilian award of Bangladesh for his outstanding contributions to Bengali literature.

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Delhi 2nd Most Polluted Major City : WHO

World Health Organisation has released a new report on air pollution, and Indian capital New Delhi ranks high, second only to Saudi Arabian city Riyadh among other mega cities in the world.
●    According to the report titled Ambient Air Pollution: A Global Assessment of Exposure and Burden of Diseases, more than 90 per cent of the world population breathes dirty air and around 6.5 million people die due to ailments caused by air pollution. 
●    India alone accounts for 75 per cent of the cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer, states the report.
●    Delhi is joined by Mumbai and Kolkata in the list of 11 most populated mega cities, which makes India the country with maximum number of cities in the list. 
●    The pollution levels of Delhi has been a cause of concern for a while now, with the state government adopting dire measure like maintain an odd-even scheme for cars on the road on alternate days.

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One Year of AstroSat : New Portal Launched

A year after the successful launch of India's first multi-wavelength observational satellite Astrosat, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) formally unveiled a portal displaying data sent by the satellite for general public.
●    The Astrosat Support Cell is a joint venture between Isro and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), which also designed one of the payloads, instruments which collect and transmit data, on the satellite.
●    Various stakeholders of the programme met at the IUCAA on Thursday for a review of the results received from the payloads currently on the Astrosat.
●    The Astrosat has five main payloads, mainly focused on observing ultra-violet bands, hard and soft X-rays- its sources and binaries, stellar coronae, and clusters of faraway galaxies, known as quasars and blazars. 
●    The observations may help in understanding phenomena like the supernova, or the fate of galaxies.
●    Apart from the IUCAA, the payloads were developed by institutions like the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), the University of Leicester, and the Canadian Space Agency.

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