Morning Current Affairs: 1 November 2017

Government sets up Arun Jaitley led panel on PSU bank mergers

The Union Government has constituted a ministerial panel headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, which will oversee merger proposals of state-owned banks.

The panel will also comprise Railway and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as members. The move to create large banks aims at meeting the credit needs of the growing Indian economy and building capacity in the PSB space to raise resources without dependence on the state exchequer.

Karnataka gets first woman police chief

Neelamani N Raju, a 1983-batch Indian Police Service officer, was appointed as the first woman Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG-IGP) of Karnataka on 31 October 2017.

She takes over following the retirement of R K Dutta on superannuation. She was previously serving as the Director General of Police - Internal Security.

Google Doodle commemorates 87th birthday of Abdul Qavi Desnavi

Search giant Google on 1 November 2017 dedicated its doodle to commemorate the 87th birthday of Urdu Poet and author Abdul Qavi Desnavi.

Born in Desna village, in the Nalanda district of Bihar on 1 November 1930, Desnavi has written over 50 books on Urdu literature. Some of his major works include Hayat-e-Abul Kalam Azad, a book on freedom fighter Maulana Abul Kalam Azad; Sat Tahriren, Motala-E-Khotoot Ghalib and Talash-E-Azad.

Throughout his career span, Desnavi played a prominent role in the evolution of Urdu literature and academic thought in India.

India’s rank rises to 100 in World Bank’s Doing Business Report, 2018

The World Bank on 31 October 2017 released the Doing Business (DB) Report 2018. India was ranked 100 among the 190 countries assessed, a jump of 30 places, as it was ranked 130 in the previous year’s business report.

The DB Report is an assessment of 190 economies and covers 10 indicators which span the lifecycle of a business. India has improved its rank in 6 out of 10 indicators and has moved closer to international best practices (Distance to Frontier score).