2nd January Current Affairs 2018 1. SBI lowers base rate, BPLR by 30 bps; leaves MCLR unchanged ● The State Bank of India ( SBI ) reduced the base rate and benchmark prime lending rates (BPLR) by 30 basis points each, which will benefit nearly 80 lakh customers on the old pricing regime. ● The nation’s largest lender revised down the base rate to 8.65 percent for existing customers from 8.95 percent, while the BPLR is down from 13.70 percent to 13.40 percent. ●
The bank however did not change the marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) which would have brought down the cost for all borrowers. The one-year MCLR of the bank stands unchanged at 7.95 percent.
Important Points: ➢ Chairperson: Rajnish Kumar ➢ Headquarters: Mumbai
2. Vijay Keshav Gokhale to be new Foreign Secretary ● Senior diplomat Vijay Keshav Gokhale will succeed Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar as the Foreign Secretary, after the latter completes his tenure on January 28.
completing his tenure on 28.01.2018″. ●
● “The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Gokhale, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs as the Foreign Secretary vice Dr. S Jaishankar, who is
Gokhale, who is presently the secretary (economic relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), will serve for a two-year fixed term after his appointment.
3. Indian golfer Shiv Kapur wins Royal Cup at Pattaya ● Indian golfer Shiv Kapur won the Royal Cup at Pattaya, which is his third Asian Tour title of 2017. The 35-year-old, who had just one win in almost 11 years till April 2017, has now won three times in last eight months. ● Kapur first won on Asian Tour in his debut season in December 2005, but it took more than 11 years and four months for the next Asian Tour win, which came in April 2017. ●
Now, This latest win marks Kapur’s fourth Asian Tour win and sixth international title as he won twice on European Challenge Tour also.
4. Women & Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi to inaugurate online portal NARI ● Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi inaugurate an online portal National Repository of Information for Women (NARI) in New Delhi for the empowerment of women. ● The portal will provide women with easy access to information on government schemes and initiatives for women. ●
The portal summarises over 350 government schemes and other important information. It provides links to the Ministries, Departments and autonomous bodies offering these schemes as well as easy access to online applications and grievance redressal.
5. National Register of Citizens: First draft with 19 million names released ● The first draft of the much-awaited National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam has listed 19 million people out of the 32.9 million applicants as legal Indian citizens in a massive exercise aimed at identifying illegal immigrants in the state that borders Bangladesh. ● People flocked to seva kendras across Assam in large numbers since morning to check whether they figured in the list containing the names of those who were recognised as citizens of India in the Supreme Court-monitored exercise.
6. Assamese, Manipuri versions of PM Modi’s Official website launched ● The Assamese and Manipuri language versions of Prime Minister’s Official website- www.pmindia.gov.in were launched. ● The website can now be accessed in Assamese and Manipuri in keeping with the requests from the citizens of the two states. ● Now the PM INDIA website is available in 11 regional languages namely Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu in addition to English and Hindi. ●
The initiative is part of the on-going efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reach out to the people and communicate with them in their own language.