Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: June 1st week (01 June – 07 June)

India has signed Loan Agreement with the World Bank for USD 36 Million for “Himachal Pradesh Public Financial Management Capacity Building Program”. The $36 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) has a five-year grace period and a maturity of 19 years.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Punjab National Bank (PNB) have signed a $100 million loan — to be guaranteed by the Government of India — that will finance large solar rooftop systems on industrial and commercial buildings throughout India. The PNB will use the ADB funds to make further loans to various developers and end users to install rooftop solar systems.

Making India the first country to have all government-owned ports running on solar and wind energy. The government plans to install almost 200 megawatt solar and wind power generation capacity at the ports by 2019

EY, a global professional services firm, on Wednesday announced the launch of ‘DigiGST’, an integrated solution that provides organisations with end-to-end GST compliance support.

Some famous books of Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, The Lowland, In Other Words and The Clothing of Books

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the very first time will launch a probe mission directly into the atmosphere of the sun in 2018. The mission is scheduled to end in June 2025. It also announced that it has renamed the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft – humanity’s first mission to a star, which will be launched in 2018 – as the Parker Solar Probe in honour of astrophysicist Eugene Parker.

Veteran Kannada film producer and distributor Parvathamma Rajkumar has passed away.

World No-Tobacco Day: 31 May; The theme for World No Tobacco Day 2017: “Tobacco – a threat to development”.

Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India is all set to launch ‘Deep Ocean Mission’ by January 2018 which will improve India’s position in ocean research field.

The Reserve Bank of India has announced appointment of S. Ganesh Kumar as Executive Director (ED). Ganesh Kumar will succeed Chandan Sinha.

Points to Remember: (i) Important Event of PM Modi’s visit to Russia
(ii) India and Russia celebrates the 70th anniversary of their relations
(iii) 5 agreements signes
(iv) first tri- Services exercises, named ‘Indra-2017’ in which Army, Navy and Air Force all three will take part will be held
(v) co- production of Kamov-226 military helicopters.
(vi) construction of the third stage of the Kudankulam NPP (KK5 & KK6)

Points to remember: (i) name of Portal
(ii) Use of portal- The Web Platform for Sale and Purchase of Construction Material and Service
(iii) The Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping?- Shri Nitin Gadkari
(iv) INAM-Pro+ is an upgraded version of INAM-Pro, the web portal designed by National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (NHIDCL) and launched by the Ministry two years back as a common platform to bring cement buyers and sellers together.

Points to remember: (i) Name of state?- Telangana
(ii) Name of app?- T-wallet
(iii) created on Azure platform
(iv) Telangana has partnered with startup Transaction Analysts for the development of wallet

Points to remember: (i) Name of portal?- Mahaswayam
(ii) Which state?- Maharashtra

Balwant Gargi was a was a renowned Punjabi language dramatist, theatre director, novelist, and short story writer, and academic. A stamp has been released on the commemoration of Balwant Gargi centenary by the Panjab University.

Points to Remember: (i) Rank of India- 137
(ii) Top?- Iceland
(iii) Worst(Last)? Syria
(iv) Report by which organization?- Institute for Economics and Peace

(i) Who and From which country?- Miroslav Lajcak from Slovakia

Legal Entity Identifier; It is a 20 digit code

The State Bank of India (SBI) announced financing of solar rooftop projects worth Rs 400 crore, with private developers. This would add at least 100 MW of solar rooftop capacity to the grid, and is a significant step towards meeting the Government of India’s target for 40 GW of solar rooftop installations. SBI has availed loan of USD 625 million from the World Bank

SPARROW-ITS (Smart Performance Appraisal Report Recording Online Window- Indian Trade Service)

The Punjab government has decided to collaborate with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as part of its efforts to root out the drug menace in the State.

Samsung India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) for its Samsung Technical School initiative, renewing its partnership for 10 existing schools run across the country and adding two new MSME-Samsung Technical Schools at Bengaluru and Jamshedpur.

India has successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear-capable surface-to-surface missile Prithvi-II from a test range in Odisha as part of a user trial by the Army.

Indias GDP growth in the fourth quarter of FY17 was- 6.1% while that of China was 6.9%

Raveena Tandon has been conferred with the Dadasaheb Phalke Academy Critics Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film Maatr.

TravelUR, world’s first travel social network which is the world’s unique social travel platform has been launched. It aims to become an end-to-end Global travel platform for enabling travel related knowledge, engaging awesome social network features like connect with other family, friends and other like-minded travelers. TravelUR will officially be launched in June of 2017, in India.

NASA is set to launch the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, aboard SpaceX CRS-11, the world’s first mission devoted to studying rapidly spinning neutron stars, the densest objects in the universe.

Aiming to improve standards of corporate governance of listed companies, markets regulator Sebi has set up a committee under the chairmanship of Uday Kotak, chief of Kotak Mahindra Bank.

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
India’s first ‘freight village’ will be developed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Manika Batra and Mouma Das became the first Indian doubles pair to reach last eight of the World Table Tennis Championships.

Bank of Baroda (BoB) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC).

According to a new report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), a poverty reduction project grounded in economist Amartya Sen’s ‘capability approach’, about 31% of the world’s “multidimensionally poor” children live in India..

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K. Palaniswami has announced that the state would hold its second global investors conference in 2018.

Krishnapatnam Port has installed a first of its kind Automated Fertilizer Handling System in the country which handles cargo operations from vessel to rail or road, cutting short handling time to hours.

Leo Varadkar is set to become the Republic of Ireland’s next Prime Minister. The 38-year-old will become the first gay Prime Minister and will also be the country’s youngest ever leader.

Ivory Coast has been elected a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for a two-year term

Aamir Zaki was a legendary guitarist-songwriter and composer from Pakistan who passed away at 49 on June 2, 2017.

The Goods & Services Tax (GST) Council has decided that businesses in the Northeastern and hill states with annual turnover below Rs.10 lakh would be out of the GST net, while the threshold for the exemption in the rest of India would be an annual turnover of Rs.20 lakh.

Also, In terms of the number of such multidimensionally poor children as a proportion of the total population, India stood 37th among 103 countries.

Tamil poet S. Abdul Rahman, popularly known as ‘Kavikko,’ has passed away.

Aiming at a major push for infrastructure, the Railways will raise Rs 35,000 crore with World Bank assistance to create a separate fund for investment in the rail sector.

India’s B Sai Praneeth has lifted the Men’s Singles Crown in the Thailand Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament defeating Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie..

India has been ranked 45th, in terms of competitiveness in the annual rankings compiled by the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD). The list has been topped by Hong Kong. Switzerland and Singapore were ranked second and third respectively, with the US at the fourth spot

Ganeshan Neelakanta Iyer, the only assigned competition manager of International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), has become the first Indian to be nominated as a member of the Umpires and Referees Committee (URC).

Public sector banks, including SBI, Bank of Baroda and IDBI Bank, plan to raise Rs 58,000 crore through equity dilution during the current fiscal to meet Basel-III norms and clean up their balance sheets. Of this maximum is of SBI- Rs 15,000 crore

Points to remember: (i) FDI inflow in service sector 2016-17?- $8.68 billion
(ii) Percent increase from 2015-16?- 26%

Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air Missile

2017-18 => 2.7%

2018-19 => 2.9%

Points to remember: (i) Total outlay of the programme?- USD 49 million
(ii) How much world bank will give?- USD 39.2 million (Duration- 5 years)

Points to Remember: (i) Name of Satellite?- PSLV-19
(ii) Name of launch Vehicle (Heaviest)?- GSLV-Mk III
(iii) Chairman of ISRO?- A S Kiran Kumar
(iv) The rocket was developed for 15 years at a cost of around Rs. 300 crore.

Points to remember: (i) Name of Reports?- The Age of Focus
(ii) Top Country? – India
(iii) India replaced which country to top the ranking? – China
(iv) India’s National Retail Sales as per report -$ 1,071 billion

India’s retail sector has been growing at an annual rate of 20 per cent. Total sales surpassed the $ 1 trillion-mark last year and the sector is expected to double in size by 2020.

Points to remember: (i) Name of Reports?- The Age of Focus
(ii) Top Country? – India
(iii) India replaced which country to top the ranking? – China
(iv) India’s National Retail Sales as per report -$ 1,071 billion

Amount – $742 billion

In percent – 8.6%

Mysuru, Karnataka

Outlay- Rs 20.52 crore

Ramkumar Ramanathan won the ITF men’s Futures tennis title

World Environment Day observed on June 5 every year

Telangana government launched the single-women pensions scheme across the state. Single women will be given 1,000 per month

10 lakh LED street lights to be installed in Gram Panchayats of 7 districts in State; Guntur, Prakasham, Nellore, Kurnool, Kadapa, Ananthapur & Chittoor in first phase

B Sai Praneeth – Indian Badminton Player

The National Board of Wildlife has approved Rutland Island in South Andaman to be the site for the country’s long-range missile test facility of DRDO

2017-18 – 7.2%
2018-19 – 7.5%
2019-20 – 7.7%

Beijing, China

June 6th has been declared World Pest Day in an effort of raising awareness about the importance of pest management for all home and business owners.

40^th PM and 4^th time that he is the PM of Nepal

President – Bidya Devi Bhandari

Politician (Member of parliament, Lok Sabha for Kumbakonam) and also Tamil Writer

4th Kalinga Literary Award – Mr. Haraprasad Das

4th Kalinga International Award – Mr. Anand Nilakantan

4th Kalinga Karubaki Award – Ms. Paramita Satapathy