Important Current Affairs 8th June 2016

Adani to set up copper plant in Mundra

1. Adani Enterprises is in the process of setting up a copper smelter project with a capacity of 1 million tonnes per annum at Adani Port Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) in Gujarat.
2. The total investment involved is around Rs 10,000 crore.
3. The project includes copper smelter, sulphuric acid plant, copper refinery, continuous cast copper wire rod plant.

India to host junior men’s hockey WC

1. Hockey India president and International Hockey Federation (FIH) executive board member Narinder Dhruv Batra announced that Lucknow will host the junior men’s hockey World Cup from Dec 8-18, 2016.
2. 16 countries will participate in the tournament.
3. The women’s Hockey Junior World Cup takes place shortly beforehand in Santiago, Chile between 24 Nov & 4 Dec.

India-US cyber relations framework

1. India & the US will sign a framework for the bilateral cyber relationship between the two countries within the next 60 days.
2. Under the framework, the issues addressed are, promoting stability in cyberspace, the promotion of voluntary norms of responsible state behaviour during peacetime, and the development & implementation of practical confidence-building measures between states.

India to open new consulate in Seattle

1. India will soon open another consulate in Seattle to cater to the needs of large number of Indian-Americans living in the northwestern part of the US.
2. The announcement was made by Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.
3. Modi and Obama announced that the United States and India will be Travel and Tourism Partner Countries for 2017, and committed to facilitate visas for each other’s nationals.

India in 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifier

1. India beat Laos 6-1 in one of the biggest ever wins and book a berth in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup football Qualifiers.
2. Striker Jeje Lalpekhlua scored twice as India recovered from a one-goal deficit
3. The win will ease a lot of pressure on coach Stephen Constantine whose future has been under a scanner after a string of poor shows by the national team.

Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee

1. Hillary Clinton declared herself the Democratic Party nominee for US president on June 7.
2. The former first lady, senator and US secretary of state beat rival Bernie Sanders in New Jersey’s nominating contest, to get the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
3. She is now poised to be up against Republican nominate Donald Trump.

Amazon to invest $3 billion in India

1. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said that the company would invest an additional $3 billion in India, boosting its committed investment in the country to over $5 billion.
2. Amazon would also open a Web Services Cloud Region in India this year.
3. It will be the firm’s largest software engineering and development centre outside of the United States, located in Hyderabad.

Obama backs India’s NSG membership

1. Obama supported India’s candidature for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) as he discussed with PM Modi ways to take bilateral ties to new heights.
2. Diplomats have confirmed that Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an international anti-proliferation grouping, have agreed to admit India.
3. MTCR would require India to comply with rules such as a maximum missile range of 300 km.

WB cuts forecast for India’s growth

1. Pointing to sluggish corporate lending despite 5 policy rate cuts by the RBI since 2015, the World Bank has cut growth projections for India by up to 3 percentage points to 7.6-7.7% for 2016-17 & 2017-18.
2. India’s economy grew 7.6% in 2015-16, 2 percentage points lower than predicted by the Bank in Jan.
3. The Bank downgraded its 2016 global growth forecast to 2.4% from the 2.9% projected in Jan.

Umang Bedi is new head of Facebook India

1. Facebook has appointed Umang Bedi, former head at Adobe India, MD of its operations in this country.
2. Bedi, earlier MD for Adobe in South Asia, would succeed Kirthiga Reddy. She moves to America to take a global role at the company’s HQs in Menlo Park, California.
3. Facebook works with about 85% of the top 100 advertisers in India identified by Kantar, the media measurement & research entity.