Daily GK Update - 17th March 2015

1. Supreme Court sets aside Jat quota

i. The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the notification issued by the erstwhile UPA government to include Jats in the Central list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) for according benefits of reservation to them.

ii. a bench of Justice Tarun Gogoi and Justice R.F. Nariman found fault with the Centre’s decision to overlook the findings of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) stating that Jats do not deserve to be included in the Central list of OBC as they don’t form socio-economic backward class.

iii. The Narendra Modi government had supported UPA regime's decision to include the Jat community in the central OBC list for providing reservation.

2. Centre includes compensation in GST Const Amendment Bill

i. The Centre has included in the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill the compensation which will be paid to states for revenue loss on account of rolling out the new indirect tax regime.

ii. As part of the proposed GST regime, the CST is being phased out and its rate has been reduced to two percent from four percent.

iii. The Centre collects CST and distributes it among states. The Centre has agreed to compensate states for losses they have incurred due to CST phase out.

3. Snapdeal buys stake in logistics firm GoJavas

i. Online marketplace major Snapdeal today picked up minority stake in logistics firm GoJavas as it looks to further strengthen its delivery operations in the country. 

ii. Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal said this is the first ever investment by Snapdeal in the logistics segment and that the company is looking to invest $150-200 million in logistics this year.

iii. Snapdeal, which has more than 60,000 sellers on board and more than 40 million registered users, has been dependent on third party services such as Blue Dart, GoJavas, Ecom Express for handling deliveries in the country. 

4. Hitachi India, Siemens sign MoU with CII for smart cities

i. Hitachi India Ltd and Siemens Ltd on Tuesday signed an MoU with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to form a consortium that would create pilots and replicate them throughout the country for setting up 100 smart cities.

ii. The MoU aims to establish a national mission for such cities as a platform comprising industry leaders and experts and provide policy advocacy and thought leadership to Government and other stakeholders. 

iii. It would also manage a knowledge repository to provide inputs to the Ministry of Urban Development on best practices.

5. Mirach to file $400 million defamation suit against Sahara 

i. US-based Mirach Capital today said it is initiating a $400 million defamation lawsuit against the Sahara group.

ii. The crisis-hit group had alleged that Mirach and its CEO Saransh Sharma's criminal conduct and lack of financial capabilities to honour such huge commitments led to the breaking down of the deal, 

iii. Mirach accused Sahara's representatives of making unfounded allegations against it while the group scrambled for more time for its jailed CEO.

6. HDFC Bank launches instant money transfer app

i. HDFC Bank has launched Chillr, a mobile app that allows users to instantly transfer money to any contact in their phonebook 24 hours a day and seven days a week. 

ii. HDFC Bank has partnered with MobME, a Kochi-based technology firm, to launch this app.