GK and Current Affairs Updates

Dr. Anup K. Pujari took over as Secretary Micro, Medium and Small Enterprises(M.S.M.E). He is a 80^th batch I.A.S officer. He succeeds, Madhav Lal who superannuated on June, 30^th 2015. Before joining the ministry of M.S.M.E, Dr. Pujari was holding the charge of Secretary, Mines. Pujari has served the Central and Karnataka Govt. in various capacities.

Greece became the first developed nation on default on International Monetary Fund(I.M.F) debt. It became a defaulter after it missed the deadline for payment  of 1.7 billion dollar(1.5 billion euro) to I.M.F. According to I.M.F’s Fund spokesman Gerry Rice, Greece has too much debt to return and it can get finance from the I.M.F only if it repays the loan.

Literacy rate in rural India was pegged at 71% in 2014, compared to 86% in urban areas, while among the age group of seven years and above, male literacy rate was found higher than the female literacy rate, according to N.S.S.O survey. Among the age group of seven year and above, the male literacy rate was registered at 83% vis-à-vis the female literacy rate of 67%.

China has become successful in making first fully indigenous bullet train. It has begun testing the first bullet train completely made from locally produced parts. This move of  China is being considered as a major step in eliminating dependence on import of bullet train from Germany, Canada and Japan. Till now most of the parts of bullet train made by China were imported from abroad.

Balvendra Kumar I.A.S (U.P. 1981) took over as Secretary Ministry of Mines in New Delhi. Before joining the Ministry of Mines, Balvendra Kumar was holding the charge of Vice-Chairman, Delhi Development Authority under the Ministry of Urban Development. He took over the charge from Dr. Anup K. Pujari.

The government appointed U.P. Singh, a Joint Secretary in Oil Ministry,as the interim chairman of the state-run Oil India Ltd, after appointment of a regular head was delayed because of questions being raised on the shortlisted candidate U.P. Singh, Joint Secretary(Exploration). Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas assumed the additional charge of Chairman and Managing Director in place of S.K. Shrivastav who superannuated.

Noted scientist Sanjeev Galande has been selected for  the prestigious G.D. Birla award for 2014 for his pioneering research in the field of epigenetics and molecular biology. Galande is a professor at at the Indian Institute of Education and research (I.I.S.E.R.) in Pune and is widely respected for his works in genomics and related areas. He is the 24^th recipient of the award.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has discovered a vast, crater less plain in Pluto's 'heart' that appears to be no more than 100 million years old, and is possibly still being shaped by geologic processes.This frozen region is north of Pluto's icy mountains, in the center -left of the heart feature informally named Tombaugh Region.

Vinod Rai appointed as independent director by Infrastructure financing firm.Infrastructure financing firm I.D.F.C appointed former  Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C.A.G) Vinod Rai a s independent director. The appointment has been made with immediate effect. Vinod Rai also worked as Financial Services Secretary.

Brazilian racer won the FIA Formula E Championship title of  2014-15 season. He beat Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi. Piquet drove for Chinese team Nextev. It is the first such championship held by FIA, the global governing body for auto racing events.