Current Affairs April 2015

PM Narendra Modi launches MUDRA Bank to provide credit to small entrepreneurs

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8 April 2015 launched Micro Units Development Re-finance Agency (MUDRA) Bank in New Delhi. MUDRA Bank will act as a regulator for ‘Micro-Finance Institutions’ (MFIs) involved in manufacturing, trading and service activities to promote their growth. The Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana will be the main support system for the bank and will be the part of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The MUDRA bank was proposed in Budget 2015-16 by Union Government with an initial corpus of 20,000 crore rupees. Apart from this, 3,000 crore rupees also has been earmarked as credit guarantee corpus.

The envisaged roles for MUDRA Bank include

• Formulate policy guidelines for micro-enterprise financing business and registration of MFI entities. 
• Undertake rating and accreditation of MFI entities. 
• Develope standardized set of guidelines in order to govern last-mile lending to micro enterprises. 
• Promote appropriate technology solutions for the last mile. Formulate and operate a credit guarantee schemes in order to provide guarantees to loans and portfolios that are extended to micro enterprises. 
• Support promotional and development activities in the sector and create a good architecture for last-mile credit delivery.

MUDRA Bank will provide financing on 3 stages- Shishu, Kishore and Tarun.

• Shishu is first stage in which loan cover upto Rs 50,000 will be given to a business entity at start of business. Kishore is second stage in which loan cover ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh will be given. 
• Tarun is the third stage in which loan cover up to Rs. 10 lakh will be given.

Snapdeal acquires FreeCharge

Online marketplace Snapdeal on 8 April 2015 acquired India’s fastest growing mobile transaction platform FreeCharge. With this acquisition, Snapdeal has become India’s largest mobile commerce firm with 40 million users and the largest mobile transactions base for any company. Now Snapdeal can offer wide range of services and products including financial services, mobile recharge and utility payments to its growing user base.

About FreeCharge

• FreeCharge is a mobile commerce platform where users can recharge any prepaid mobile phone, postpaid mobile, DTH & Data Cards in India. 
• Founded in 2010 by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon. 
• It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Since 2011, it had raised over $120 million in financing backed by top tier institutional investors.

Gujarat wins Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 trophy 2014-15

Gujarat won the Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 cricket trophy for the tournament season 2014-15. In the final match played at KIIT Stadium, Odisha they defeated Punjab by two wickets. Punjab by batting first had scored 117 for 9 wickets in 20 overs. Gujarat by chasing the target had scored 123 in 19.5 overs for 8 wickets. With this win, Gujarat has won this trophy for second, earlier they won in 2012-13 season.

About Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 Trophy

• Syed Mushtaq Ali T-20 Trophy is a Twenty20 cricket domestic championship in India named after famous Indian cricketer, Syed Mushtaq Ali. 
• Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) organizes the tournament and played among the teams from Ranji Trophy. 
• Inaugural season of tournament was 2008-09 and was won by Maharashtra cricket team.

TRAI recommends 112 as single emergency number for India

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 7 April 2015 has proposed ‘112’ as a single emergency number that can be used all across the country including for police, fire and ambulance departments. This emergency number will be similar to the ‘911’ an all-in-one emergency service in the United States.

At present, for emergency disaster management different numbers for different emergencies such as 100 for police, 101 for fire and 102 for ambulance are in existence. TRAI has suggested that existing emergency numbers can be retained as secondary numbers and the calls made to them be re-routed to ‘112’. 
After time being, once a call to the secondary numbers significantly reduces, they can be withdrawn gradually. Callers seeking help in emergency can dial ‘112’ from mobile or landline phones even when outgoing facility has been debarred or the service temporarily suspended. 

TRAI also has proposed SMS-based access for the emergency services. The regulator also has recommended setting up of Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) – a call centre through which all calls to ‘112’ will be routed. Depending upon type of emergency, PSAPs will send police, fire, medical and other emergency response servieces.