2nd April 2016

A.Germany’s Development Bank KfW to provide loan assistance to metro system for Nagpur

1.Germany’s Development Bank KfW will provide loan assistance of 3750 crore rupees for the modern and sustainable metro system for Nagpur city. 

2.In this regard, a loan agreement was signed by Joint Secretary in Department of Economic Affairs S Selvaraj and Director General of KfW Roland Siller in New Delhi. 

3.The loan period is 20 years with a moratorium of 5 years and disbursal will be based on the progress of the project over three years. 

4.With this Nagpur metro project becomes first metro to be financed under the Indo-German partnership for clean, socially inclusive and climate friendly mobility for people in cities. 

5.The project is being executed by Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Limited and its total costing is of 8,680 crore rupees.

B.Shiva Thapa wins Silver medal at Asian/Oceania Qualifying event in China

1.Ace Indian boxer Shiva Thapa has won the silver medal at the Asian/Oceania Qualifying Tournament held in Qian’an, China in the 56 Kilogram category final In the final match, he lost to Thailand’s Chatchai Butdee by 0-3 score who won the gold medal. 

2.By entering in the final match of this event, he had booked his ticket to 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics Games after beating Kazakhstan’s Kairat Yeraliyev in the semifinals. 

3.Shiva is a World Championship bronze-medallist in the Bantamweight category held in Doha in 2015. 

4.He also had participated in the 2012 London Olympics and was the youngest Indian boxer to qualify for the Olympics.

C.Flipkart acquires mobile payments firm PhonePe
1.India’s homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart has acquired a Bengaluru-based mobile payments company PhonePe for an undisclosed sum. 

2.PhonePe has been co-founded by ex-Flipkart employees Sameer Nigam and Rahul Chari. 

3.After the acquisition, the mobile payments company will function as an independent business unit. 

Key facts 
1.PhonePe is building India’s a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) based product. It is expected to be launched in April 2016. 

2.The interface this mobile payments gateway will allow users to transact using their unique identification and mobile phone number or virtual payments address. 

3.This will be without sharing any other bank details and anyone with a bank account can perform instant transactions by using mobile phone. 

4.This payment gateway is in contrast to the present payments process, which involves entering numerous account/card details and multi-level interventions.

D.Haryana Assembly passes bills for mandatory educational criteria for urban local bodies elections

1.The Haryana Legislative Assembly has unanimously passed two bills to make minimum educational qualification criteria mandatory for the urban local bodies election (ULBs). 

2.These bills are 
(i) The Haryana Municipal (Amendment) Bill, 2016 
(ii) Haryana Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2016. 

3.These bill seeks to amend the amend Section 13 A of the Haryana Municipal Act, 1973 and Section 8 of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994 respectively. 

Key features of the Haryana Municipal (Amendment) Bill, 2016 
1.Minimum educational qualification for a candidate contesting ULBs election in the general category would be Class X i.e. matriculation. 

2.Female candidate from open category and a male candidate from Scheduled Caste (SC) will be required to be at least 8th standard pass. 

3.Minimum educational qualification for SC women candidates will be 5th standard pass. 

4.Candidate should not be convicted or have charges framed against him in a criminal case by a court for an offence punishable with imprisonment for not less than 10 years. 

5.There should be no pending arrears of electricity bills against the candidate contesting the elections to ULBs.