Daily Updates on 26th Dec,2015

National

1. PM goes to Lahore, makes a Christmas date with history

• With two unannounced stops, in Kabul and Lahore on Christmas day, Prime Minister 

Narendra Modi rewrote the recent history of geo-politics in the region.

• While his travel to Kabul on the way back from Moscow was widely anticipated and had been reported by The Hindu earlier this week, his stopover in Pakistan, the first by an Indian Prime 

Minister in 11 years, caught everyone, including senior officials, by surprise. 

• Officials in Delhi and Islamabad told The Hindu that Mr. Modi had telephoned his Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from Kabul to wish him on his birthday, and during the call, made plans to travel to Lahore to wish him personally a few hours later.

2. Style icon Sadhana no more

• Sadhana Shivdasani, just Sadhana to her fans, the woman who defined elegance and grace for Bollywood and its fans of the 1960s and beyond, died on Christmas Day in Mumbai, following a brief, undisclosed illness. She was 74.

• For over a decade since her debut in Hindi movies in 1960, Sadhana would define style, and became an icon through a series of blockbuster movies which not only shot her to fame, but also created an eponymous haircut that remains popular until today.

• The “Sadhana cut” is but one small tribute to an actor whose legacy remains alive with such films as Mera Saaya (1966), Woh Kaun Thi (1964), Gaban (1966), Mere Mehboob (1963), Ek Musafir Ek Hasina (1962), Hum Dono (1961), Rajkumar (1964), Waqt (1965), and Ek Phool Do Mali (1969). There are several other cinematic landmarks that Sadhana was part of, but these nine movies were possibly the pinnacle of her abilities as an actor.

International

3. India asks UN to allocate more for responding to emergencies

• India has underlined the need for the UN to allocate more resources for responding to emergencies like Ebola and other humanitarian and natural disasters as the world body adopted a budget of $5.4 billion to carry out its vital work during 2016-2017.

• Expressing satisfaction over the passage of the budget, India’s Ambassador to the UN, Asoke Mukerji, reiterated that adequate resources should be allocated for fulfilling the mandate generated by the collective membership and that resources for programmatic and substantial component should overweigh resources allocated for posts.

• “We are also of the view that UN should allocate and respond to emergencies like Ebola which we had done last year and also humanitarian and natural disasters,” he said in his remarks at a plenary meeting of the General Assembly after the adoption of the UN budget here on December 23.

4. India, Russia seek to promote visa regimes, promote tourism and media links

• When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was welcomed at the Russian Exhibition Centre ahead of his address at the Friends of India conclave with Sanskrit shlokas by a local singer , it signalled that the two sides were keen to push soft diplomacy with Modi and Vladimir Putin ready to initiate steps to liberalise visa regimes, promote tourism and media links between state-run bodies and private organisations.

• At the summit, Modi and Putin pushed for early conclusion of a cultural exchange programme from 2016-2018 and decided to intensify cultural cooperation between academic and research organizations of the two countries. It was also decided to have the Festival of Russian Culture in India next year.

• An MoU was signed between Russian state-run VGTRK and Prasar Bharati for exchange of news 

and current affairs as well as other content to promote media ties. The two sides also endorsed greate .
5. Companies raise Rs.13,600 crore in 2015

• Ending the initial public offering (IPO) drought, 21 companies have entered Dalal Street in 2015 with initial public offers to garner Rs.13,600 crore-the highest in five years- and an impressive pipeline is already in place for the New Year.

• While IPOs worth Rs.14,000 crore are already in the final stages of hitting the market, experts say the overall pipeline currently stands at well in excess of Rs.50,000 crore.

• Adding to the depth of the IPO market, companies from diverse sectors such as renewable energy, QSRs, logistics, pharma, electronics and airlines have made their way into the IPO space this year.

• The total funds collected by the 21 IPOs in 2015 is the highest since 2010 when Rs.37,534.65 crore was garnered. As an icing on the cake, the year has seen as many as 60 per cent of the newly-listed stocks trading at a high premium over their issue prices as against most of the stocks trending below issue price in the previous years.

• The star performers this year include InterGlobe Aviation which runs the country’s largest airline IndiGo (Rs.3,017 crore), Coffee Day Enterprises that owns the largest coffee chain Cafe Coffee Day (Rs.1,150 crore), Alkem Laboratories (Rs.1,350 crore) and Inox Wind (Rs.1,020 crore).

6. Yellow metal loses lustre for third consecutive year in 2015

• Set for the third straight year of downtrend, gold has lost further sheen in 2015 with a fall of over Rs.1,000 per ten grams in its prices as investors looked for other asset classes and the government sought to monetise the holdings lying idle with the households and institutions.

• The silver has been no better with a dip of about 8 per cent in its prices.

• The gold prices have dipped by about 5 per cent this year.

• Extreme volatility in the rupee value and the uncertainty around the long-pending rate hike in the U.S. added to the roller-coaster ride for gold throughout 2015, while the headwinds from a slowdown in China added to the worries.

• Subdued domestic demand along with fears over slowdown in global consumption further dampened the sentiments, while improving outlook for equity markets led to the investors looking for asset classes with better return prospects.

• Measures to curb gold imports for most part of the year and the government’s ambitious gold monetisation scheme to encourage households and institutions including temples also had their own impacts.

• After beginning the year at around Rs.26,700 per ten gram, the gold prices have fallen to Rs.25,500-level so far in 2015 with just four more days of trading to go.

• The silver prices have also fallen from about Rs.37,200 a kg to close to Rs.34,300 level this year.

7. Alibaba agrees to invest $1.25 bn inChinese online food delivery service

• Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has agreed to invest $1.25 billion in Chinese online food delivery 

service Ele.me, leading business weekly Caixin reported.

• The report, citing unidentified sources, said Alibaba would obtain a 27.7 per cent stake in Ele.me, becoming its biggest shareholder. Alibaba and Ele.me both declined to comment.

• Ele.me, which roughly translates as ‘Hungry Now?’ is part of a trend in China for what is known as online-to-offline (O2O) services. These include taxi hailing and restaurant review apps that link smartphone users with offline businesses. Earlier this year, the food delivery service firm raised $350 million from investors including CITIC Private Equity, Tencent Holdings Ltd., Alibaba rival JD.com Inc, Dianping and Sequoia Capital.

• Alibaba, the world’s biggest e-commerce company, and social networking and video games titan Tencent together spent more than $8 billion last year alone backing sometimes strikingly similar ventures, such as taxi hailing apps Kuadi Dache and Didi Dache.

Sports

8. Syed Kirmani to get BCCI Lifetime Achievement Award

• Former wicket-keeper batsman Syed Kirmani was nominated for this year’s Col. C.K. Nayudu Lifetime Achievement Award.

• The Awards Committee met at Cricket Centre, BCCI headquarters – Mumbai and unanimously nominated Kirmani for Award for 2015, according to a BCCI release.

• The committee consists of BCCI president Shashank Manohar, secretary Anurag Thakur and N Ram, editor – The Hindu.

• The BCCI celebrates the birth centenary of Col. Cottari Kanakaiya Nayudu, the country’s first Test captain, by instituting an annual Lifetime Achievement Award, to honour individuals for their unparalleled contribution to Indian cricket, on and off the field.The Award comprises a trophy, citation and cheque for Rs. 25 lakhs.