20 April 2015 Current Affairs
Navy’s Stealth Destroyer ‘Visakhapatnam’ Launched
Indian Navy’s new stealth destroyer named ‘ INS Visakhapatnam ‘ was launched on 20 April at the Mazgaon Docks Ltd (MDL) in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It has been designed indigenously and has been fitted with advanced features. It will be the first of P15-B stealth destroyers (under Kolkata-class) and will be propelled by four gas turbines. The ship weighed approximately 3,000 tons during the launch. The 163-metre-long vessel will be propelled by four gas turbines, and is designed to achieve a speed of over 30 knots at a displacement of approximately 7,300 tons. The vessel is expected to be commissioned in the Navy in 2018.
Neeraj Kumar Appointed BCCI’s ACSU chief
Former Delhi Police Commissioner Neeraj Kumar was appointed as chief advisor of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) Anti Corruption & Security Unit (ACSU) for a term of one year. The decision to appoint Neeraj Kumar to the top post was taken at the Governing Council Meeting of the Indian Premier League New Delhi, which was chaired by IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla. He will succeed Ravi Sawant as his term ended and will have term of one year.
ICICI Bank Launches NFC payments Service with Tech Mahindra
India’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank has launched a new service called ‘Tap n Pay’ which enables Near Field Communications (NFC) payments for users using NFC enabled tag or mobile phone at the merchant’s point-of-sale device. It was launched by bank in collaboration with Tech Mahindra. ICICI Bank’s ‘Tap-n-Pay’ payment service is based on the near-field communications (NFC) technology. It can be used for merchant payments by merely tapping a NFC-enabled mobile phone or a tag on the counter. One important feature of this service is that it is a close-end one, only for a close group of customers, like canteen payments at the work place, and not universal like a debit or credit card. Any person having any bank account, and not limited to ICICI customers, can avail the service. For making payments, the user will have to bring the NFC tag or the mobile phone near a device at the merchant’s facility and the amount will automatically get debited from the prepaid account, without keying-in any code.