Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 27 August 2015

Current Affairs for IAS Exams – 27 August 2015

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday inaugurated the Call To Action Summit 2015, a global meet aimed at ending preventable child and maternal deaths.
The two-day summit will see officials from 24 countries deciding on strategies and sharing practices, said Rakesh Kumar, joint secretary in the Health and Family Welfare Ministry.
First hosted in the US in 2012, the global meet aims to end preventable child deaths by 2035. The event is co-hosted by Unicef, WHO, Tata Trusts and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

China has been so surprised by the global reaction to its currency devaluation that it is likely to keep the yuan on a tight leash in the near-term to head off a currency war that could spark a broader financial crisis, policy insiders say.
Internal calls for the yuan to weaken by up to 10 percent since the Aug. 11 devaluation have faded as top leaders worry that market fears of such a move could fuel further capital outflows, signs of which have intensified in July and August.
Government economists and policy advisers say the People's Bank of China (PBOC) will now try to stop the yuan weakening much past 6.5 per dollar, which is 4.5 percent below its pre-devaluation levels. On Thursday morning, the yuan traded as low as 6.4162 per dollar.
That was seen as a signal that capital outflows had accelerated since the devaluation as market investors feared China would drive the yuan lower.
An influential economist at a top government think-tank said policymakers may have underestimated the global impact from the yuan devaluation, which happened when jitters about China's slowdown had intensified due to a stock market plunge.

The Finance Ministry said in a notification that the new SEBI Chairman would be appointed for a five-year term or up to the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.
Besides, he would be eligible for re-appointment.The Government has begun the search for a new Chairman of the capital market regulator SEBI to succeed the current head UK Sinha, whose term ends on February 17, 2016.
The Finance Ministry said in a notification that the new SEBI Chairman would be appointed for a five-year term or up to the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. Besides, he would be eligible for re-appointment.
The Chairman would have an option to receive pay "as admissible to a Secretary to the Government of India, or a consolidated salary of Rs. 4.5 lakh per month".
The salary remains unchanged from what is being paid currently.
Before joining SEBI as its Chairman, UK Sinha was the head of the UTI Mutual Fund. Prior to that, he had served in the Finance Ministry among other positions as an IAS officer.

For the first time in the history of weightlifting, an individual international tournament will be organised in India when it hosts the Commonwealth Youth, Junior and Senior Weightlifting Championships in Pune from October 11-15.
India will field 40 weightlifters -- 11 youth (boys & girls), 16 junior (men & women) and 13 senior (men & women) -- in the Commonwealth Championships.
Meanwhile, five weightlifters will take part in the 26th Women & 45th Men Senior Asian Weightlifting Championships to be held in Phuket, Thailand from September 3 to 12.