1. Prologue to six part Article series
  2. Economy Related Officials/ Regulators
  3. RBI Banking sector
  4. RBI key rates / monetary policy rates
  5. RBI Committees
  6. Bank CMDs
  7. Commercial Banks
  8. Insurance
  9. PSU & Corporations
  10. Business GK: Private companies, MNC giants

Prologue to six part Article series

Total six parts covering December 2013 to 8th June 2014- nearly six months that is the usual time span for current affairs most competitive exams below UPSC Civil service exam.

  1. National
  2. international
  3. sports
  4. banking and business GK
  5. books, authors, movies, beauties
  6. diaspora, civilian awards (national + international) and Dead in News

Useful for?

  • IFoS mains
  • security jobs: CDS, CAPF, ACIO
  • Banking jobs: IBPS, SBI PO, SBI Clerk, RBI Grade “B” Officer, RBI Assistant,
  • Staff selection: SSC CGL, SSC 10+2;
  • State PSC: UPPSC Lower & upper subordinate, Rajasthan, MP, Maharashtra, Punjab, Gujarat, Karnataka etc.
  • PSU/Corporation jobs: EPFO, ESCI, FCI, ONGC etc.

All of above exams have 3-5-8 MCQs from Person in news, books, author, awards and sports.

What about UPSC/CSAT / preliminary exam?

  1. This article series is pretty much useless for Civil service (IAS/IPS), they stopped this variety of MCQs since last three prelims.
  2. Besides even if UPSC examiner asks something, it’d require far deeper coverage of static background, which I’ve ignored for PIN-2014, because here my focus is non-UPSC exams, their examiners don’t go that deep.
  3. PIN data asked in IFoS (Forest service) Mains exam, hence important.
  4. For IFoS prelims not much important, because both civil service and forest service got common prelims (refer to point #2)

Any updates, corrections please do post in the comments but with reference except wikipedia

Economy Related Officials/ Regulators

I’m only dealing with ‘persons in news’ here. Otherwise economy current affairs = separate gigantic matter altogether. For that, refer to .

CAG Shashi Kant Sharma replaced Vinod Rai in 2013
CBDT Central board of direct taxes. RK Tewari
CBEC Central board of excise and customs. Ms. JM Shanthi Sundaram
CCI Competition commission of India. Ashok Chavla.
DG Hydrocarbons BN Talukdar, previously worked in Oil India Ltd.
Finance commission
  • Article 280 of Constitution
  • 14th FC: YV Reddy, recommendations will apply from 1st April 2015
  • 13th FC: Vijay Kelkar
Finance secy Arvind Mayaram. also headed panel for FDI-FII definitions; NSEL scam.
FMC Ramesh Abhishek
IRDA TS Vijayan
NHAI AK Upadhyay
PFRDA Anup Wadhawan replaced Yogesh Agrawal
Planning commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia. I think Modi will remove him soon. इसके बुरे दिन आनेवाले है, और आने भी चाहिए for spending 35 lakh rupees for toilet in his office.
Principle economic advisor Dr. Ila Patnaik (Indian express columnist)
SEBI UK Sinha term extended. previous chairman CB Bhave and board member KM Abrahams trapped in CBI preliminary inquiry (some allege they’re victimized for investigating SAHARA).
TRAI Rahul Khullar

RBI / Banking sector

RBI Gov. Raghuram Govind Rajan replaced D Subbarao.

  • Term: three years (2016)
  • 23rd Governor
  • youngest governor was CD Deshmukh.
  • Served as chief economists of IMF. Chief economic Adviser to FM
RBI Dy.Gov four dy. governors

  1. Urjit Patel
  2. R. Gandhi (replaced Anand Sinha)
  3. H.R. Khan
  4. SS Mundra (RBI searchpanel shortlisted him, now awaiting government approval.)

RBI Dy.Gov term= 5 years/62 years. Minimum age less than 60.

(In RBI grade “B” exam they ask such things.)

KC Chakrabarty Dy govrnor resigned before his term. वेसे भी अंकलजी लोगो की राजन के साथ बनती नहीं.
  • New Banking license, Badhan IDFC: article click me
  • You’ll also find some PowerPoint presentations under Mrunal.org/economy dealing with banking sector evolution, classification, NBFC vs Banks difference etc.
  • I’m not repeating ^those things for lack of time and duplication.

Following topics I’ve not yet covered yet in any article, but you should prepare from net:

  1. Minor accounts-new RBI directive,
  2. Rupay card
  3. capital infusion in public sector banks to meet BASEL norms
  4. SBI launches Tab banking service- savings, housing, e-KYC.
  5. State bank extends special housing loan scheme indefinitely
  6. Government  sold its stakes from Axis bank (9% @6crore)
  7. Srei infra co got RBI license to open new 9k white label ATMs. Tata to roll out 15k ATMs by 2016.

RBI key rates / monetary policy rates

key rates 1st April 2014 3rd June 2014 (latest)
Bank Rate 9% same
Repo (=also known as Policy rate) 8% same
Reverse repo 8-1=7% same
SLR 23% 22.5% (reduced= this will increase money supply by ~40,000 crore)
CRR 4% same

RBI Committees

After entry of Rajan in September 2013

Anil Kumar Sharma Public key infrastructure
Bimal jalan New Bank licenses- Bandhan and IDFC
Chandra shekhar By RBI on simplifying norms for all foreign investors to invest in Indian govt. securities – recommended new category Registered Foreign Portfolio Investor (RFPI)
Nachiket Mor Financial products for small businessman and low income households
PJ Nayak Panel
  • By RBI- To review governance of Boards of Banks in the country
  • Recommended to reduce govt. share in public banks less than 50%
Urjit Patel Monetary policy strengthen revise. Target 4% CPI, monetary policy Committee, decision by majority
Vijaya Bhaskar By RBI – on resolving foreign exchange benchmark setting process, like LIBOR between FIMMDA and FEDAI – recommended Indian money market and currency market should move towards transaction based benchmark
G Padmanabha Facilitating exporters. RBI relaxes merchant banking norms accordingly.

Bank CMDs

I’m not including all bankers but only those who were in news in last 5-6 months.

AIFI (All India financial institutions)

NABARD Harsh Kumar Bhanwala
SIDBI Sushil Muhnot
EXIM Yaduvendra Mathur
NHB (Housing) Mohammad Mustafa, IAS

Who was setup first? EXIM > NABARD > NHB > SIDBI (latest)

Commercial Banks

Allahabad Bank Rakesh Sethi replaced Shubhalakshmi Panse
Andhra Bank C.V Rajendran
Axis Shikha Sharma
Bank of Baroda S S Mundra
Bank of India Vijaya laxmi aiyyar
Bank Of Maharastra Sushil Muhnot
Bharatiya Mahila Bank Usha Anathasubramanium
HDFC Aditya Puri (for banking); Renu Sud Kamad (for NBFC-housing finance)
ICICI Chanda Kotchar too clichéd
Punjab and Sind Bank Jatinder Bir Singh
Punjab National Bank KR Kamath
SBI Arundhati Bhattacharya
State bank of Travancore MD Jeevandas Narayan
Union Bank of India Arun Kumar tiwari
United Bank of India Archana Bhargava resigned. (Feb 2014)
Vijaya BANK V. Kannan
Doha Bank opened its first branch in India, in 2013.
UCO Arun Kaul
Bank of India VR Iyer
Oriental Bank of Commerce SC Bansal
Indian Bank TM Bhasin
Dena Bank Ashwini Kumar
Indian Overseas bank M Narendra
Canara bank RK Dubey

Insurance

IRDA chairman TS Vijayan
LIC SK Rai
National insurance NSR Chandra prasad
Oriental Insurance AK Saxena
United Insurance Milint Karat
ING Vysya Life Insurance Boss Kshitij Jain. From now on “Exide life insurance company”, after takeover by Exide industries.

PSU & Corporations

  • List not exhaustive. I’ve only included the names I spotted in Indianexpress since December onwards. Otherwise this list alone would run five mile long.
  • Most of them can be ignored unless you’re applying for their Management Trainee exams :)
NMDC Narenda Kothari new CMD.
BBNL Bharat Broadband network ltd. owned by BSNL, Powergrid and Railtel. for implementing National optical fibre network project.
BSNL RK Upadhyay
Delhi Metro Mangoo Singh.
GAIL BC Tripathy
HPCL- Hindustan Petroleum Nishivasudeva first female CMD
IRCON Indian railways construction company. Signed integrity pact of Transparency international.
NTPC Arup Chodhary
ONGC DK Sarraf Previously with ONGC Videsh
Prasar Bharati Jawahar Sircar.
SAIL Chandrasekhar Verma
Shipping corporation of India Arun Kumar Gupta

Business GK: Private companies, MNC giants

  • List not exhaustive. I’ve only included the names I spotted in Indianexpress since December onwards.
  • As such this is not much important for sarkari job exams (Except for testing random GK during interview).
  • These MCQs are asked in certain management colleges that donot accept CAT Scores and have their own separate entrance exams
  • + sometimes during IIM interviews, especially after your sales pitch on “Why MBA?”
Adobe Shantanu Narayen, CEO
Airbus Srinivasan Dwarkanath
Alibaba Jack Ma. Chinese e-commerce site. Will bring biggest IPO
Amazon Jeff Bezos
Amway India CEO Willian Pinckney arrested for direct selling. (one type of multi-layer marketing/Ponzi game)
Apple Tim Cook, plans to buy headset maker Beats.
Asus Jonney Shih
Axis Capital Nilesh Shah
Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto
Britannia Varun Berry, MD
Britannia Varun Berry, MD
Cadbury India changed name to Mondelez India (American company who bought it). although product names will remain one and same.
CII Ajay Sriram
Crisil Roopa Kudva
Ebay India Latif Nathan. Founder is Pierre Omidyar. In news because hackers stole user accounts.
Facebook Mark Zuckerberg acquired whatsapp for 19 billion.
FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).President Sidharth Birla
Flipkart Sachin Bansal, acquired Myntra- online fashion store.
Flipora Online search engine by Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan.
Forbes Richest Bill Gates-1 ; Karlos slim- 2 ; Mukesh Ambani 40.Now Bill Gates=World’s first trillionaire.
FTIL, MCX-SX Their promoter Jignesh Shah arrested for NSEL scam
General motors first woman CEO Mary Barra
Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Founders Larry page and Sergei Brin.bought Titan Aerospace (Solar powered drones. will help providing internet connectivy to distant parts of the world)
ICAI K Raghu
Infosys CEO SD Shibulal soon to reitre.
Infosys CEO SD Shibulal soon to retire.
ING Vysya Life Insurance Boss Kshitij Jain. From now on “Exide life insurance company”, after takeover by Exide industries.
Intel Renne James – latest process is “Core M”
Kamal Bali Volvo India
Kiran Mazmudar Shaw IIM B Board chairperson + BIOCON
Marico Saugata Gupta, MD.
Maruti Suzuki RC Bhargav
Master Card Ajay Banga
MCX Satyananda Mishra
Merc. Benz India Eberhard Kern.
Micromax CEO Vineet Taneja
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadela replcaed Steve ballmer. He is from Hyderabad. Azure – cloud service
NASSCOM R.Chanrashekher, ex-telecom Secretary
National Stock Exchange of India Chitra Ram Krishna
Neotel Vodafone bought this company from Tata communication.
Pepsi India D Shivakumar
Rajat Gupta Ex-director of Goldman Sach, penalized for insider trading.
Rajat Gupta Ex-director of Goldman Sach, penalized for insider tradsing.
Rajeev Suri Nokia CEO
Samsung Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun Hee. Got warrant in UP.
Samsung Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun Hee. He has arrest warrant in Uttar Pradesh! Samsung s5 In India without 4g.
Samsung s5 But without 4g.
Sunpharma bought ranbaxy from Japan’s Daaichi Sankyo
Titanic II By Asustralian company Blue Star line.
Titanic II ship By Asustralian company Blue Star line.
Twitter Dick Costolo, went to China to learn new technology.
Vedanta Tom albanese replaced MS Mehta
Vodafone Martin Pieters.
Walmart India Krish Iyer
Warren Buffet Berkshire Hathaway
whatsapp Jan Koum, Brian Acton. Sold company to facebook.

For more current affairs, visit Mrunal.org/Current

Any updates, corrections please do post in the comments but with reference except wikipedia

Inputs from Mr. Chandradeo.