Important Current Affairs 8th May 2016

Nagaland Receives Smart Policing Award

• The SMS-based Vehicle Monitoring System of Nagaland police has bagged the National Award for Smart Policing.
• The award for the Best Practice in the category of Road Safety & Traffic Management was presented by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary.
• The project was launched in April last year & has resulted in substantial reduction in theft of four-wheelers.

IR Introduce a Bharat Darshan Train

• The Railways has launched the Bharat Darshan Tourist train for pilgrims
• The train will visit Shirdi, Tirupati, Jagannath Puri, Gangasagar, Baidyanath Dham & Jyotirlingams among others.
• The train begins the East Darshan on May 8 from Chandigarh.
• The bookings are being done by IRCTC and it has firmed up a budget-friendly package for pilgrims.

IRCTC-Atom Tie-up for Foreigners

• IRCTC has joined hands with Atom, an online payment gateway to facilitate foreign travellers to use international credit & debit cards for purchasing train tickets.
• The arrangement has enabled the international passengers to use their cards for payment for booking e-tickets on IRCTC portal.
• IRCTC, a railways PSU, provides end-to-end travel solutions for domestic & International travellers.

Startups to Get Unique Identity Number

• Start-up enterprises will now get a unique identity that will help them to interact with a host of govt dept.
• The move aims at ease of doing business.
• Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion has begun an exercise for issuance of unique business identification number (UBIN) for budding entrepreneurs.
• It will issue the UBIN for the new entrepreneurs after the receipt of related applications

Govt Launches Trash Skimmer for Yamuna

• Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti has launched the first trash skimmer for River Yamuna for skimming of solid waste material.
• A trash skimmer will cleans filth while floating on the river,
• Funds to the tune of around 850 crore rupees have been approved for the third phase of yamuna action plan.
• The money will be used to clean up the stretch of Yamuna from Wazirabad to Okhla.

Vinesh, Sakshi Malik Grab Rio Berths

• Two Indian women wrestlers Vinesh Phogat & Sakshi Malik have qualified for Rio Olympics.
• Vinesh sealed her place for the Olympic berth when she defeated Avin Demirhan of Turkey in the 48 kg category in the semi final of the Olympic world qualifying tournament at Istambul.
• Saksi Malik also entered the final in the 58 kg category& qualified for Rio.
• Sakshi beat Len Jhang in a tough encounter.

EC to Send Meghdoot Postcards to Voters

• In a unique initiative in Puducherry, the Election Commission is sending out ‘Meghdoot’ postcards to three lakh voters.
• It aims at requesting voters to cast their votes in the May 16 Assembly polls.
• The drive was to ensure that voters turn up in overwhelming numbers.
• Joint Chief Electoral Officer R T Rudra Goud handed the cards to 30 postmen.

BoB,Max Bupa Go for Bancassurance Tie-Up

• Bank of Baroda & Max Bupa put in place a bancassurance corporate agency agreement.
• Max Bupa will offer health insurance to the customer base of BoB.
• In the initial phase,Max Bupa will provide product variants with sum insured ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 crore.
• This arrangement comes on the back of IRDAI new bancassurance guidelines which permit banks to tie up with multiple insurers.

South Indian Bank Tie Up with NAB

• South Indian Bank has announced a tie-up with National Australian Bank (NAB) for online inward remittances from Australia at a competitive rate.
• The arrangement enables faster, hassle-free remittances through internet.
• NAB will be South Indian Bank’s main banking correspondent in Australia.
• The remitted money can be either converted into Indian Rupee or maintained in Australian Dollar.

Murali Elected to Singapore Parliament

• An Indian-origin man from Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) was elected member of the parliament.
• Murali Pillai garnered 61.21% of the votes, while Singapore Democratic Party’s Chee Soon Juan got 38.79% of votes.
• Chee,a vociferous opposition leader had challenged the ruling party in the contest.
• The Bukit Batok single seat was vacated when previous PAP MP David Ong resigned in March.

Romanian Simona Halep Wins Madrid Open

• Simona Halep of Romania bagged the women’s singles tennis title at the Madrid Open.
• She defeated Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova in the title-clash.
• Victory will move Halep up from 7th to 5th in the world when the latest rankings are released .
• In the women’s doubles final,French duo of Kristina Mladenovic & Caroline Garcia upset the Indo-Swiss combination of Sania Mirza & Martina Hingis.