1) Kashmiri wins 2016 Wisden-MCC Cricket 'Photograph of the Year' award
•A Srinagar based freelance photographer has done Kashmir proud, pocketing the prestigious 2016 Wisden-MCC (Melbourne Cricket Council) Cricket Photograph of the Year for a stunning image, which captured boys playing cricket in the outskirts of the city, clicked by him.
•Saqib Majeed, an engineer by profession clicked the award-winning picture at the Nishat garden in Srinagar.Majeed is the first Kashmiri and second Asian after Atul Kamble to receive the prestigious award.
•Every year MCC publishes a book titled Wisden Cricketer Almanack, which includes best sports pictures from across the globe. This year's edition includes Majeed's picture.
2) Indian-origin scientists elected fellows of UK Royal Society
•Three Indian-origin scientists have been elected fellows of the Royal Society, Britain's independent fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists, for their "outstanding contributions to science".
•Krishna Chatterjee from Cambridge University, Subhash Khot from New York University and Yadvinder Malhi from Oxford University are among 50 distinguished people from across the world elected as the 2017 cohort of fellows of the academy.
•Royal Society's first Indian-origin president, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan, welcomed the latest batch into the ranks of the society
•Chatterjee has been recognised for his discoveries of genetic disorders of thyroid gland formation, regulation of hormone synthesis and hormone action, which have advanced the fundamental knowledge of the thyroid axis.
•Khot is a theoretical computer scientist who is credited with providing insight into unresolved problems in the field of computational complexity.
3) Govt appoints heads of 7 PSU banks, shifts MDs of PNB and BoI
•The government, which vested more powers with the Reserve Bank of India to deal with public sector banks' ballooning bad assets, also announced a major restructuring of the PSU bank boards with the appointment of new heads of seven PSU banks and a reshuffle of the management of Punjab National Bank and Bank of India.
List of Appointments
•R Subramania Kumar MD and CEO of Indian Overseas Bank (IOB).
•Rajkiran Rai G MD and CEO of the Union Bank of India.
•Usha Ananthasubramanian MD and CEO Allahabad Bank \
•Melwyn Rego MD and CEO Syndicate Bank .
•Sunil Mehta MD and CEO Punjab National Bank.
•Dinabandhu Mohapatra MD and CEO Bank of India in place of
•M O Rego MD and CEO Syndicate Bank
•R A Sankara Narayanan MD and CEO of Vijaya Bank.
•Sunil Mehta head of PNB
•Sankara Narayanan MD and CEO of Vijaya Bank.
4) RBI tightens JLF rules
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday moved to make the joint lenders’ forum (JLF) more effective, directing banks to not break any rules and to meet all deadlines.
•The regulator said any breach of rules would attract a monetary penalty.
•JLFs are meetings at which banks attempt to red-flag stress early and work to try and keep it in check by putting in place a corrective action plan (CAP). Although the mechanism has been place for some time now, decisions have been few and far between thanks to disagreements between lenders.
•RBI lowered the threshold needed for implementing a CAP — decisions agreed to by a minimum of 60% of creditors by value and 50% of creditors by number will now be valid. Earlier, 75% of the lenders by value and 60% by number needed to sign off on a CAP.
5) Justice Leila Seth, first woman judge of Delhi High Court, passes away
•Justice Leila Seth, the first woman judge of Delhi High Court, passed away on Saturday after a brief illness at her home in Uttar Pradesh's Noida. She was 86.
•She died of cardiac seizure
•Seth, who broke many a glass ceiling in the legal field, was the first woman to have topped the London Bar exam, first woman judge of the Delhi High Court and also the first woman chief justice of a state high court (Himachal Pradesh).
•Seth was also one of the three members of the Justice Verma Committee which was constituted in 2012 to recommend amendments to the Criminal Law so as to provide for quicker trial and enhanced punishment for criminals accused of committing sexual assault against women, post the gruesome December 16 gangrape in Delhi.
6) FOREX RESERVES TOUCH LIFE TIME HIGH OF $372.73 BILLION
•According to the Reserve Bank of India’s weekly statistical supplement, India’s foreign exchange, Forex reserves have increased by $1.594 billion to touch a lifetime high of $372.73 billion in the week that ended on April 28. The increase was due to increase in foreign currency assets (FCAs), The reserves had increased by $1.250 billion to $371.14 billion in the previous week.
•The components of India’s Foreign Exchange Reserves include: Foreign currency assets (FCAs) Gold Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) RBI’s Reserve position with International Monetary Fund (IMF) FCAs constitute the largest component of the Forex Reserves. FCA surged $1.569 billion to $349.055 billion in the reporting week. FCAs consist of US dollar and other major non-US global currencies.
•It also comprises of investments in US Treasury bonds, bonds of other selected governments, deposits with foreign central and commercial banks. FCAs include with them the effects of appreciation or depreciation of non-US currencies like the euro, pound, and the yen and is expressed in terms of dollars. The gold reserves stand at $19.869 billion. SDRs’ value has increased $8.5 million to reach $1.460 billion. RBI’s reserve position with the IMF also increased by $15.8 million to reach $2.347 billion.
