Business & International:

  • Kazakhstan became the 162th member of World Trade Organization (WTO). The agreement was signed between the WTO Director General Robert Azevedo and Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev at Geneva.
  • With Greece’s failure to repay the roughly 6 billion euros ($1.8 billion) to the IMF, Greece became the first developed country to fall into arrears on payments to the fund. The last country to do so was Zimbabwe in 2001.
  • Automobile manufacturer Renault India announced actor Ranbir Kapoor as its brand ambassador.
  • Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has become the world’s third largest mobile operator with 303 million subscribers. The global rankings were led by China Mobile (China), which had 626.27 million subscribers and was followed by Vodafone Group of the UK with 403.08 million subscribers worldwide.
  • Indian drug company Lupin acquired US generics company GAVIS Pharmaceuticals and Novel Laboratories (GAVIS) for 880 million US dollars to strengthen its presence in the United States.
  • Former McKinsey director Ananth Narayanan was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Flipkart­ owned fashion store Myntra.
  • European Union (EU) has approved a short-term loan of 16 billion euros to Greece after it was backed by the 28 member states.
  • Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) and US-based aircraft maker Boeing have signed a strategic framework agreement for aerospace and defence manufacturing.
  • Iran and the Europe (France, Germany and U.K) 3+3 (US, Russia and China) and the UN atomic energy agency IAEA reached a nuclear deal.
  • The 7th BRICS summit was held from 8 to 9 July 2015 in the Russian city of Ufa in Bashkortostan.
  • Former Finance Minster of China Jin Liqun was nominated by China to be the first president of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
  • Snapdeal Co-founder and Chief Executive Kunal Bahl, and Kshatrapati Shivaji, chairman and managing director of SIDBI has signed a MoU to provide financial help to India’s MSMEs.

National:

  • The President has nominated Prof. Richard Hay and Mr. George Baker as members of the Anglo-Indian Community to the Lok Sabha.
  • India ranks 12th in the world in terms of power generation from nuclear sources.
  • India has test-fired its indigenously developed Nag anti-tank guided missile (HeliNa), which can hit a target up to seven km, from a helicopter at a firing range in Jaisalmer in Rajasthan.
  • India launched its heaviest commercial space mission ever with its polar rocket PSLV-C28 successfully putting five British satellites into the intended orbit after a flawless take off from the Satish Dhawan space Centre in July 2015.
  • Ira Singhal, a physically handicapped IRS officer from Delhi, topped the Civil services examination.
  • As per the reports India has overtaken the US to become the world’s third-largest steel producer.

Persons in News:

  • 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon hanged in the Nagpur Central Jail.
  • Union Government has appointed former IAS officer Ashish Bahuguna as the chairman of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
  • Climate scientist RK Pachauri removed from the post of Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) chief. He has been replaced by Ajay Mathur.
  • Ram Sevak Sharma was appointed as the Chairman of telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). He succeeded Rahul Khullar.
  • Kamal Bawa, India’s most prominent biologist and an evolutionary ecologist, has been elected to the prestigious Royal Society in recognition of his pioneering contributions in the area of conservation science.
  • Matti Makkonen, a Finnish national, known as the “reluctant father of SMS” has passed away at the age of 63.
  • Ashok Kumar Lahiri, a former Chief Economic Advisor to the Centre, will be the Chairman while Chandra Shekhar Ghosh will be the MD and CEO of the Bandhan bank of Kolkata.

Award:

  • Indian forest officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi and founder of NGO Goonj, Anshu Gupta has been selected for the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award. Three others including Kommaly Chanthavong from Laos, Ligaya Fernando­Amilbangsa from Philippines and Kyaw Thu from Myanmar are also awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
  • Historian Ramachandra Guha was chosen for the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize 2015 in the Academic Category. Guha is well known for his book, India After Gandhi.
  • Alex Rocco, the US actor best known for his role in crime drama The Godfather, has died of cancer.
  • Professor Sanjeev Galande has been chosen for the D. Birla Award for Scientific Research for 2014, the K.K. Birla Foundation announced.
  • Veteran Writer Vishwanath Tripathi was selected for the 28th Moorti Devi Award for the year 2014 for his book Vyomkesh Darvesh.

Sports:

  • Ferrari’s driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany won the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix of Formula One (F1).
  • Cyclist Chris Froome from Britain of Team Sky has won the 102nd edition Tour de France. He defeated Nairo Quintana (Colombia) of Movistar Team.
  • Kolkata’s Eden Gardens will host the final of the ICC World T20.
  • Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were suspended from the cash-rich cricket league (IPL) for two years for betting activities of their key officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra during the 2013 season.
  • South Africa’s 20-year-old pacer Kagiso Rabada became just the second bowler after Bangladesh left-arm spinner Taijul Islam to bag a hat-trick in the first ODI.
  • Indian Skipper Mithali Raj became the first woman and second in women’s ODI history to complete 5000 runs after England’s Charlotte Edwards.
  • The S. Women’s National Team defeated Japan 5-2 to become the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Champion.
  • Chile won the Copa America for the first time in the tournament’s 99-year history after a 4-1 victory on penalties over Argentina.
  • Grandmaster and former world junior champion Abhijeet Gupta won the 19th Commonwealth Chess Championship after settling for a quick draw with Arghyadip Das.

Miscellaneous:

  • World Health Organization (WHO) inform that the hailing the results from the first efficacy test of the VSV­ZEBOV vaccine provide 100­per cent protection from Ebola virus.
  • NASA spacecraft Kepler has found a planet at a distance of 1,400 light­years from Earth which has some similarities like Earth. It is named as Kepler­452b.
  • Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka has set a Guinness World Record for spending the longest time in space with a total of 804 days as on July 2015.
  • United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO) has named Conakry, the Capitl city of the Republic of Guinea as the World Book Capital for the year 2017.
  • Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of Bangladesh-based poverty alleviation NGO wins World Food Prize 2015. He is founder and chairman of Bangladesh-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) BRAC (originally known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) which is world’s largest NGO.
  • Cuba has become the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV or syphilis from mother to child during childbirth as announced by the World Health Organisation (WHO)
  • Krishnapatnam Port in Andhra Pradesh has received the Golden Peacock environment management award for its initiatives and achievements in the field of environment.

Important Days in July:

  • 11 July: World Population Day
  • 15th July: World Youth Skills Day
  • 23 July: National Broadcasting Day
  • 26th July: Kargil Memorial Day
  • 28 July: World Hepatities Day