1. Sports in January 2015
    1. Cricket: World Cup-2015
    2. Tennis
    3. FIFA award for football
    4. Sports Misc.
  2. Business-GK
    1. Banking Finance
    2. IT/Electronics
    3.  Automobile, aviation and Energy
    4. FMCG
    5. Medical

Sports in January 2015

Sports Current Affairs Questions are usually seen CAPF, CDS, Bank and State service exams. Focus area should be: (1) where was the tournament held? (2) Who defeated whom? (3) Venue (4) Mascots.

Cricket: World Cup-2015
Venue Australia and Newzealand, during February-March.
Teams
  • Pool A: England, Australia (co-host), Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, New Zealand (co-host), Afghanistan, Scotland
  • Pool B: South Africa, India, Pakistan, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Ireland, UAE
  • Teams divided on their ICC-ODI rankings during 31st December 2012.
India So far 6 captains have lead Team India at World cup cricket: S. Venkatraghavan, M.S. Dhoni, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, M. Azharuddin, Kapil Dev.
Pakistan Cricketers banned from using social-networking sites during world cup.

 

Cricket: Misc.
A.B. de Villiers This South African batsman scored century in just 31 balls at ODI against W.Indies.
Lokesh Rahul Karnataka cricketer scored Maiden Century in Sydney Test.
Virat Kohli Became 2nd Indian after Rahul Dravid, to score 500 runs in Australian test series.
Indian coach Duncan Fletcher’s contract will expire after World cup 2015. Dhoni suggested Former Aussie captain Michael Hussey’s name as the new coach for Indian cricket team.

Tennis

Sports Current Affairs: Australian Open

Australian Open 2015
Event Won lost
men Djokovic (Serbia) Andy Murray (UK)
Women S.Williams (US) Sharapova (RUS)
Men doubles random guys not important
Women doubles Same as above
Mixed Leander Paes (INDIA) and Martina Hingis (Swiz) Not important

 

Tennis Misc.
Leander Paes Won Heinken Open
Bopanna Won Apai international
Sania Won Apai international with Bethanie Mattek.
Hopman tennis cup Poland defeated USA
Australian open At Melbourne from Jan19th. Sony six channel got the telecast rights.

 

FIFA award for football
Ballon D’tor Cristiano Ronaldo. Portugal
Women’s player of the year Nadine Kessler (German)
Men’s coach of the year Joachim Loew (German)
Asian football cup To be hosted in Australia for 2015.

 

Sports Misc.
Saina Nehwal
  • She won Padma Shree in 2012. and can’t be given Padma Bhushan for 2015, because official rules require 5 year gap between two Padma awards.
  • But wrestler Sushil Kumar has same case yet his file was forwarded for this award. Hence Saina unhappy.
Karate Hopeful of getting included in Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Mary Kom Aims to retire after Rio Olympics 2016.
Indian Hockey Team(men)
  • Dutch coach Van Ass replaced Australian coach Terry Walsh, as the new coach of National Hockey Team (Men).
Muhammad Ali Retired heavyweight boxer.  Hospitalized for urinary track infection.
National Snooker
  • Men: Pankaj Advani won his seventh time, after defeating Varun Madan
  • Women: Amee Kamani (Madhya Pradesh) defeated Vidya Pillay.
  • Junior Snooker: Avinash Kumar won.

Business-GK

Banking Finance
Airtel M Commerce Will apply for RBI’s payment bank license.
BMB
  • Bharatiya Mahila Bank opened 40th Branch at Mangaluru. Now Karnataka has two BMB branches: Bangaluru and Mangaluru.

Loan products for women:

  • Annapoorna: catering biz.
  • Shrungar: for beauty biz.
  • Parivarsh: for crèches.
Bupa Insurance Insurance company from UK. After insurance ordinance, Bupa became the first company to increase its investment from 26% to 49% in Max Bupa life insurance.
ICICI Launched icicibankpay- to help customer send money to anyone who has twitter account in India, check account balance, recharge mobile and view last 3 transaction.
Kotak Shareholders approved Kotak-ING vysya merger. Basics already covered in Mrunal.org/banking
Max India Chief Analjit Singh. Split the company in 3 verticles:

  1. Max Financial services (for insurance) – it is the first public listed company doing only Life insurance
  2. Max India- for health and allied business.
  3. Max specialty- for packaging films
RBI
  • 15/1/15: Repo rate reduce from 8% to 7.75%
  • 2/2/15: SLR reduce from 22% to 21.5%
  • Brazil’s Central Bank Banco Central do Brasil signed an MoU with Rajanbhai.
  • European Central Bank’s President Mario Draghi signed MoU with Rajanbhai.
  • Rajanbhai won “Governor of the year” award from British magazine “Central Banking”.
RRB Employees opposing the plans of merger between Guargaon gramin bank and Haryana Gramin bank.
Union Bank of India Reduced base rate from 10.25% to 10%.

 

IT/Electronics
Airtel
  • Tied up with Xiomi company to give 4G mobile “Redmi Note” at Rs.9,999/-
Amazon
  • Will expand to movie production business.
  • Kenstar will sell its next range of split-ACs through Amazon only.
Asus Launched new cheap notebook series “Asus Eebook X205” priced at 14,999/-
Facebook Will created 4 Billion$ impact and 3.35 lakh jobs in Indian economy- says consultancy firm Deloitte.
Google
  • Provided $1 billion finance to Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) company. Elon Musk is the founder of Space-X
  • Decided to stop its “Google glass” eye-wear, but promised to release new consumer-friendly version soon.
  • To counter Apple-pay, google has purchased Softcard- a mobile payment company of USA.
  • Interested in partnering with indian government for “Digital India” campaign.
  • Launched voice guided navigation feature for 20 Indian cities in Google maps.
Hike Purchased “Zip Phone” company- to improve its voice calling features.
HP New touch screen computer “HP Sprout”. It’s a touch-screen computer that scans objects and turns them into 3D file
Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka met Modi and promised to spend $250 million in innovation fund.
Lenovo Introduced “Anypen” techonlogy in its yoga series tablet-laptops. Now you can write on the screen using any oridinary pen. Don’t need separate stylus.
Microsoft Showcased its upcoming “Hololens” holographic device and Partnered with Idea mobile for billing apps purchased from Windows store.
Microsoft Suspends support for Windows-7. although security patching will continue till 2020. 50% of desktop PC run on Win7.
No hiring when Steve Jobs was alive, Adobe, intel, Google and Apple had made an informal pact, not to hire each other’s employees. An antitrust case was filed and they agreed to settle it ~400 million with the affecting employees.
Ola Mobile app based taxi company- launched “Ola Pink” run by Women taxi-drivers in  Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Pune and Ahmedabad too.
Onida Launched Smartphone-controlled Acs based on  IoT (Internet of Things)-technology
Oracle New production Development chief Thomas Kurian, with family ties in Kerala.
Ringo A new international calling app- far cheaper than mobile service providers, Skype and Viber.
Samsung
  • Samsung Z1: company’s first smartphone powered by Tizen Operating system. Price 5700/-
  • First time profit declined in 3 years. Reason: Price wars in mid-segment mobile phones. Solution: Samsung is working on Quantam Dot TVs, Internet of things technology and metal-body smartphones to boost revenue next year.
Snapdeal
  • CEO Kunal Bahl.
  • Company grew by 600% in the year 2014, because of aggressive advertisement
  •  65% of Snapdeal orders are booked from its mobile App.
  • Snapdeal has tied up with IndianPost, to sell Varanasi weavers’ products.
Suzuki Suzuki’s Chairman Osamu Suzuki, and Maruti Suzuki India’s chairman RC Bhargava laid foundation of new plant at Hansalpur, Gujarat.
Tablets Research firm Gartner says Tablet sales will be slow in 2014, and the gap between sale of Windows phones and apple phones will reduce.
Tata Got permission from regulatory bodies to purchase Docomo.
TCS Allegedly Began mass sacking of “non-performer” employees.
TomTom Amstrdam based firm launched new GPS-enabled sport-watches for India, from 12,999/- onwards.
Twitter Launched new service “While you were away” – to notify users about missed tweets.
Vodafone Sunil Sood replaced Martin Pieters as CEO.
Vodafone Sunil Sood replaced CEO Marten Pieter.
Xiaomi launches flagship phablets Mi Note, Note Pro. Priced 23k onwards.
Zoho
  • Encrypted email service by Sridhar Vembu.
  • USA’s NSA found it difficult to crack Zoho.

 

 Automobile, aviation and Energy
5/20 under 5/20 rule, only an airline with 5 years experiance and 20 aircrafts can get permission to run international flights from India. Government planning to relax this norm
Adani Signed pact with Australian company Woodside for LNG procurement and marketing.
Mahindra Made record of producing 50 lakh vehicles.
Qatar Airways Interested in buying 49% stakes in Indigo airline.
SpiceJet
  • Spicejet was founded in 2005 by Maran and Ajay Singh.
  • Now, Kalanithi Maran (Sungroup chairman) sold his shares to co-founder Ajay Singh.
Vistara Airlines Will begin flight operations from Jan 9, 2015.
Volkswagen MD Mahesh Kodumudi opened new plant at Chakan, Pune.
FMCG
Amul Tied up with Nalgonda cooperative to distribute products in Hyderabad.
Emami
  • It’s an FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) company in beautycare products
  • Emami recently bought Australia’s Fravin ltd- an R&D firm in natural-organic personal care products.
Godrej Will purchase Frika Hair-extension company in South Africa.
Mumbai’s Dabbawalla Indian post launched commemorative stamps for their service to Mumbai.
PepsiCo India launched Lay’s potato-chips ads featuring Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. Tagline: ‘Yeh Game Hi Hai… Taste Ka’
Medical
Apollo Hospitals Buys Nova Specialty hospitals in Banglore.
Cadila Recalled Benzonatate anti-cough capsules from USA due to leaking problem.
Gilead India denied it patent for anti-Hepatitis C drug sofosbuvir.
Piramal Bought Coldstream Laboratories Inc. dealing with custom research and manufacturing services (CRAMS)
Rockwell Got US-FDA approval for Triferic- an iron-loss prevention drug for Kidney patients.

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