1. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launches Clean My Coach initiative
(i) On March 11, Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu launched “Clean My Coach” Service keeping in line with the Indian Railways Cleanliness drive ‘Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat.’
(ii) This ‘Clean My Coach’ service was announced by the Railway Minister in his Rail Budget Speech of 2016-17 and it has been implemented with an immediate Action on Rail Budget 2016-17.
(iii) As per the scheme if any cleaning requirement in the coach is required, the passenger sends an SMS on a mobile number 58888. Alternatively, passenger can also use android app ‘Cleanmycoach Indian Railways’ or webpage ‘cleanmycoach.com’ for logging the request.Passenger’s request is immediately acknowledged via SMS on mobile phone along with a code.
(iv) This service empowers the citizen to get an important service on board and is in line with the objectives of the Digital India Programme
2. South Korea to partner with India for the Indian Maritime Summit
(i) The Indian Maritime Summit is all set to be held in Mumbai starting April 14-16 this year during which the government is expected to ink agreements worth Rs.72,000 crore on port-related projects with private entities.
(ii) The Ministry of Shipping has identified 109 projects worth Rs.72,864 crore on which agreements will be signed. South Korea will be the partner with India for the event.
(iii) Ship-building, ship repair and recycling, port modernisation, new port development and multi-model logistic hubs, etc. are some of the sectors identified for investment. Further, over 150 projects will be showcased for investment under the Sagarmala Project for port modernisation.
3. Col. Gaurav Karki leads first all-girls NCC expedition to Mt. Everest
(i) Recently, Colonel Gaurav Karki is leading the first-ever all-girls National Cadet Corps (NCC) expedition to the Mount Everest.
(ii) The team comprising fifteen service personnel and ten girl cadets would reach Nepal on March 31, 2016 and is likely to summit the peak between 15 and 25 May 2016. Earlier, pre-Everest expeditions were held to Mt. Deo-Tibba (19688 ft.) and to Mt. Trishul (23360 ft.) to select eligible candidates for the final expedition.
(iii) The mountaineering expeditions in NCC are being conducted to strengthen the character and instil qualities of courage, comradeship, discipline and leadership in the cadets.
4. YES Bank launches all-women branch in Bengaluru
(i) India’s private sector lender Yes Bank started an all-women operated bank branch called ‘Yes Grace’ in Bengaluru recently.
(ii) Though the bank will cater to male customers as well, its main aim is to offer customised banking solutions to women. It also aims to drive financial literacy, family banking, safety and wellness among women. The bank opened two more such branches in New Delhi and Mumbai.
(iii) “The Yes Grace branch is part of a two-pronged approach by Yes Bank; to promote women leadership in financial services sector and enable the evolving financial objectives of women,” said the bank’s CEO and MD Rana Kapoor .
5. Former CMD of IDBI Bank Yogesh Aggarwal under CBI scanner
(i) Former IDBI Bank CMD Yogesh Aggarwal was recently brought under the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate’s lens for allegedly disbursing at least Rs.350 crores to tainted businessman Vijay Mallya even before the loan sanctioning procedure was completed by the bank.
(ii) In its FIR, the CBI said that the bank had shown undue favours to Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. in disbursement of loans despite the firm’s weak financials, negative net worth, low credit rating. Further, KFA did not satisfy the bank’s corporate loan policy.
(iii) However, Aggarwal has refuted the charges saying that the money was disbursed in anticipation of the loan being sanctioned by the executive committee and that this is not an unusual practice.
6. Uber launches first engineering centre in Asia in Bengaluru
(i) Cab-hailing app Uber recently launched its first engineering center in Asia in Bengaluru.
(ii) The center aims to address localised problems like poor Internet connectivity, accuracy in routing vehicles and supply projection, among others.
(iii) The center will be headed by Uber’s engineering manager Jaikumar Ganesh, who is based out of San Francisco.
(iv) Thuan Pham, Chief Technology Officer at Uber stated that India is a very important market for the firm and thus the objective is to scale up Uber’s engineering capabilities in the future.
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