30th national Consumers Right Day – 24th December 2015.
- The day provides an opportunity to highlight the importance of the consumer movement and the need to make every consumer more aware of their rights and responsibilities.
- The Consumer Protection and Action Committee (CPAC) celebrated the day by distributing complaints forms, information brochures and other consumer rights literature freely to the public.
- The day is being observed annually on 24 December, since the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 was enacted on 24 December1986.
RBI extends deadline for exchanging pre-2005 notes to 30th June 2016
- RBI extended the deadline for exchanging pre-2005 currency notes of various denominations by another six months to 30 June 2016.
- The decision to extend the deadline was notified by the apex bank in a statement issued in Mumbai.
LS passes The Payment of Bonus(Amendment) Bill, 2015
- The Bill seeks to amend the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965. .The Bill will allow doubling of wage ceiling for calculating bonus of factory workers.
- It seeks to raise the eligibility limit for payment of bonus from a salary of 10000 rupees to 21000 rupees a month.
- It seeks to raise this calculation ceiling of bonus to 7000 rupees per month or as per the minimum wage notified for the employment under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 (whichever is higher).
First Cable bridge inaugurated at Basohali town of J&K.
- Basohali town is located in Kathua district of J&K .
- It would provide close connectivity between three northern states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.
- Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar dedicated the first cable-stayed bridge of North India to the nation.
- The 592-metre bridge was constructed over river Ravi on Dunera- Basohli-Bhadharwah road.
- It is fourth of its kind in India and first in North India and Jammu and Kashmir.
INS Godavari, india’s first indigenously designed & built warship decommissioned.
- India’s first indigenously designed and built warship Indian Navy Service (INS) Godavari was on 23 December 2015 decommissioned in Naval Dockyard Mumbai.
- It was commissioned into the Navy on 10 December 1983.
Gautam H Bambawale appointed as India’s High Commissioner to Pakistan.
- Gautam H Bambawale was on 23 December 2015 appointed as the High Commissioner of India to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
- He is presently serving as the Indian ambassador to Bhutan.
- He will succeed TCA Raghavan, who will retire at the end of December 2015.
Bihar Govt bans 15 year old diesel vehicles from plying on Patna Roads.
- The decision was taken in view of increasing pollution.
- The decision was made during the review meeting of the environment and forests department under the chairmanship of CM Nitish Kumar.
Ind-american Rakesh K Jain selected for US nationa medal of science 2015.
- Indian American professor Rakesh K Jain selected for the National Medal of Science 2015 of United States (US).
- Jain is a professor at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Tumour Biology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital.
- He will receive the honour along with 16 other winners of the National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a White House ceremony in 2016.
- Professor Jain holds a B.Tech degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology- Kanpur.
Idea became 3rd mobile operator to launch 4G services in India.
- Earlier, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India had launched 4G services in India.
- Idea customers with 4G devices in these 75 towns can now start experiencing superfast speeds by simply upgrading their existing SIM cards to new 4G SIM cards.
UN adopts resolution to observe 5 November as World Tsunami Awarness Day.
- UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to observe 5 November every year as World Tsunami Awareness Day.
- Aim : to raise awareness among people in the world of the dangers of tsunami and stressing the importance of early warning systems in order to mitigate damage.
Biocon launched generic version of hepatitis-C drug Harvoni in India.
- The generic version of the drug named Harvoni will be sold under the brand name CIMIVIR-L.
- The generic drug Harvoni is an improved version of Gilead’s hepatitis-C drug Sovaldi or sofosbuvir and will come in fixed-dose combination of ledipasvir-sofosbuvir of 90mg and 400mg, respectively.