Daily Updates 23rd June

1. Retirement fund body EPFO has made Universal Account Number (UAN) mandatory for all employers covered under the Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952. The UAN facility was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October last year. The UAN remains portable throughout the lifetime of an employee and they don't have to apply for PF transfer claims at changing jobs.

2. ICICI Bank has partnered with Alibaba.com, the leading platform for global wholesale trade, to launch a ‘trade facilitation centre’, a single window facility to provide easier trade finance to the small and medium enterprises in India. The collaboration for the centre will enable the Indian entrepreneurs who are members of Alibaba.com to get quick access to an array of integrated business services from ICICI Bank including business loans, cash management solutions, foreign exchange transactions, bank guarantees and cross-border remittances. 

3. Renowned carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyam was selected for the Sangitha Kalanidhi award of the Madras Music Academy. The decision to award Subrahmanyam was taken at a meet of the Executive Committee. Vocalist Subrahmanyam, one of the foremost south Indian classical vocalists, will receive the award on 1 January 2016.

4. Britain’s Andy Murray won the men’s singles of the Aegon Championships at the Queen’s Club in West Kensington, England. In the final clash, Murray defeated South African Kevin Anderson 6-3, 6-4. This was world no. 3 player Murray's fourth Queen’s title and the previous were won in alternate years, that is, 2009, 2011 and 2013.

5. Nico Rosberg won Austrian Grand Prix 2015 beating Mercedes team-mate and series leader Lewis Hamilton. This is Rosberg's third win in four races. The German driver also won Austrian Grand Prix last year. This is his career's 11th win. The former world champion Hamilton who came second in the Prix is still at the top in the overall table of drivers with 169 points, but Rosberg (159) is now only ten points behind him.

6. After winning two honours at Berlinale, Nagesh Kukunoor's film “Dhanak” bagged the Best Film Award in the main category – Children’s Feature Film Competition — at the Cinema in Sneakers Children’s Festival in Poland. The film is co-produced by Manish Mundra, Kukunoor and Elahe Hiptoola. 

7. China won the 2015 Nongfu Spring Snooker’s World Cup by defeating Scotland 4-1 in the final match held at Wuxi near Shanghai in China. In the final, China’s B team pairing of 17-year-old Zhou Yuelong and 15-year-old Yan Bingtao defeated Scotland’s pairing of John Higgins and Stephen Maguire. India stood at the third position in the competition, the best finish so far for India.

8. India has moved down to 61st place in terms of foreigners' money in Swiss banks and it now accounts for a meagre 0.123 percent of the total global wealth worth $1.6 trillion in Switzerland's banking system. Last year it was ranked 64th. While the UK and the US have retained their top two positions with the largest shares of the foreign clients' money with Swiss banks, Pakistan has inched up to 73rd place.

9. American Golfer Jordan Spieth has made history by winning the US Open, capturing his second major championship of the year. The 21-year old, who took the coveted Green Jacket at The Masters in April, was crowned champion at Chamber's Bay, Washington, after Dustin Johnson missed two crucial putts on the final hole. The Dallas Native finished five under par to win the $1.8million prize money, and becomes the youngest player to win the two majors in the same year. 

10. Debendranath Sarangi and K. Rajendiran were elected unopposed as president and secretary-general respectively of the Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) at its Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). The EGM was called specifically to elect a set of new office bearers for the period 2015 to 2019. 

11. Rajasthan topped the list of States commissioning grid connected Solar Power projects

i. Rajasthan topped the list of states commissioning grid connected solar power projects in the country with an installed capacity of 1147 megawatt. The list was released by the Union ministry of New and Renewable Energy on 4 June 2015.

ii. Gujarat, which remained the undisputed leader in solar energy generation till 2014, came second with an installed capacity of 1000MW.

iii. The state has also signed MoUs with power developers like SunEdison, Adani Enterprises, Reliance Power and Azure Power that will generate 14000 MW solar power. National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is already in the process of commissioning 680 MW in the state.