Current Affairs : 28 October 2015 current affairs / Gk / GA

Oct 30, 2015

Current Affairs : 28 October 2015 current affairs / Gk / GA: Union Govt constituted RV Easwar Committee to simplify The Income Tax Act, 1961.

The committee will be headed by Justice RV Easwar (Retd.), former Judge of Delhi High Court and former President of ITAT.
The members of the committee are VK Bhasin, Vinod Jain, Rajiv Memani, Ravi Gupta, Mukesh Patel, Ajay Bahl, Pradip P. Shah, Arvind Modi and Dr. Vinay Kumar Singh.
It was constituted to study and identify the provisions/phrases in the Act which are leading to litigation due to different interpretations and to study and identify the provisions which are impacting the ease of doing business.

Citibank appointed Samiran Chakraborty as Chief Economist for India.

Prior to his appointment, he was MD and Head of Macro Research for South Asia at Standard Chartered Bank.
He has also served ICICI Bank as Chief Economist and Delhi School of Economics as faculty for mathematical economics and open-economy macroeconomics.

Sylvie Lucas appointed as Chairman of the IGN on UNSC reforms.

Luxembourg ambassador to UN,, Sylvie Lucas on 27 October 2015 was appointed as the Chair of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) on UN Security Council (UNSC) reforms.
Lucas, who was appointed by 70th UN General Assembly session President Morgens Lykketoft, replaced Ambassador Courtenay Rattray of Jamaica.
Her appointment came ahead of the next round of negotiations to begin on the UNSC reforms.
Earlier, she served as the president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from January 2009 to January 2010.

4^th edition of India, Sri Lanka bilateral naval exercise SLINEX 15 begins in Sri Lanka.

Fourth edition of Sri Lanka-India bilateral naval exercise SLINEX 2015 began off Trincomalee coast, Sri Lanka.
The six days exercise seeks to reinforce the strong neighbourly ties underscored by extensive maritime interaction and improved understanding between neighbouring both countries.
SLINEX 15 seeks to enhance the capability of both navies to work together at sea and contribute towards maritime security in the region.

India ranks 130^th in ease of doing business according to world bank report.

India ranked 140 out of the 189 countries surveyed in terms of doing business for domestic forms.
It was revealed in the report entitled Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency.

E-Sahyoh Pilot Project launched by Union Finance Minister to facilitate Taxpayers.

The Project is aimed at reducing compliance cost, especially for small taxpayers.
The objective of e-Sahyog is to provide an online mechanism to resolve mismatches in Income-tax returns of those assesses whose returns have been selected for scrutiny, without visiting the Income Tax Office.
The Income-Tax Department will provide an end to end e-service using SMS, e-mails to inform the tax assesses of the mismatch.

British Bank Barclays appointed former JP Morgan investment banker James Staley as its new Chief Executive.

The 58-year-old American will take up his new role on December 1, the bank announced in a statement, indicating a renewed focus on its investment division.

PK Gupta elevated as Managing Director of SBI.

PK Gupta will be elevated as MD of country’s largest lender SBI in place of Corporate Banking head P Pradeep Kumar, who is superannuating this month-end.
Gupta, who is of Deputy Managing Director (DMD) rank, is presently Managing Director of the bank’s investment banking arm SBI Caps.
The appointment of the 1960-born Gupta is for a period of over four years (till March 2020), when he will be superannuating, Vijay Malhotra, according to a notification.

Jammu & Kashmir to host South Asian Rugby 7’s Championship in 2016.

J&K Minister for Youth Services and Sports Molvi Imran Raza Ansari on 27 October 2015 announced that Kashmir Valley will host South Asian Rugby 7’S Championship in 2016.
The decision was made during the 131st Standing Committee meeting of J-K State Sports Council, which was chaired by Ansari.
As per the decision, the championship will be held at Bakhshi Stadium from 18 June to 20 June 2016.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed refugees to compete in Olympics for first time.

This is for the first time that refugee athletes will be competing in any Olympic Games.
As per the announcement, all the eligible athletes will be able to compete for the 2016 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.