Weekly CA Quiz: December 2020 2nd week

The Ministry of AYUSH announced to develop a new campus of National Institute of Naturopathy (NIN) campus in Pune.
The upcoming campus will be known as ‘Nisarg Gram’. It will be located 15 km from the present NIN campus at Bapu Bhavan.

ICICI Bank has launched ‘iMobile Pay’ – a mobile banking app that provides payments and banking services to customers of any bank.
‘iMobile Pay’ app offers a unique combination of facilities of a payment app – such as enabling customers to pay to any UPI (Unified Payments Interface) ID or merchants, pay bills and do online recharges among others.

Fitch Ratings raised India’s GDP forecast to -9.4 per cent in the current fiscal year to March 2021 from a previously projected contraction of 10.5 per cent after the economy staged a sharper rebound in the second quarter.

Sergio Perez became the first Mexican victor in F1 since Pedro Rodriguez in 1970, ending a series of races dominated by Mercedes for whom Valtteri Bottas finished eighth and George Russell ninth.

The Asia Cup 2020 had to postponed due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Pakistan was scheduled to host the Asia Cup but the PCB CEO Wasim Khan said the tournament will be hosted by Sri Lanka in 2021 while Pakistan will play host of it in 2022.

Jehan Daruvala created history when he became the first Indian to win a Formula 2 race during the Sakhir Grand Prix.

Debendranath Sarangi, president, Squash Rackets Federation of India, was elected as one of the three vice-presidents of the World Squash Federation.

The historical fort cities of Gwalior and Orchha of Madhya Pradesh have been included in the list of World Heritage City by UNESCO under its urban landscape city programme.

Narinder Singh Kapany, often described as the ‘father of fibre optics’, passed away. He was 94.
DR Narinder Singh Kapany is among the 10 most renowned Sikhs in the world. He has also earned the title of “Father of Fibre-Optics”. He was named one of the seven “Unsung Heroes” by Fortune magazine and called Businessmen of the Century in its issue of November 22, 1999.

IIT-Bombay researchers have come up with an urban quality of life index tailored to the reality of life in India. And, for the first time, they have factored in gender parity. Chennai, it turns out, is the most women-friendly and Patna the least.
Overall, Mumbai tops the list of 14, followed closely by Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai.

India has been ranked 10th for the second year in a row in this year’s global Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which was released in Germany.
None of the countries is on the path compatible with the Paris climate targets, to implement strategies to limit global warming below 2 or even 1.5°C. Sweden (4th) United Kingdom (5th), Denmark (6th), Morocco (7th), Norway (8th), Chile (9th) were among the top 10 rankers in the index.

Multilateral lending agency Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it has approved a USD 2.5 million (about Rs 18 crore) technical assistance to support advanced biofuel development in India.

Ujjivan Small Finance Bank said it has introduced a new channel to make banking services accessible to customers in their neighbourhood.
The channel – Money Mitra – will facilitate entrepreneurs running local businesses like Kirana, medical stores and insurance agencies to offer retail banking solutions to the bank”s customers exclusively.

Bank of Baroda (BoB) has launched the Atmanirbhar Women Scheme as part of its Baroda Gold Loan.

Mastercard, the National Institute for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (ni-msme) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have partnered to launch Digital Saksham, a capacity building initiative to drive awareness around digitization for MSMEs in the country.

Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah has reappointed Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah as prime minister following parliamentary polls in the Gulf Arab state, which faces its worst economic crisis in decades.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (41st), US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Biocon Founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and HCL Enterprise CEO Roshni Nadar Malhotra have been named among the world’s 100 most powerful women by Forbes.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel tops the Forbes 2020 list, followed by European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde and US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, who has made her debut on the list at No.3.

Journalist-author Raj Kamal Jha has won the 3rd Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for his novel, “The City and The Sea”.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Institute of Soil Science (ICAR-IISS), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, has been awarded the prestigious King Bhumibol World Soil Day 2020 Award by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) on its World Soil Day 2020 function.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank presented the first copy of his inspirational book “Pioneer of Humanity: Maharishi Arvind” to President Ram Nath Kovind at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The book is in Hindi with the title ‘Manavta ke Praneta Maharishi Arvind’.

The book titled ‘Romancing Targets’ by author Nidhi Vadhera has been released recently.

In order to raise awareness of corruption, International Anti-Corruption Day is observed every year on December 9. This day also highlights the role of United Nations Convention against Corruption in combating and preventing corruption.
This year’s theme for International Anti-Corruption Day is “Recover with Integrity”.

December 10th is observed as Human Rights Day every year to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want, the need for global solidarity as well as our interconnectedness and shared humanity.
This year’s Human Rights Day theme is “Recover Better – Stand Up for Human Rights”.

Tokyo Olympics-bound athletes, wrestler Bajrang Punia and shooter Elavenil Valarivan bagged the top honours at the FICCI India Sports Awards 2020 held virtually this year on the back of the prestigious 10th Global Sports Summit: FICCI TURF 2020.
The two athletes, who have had an impressive 2019-20, won the Sports Person of the Year Awards in their respective categories.

Former India wicketkeeper-batsman Parthiv Patel announced his retirement from all forms of cricket after an 18-years-long cricket career.

The co-founder of KESAN and Salween Peace Park in Myanmar, Paul Sein Twa has won the Goldman Environmental Prize 2020 for Asia, in recognition of his efforts in promoting the self-determination of the Karen people in managing their natural resources.

India could well be the fastest-growing Asian economy in calendar year 2021 (CY21) if Nomura’s forecasts are to be believed.
The foreign research and brokerage house expects the Indian economy – as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) – to grow at 9.9 per cent in 2021, eclipsing China (2021 GDP growth pegged at 9 per cent) and Singapore (at 7.5 per cent) during this period.

The World Economic Forum is set to be held in Singapore in May next year as the Covid-19 pandemic has made it too difficult to hold the annual gathering in Switzerland.

The Union Cabinet approved Rs 22,810 crore outlay for the Atmanirbhar Bharat Rojgar Yojana (ABRY) that aims at encouraging businesses to do fresh hiring amid the pandemic.

In order to raise awareness of the need to protect mountains and its biodiversity, International Mountain Day is observed on December 11.
The theme for International Mountain Day 2020 is mountain biodiversity.

England’s Zena Wooldridge has been elected as the new World Squash Federation (WSF) President following the WSF’s 2020 Annual General Meeting.

The IGF Board elected the 72-time LPGA winner and World Golf Hall of Famer, Annika Sorenstam as the next president of the International Golf Federation during a virtual meeting.

The 2023 Indian Ocean Island Games (IOIG), will take place in Madagascar, instead of Maldives. It will be the 11th edition of this multi-sport event for athletes representing the National Olympic Committees of Indian Ocean island nations.

BSNL in partnership with Skylotech India announced world’s first, a breakthrough in satellite-based NB-IoT (Narrow Band-Internet of Things).

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) upgraded its forecast for the Indian economy, projecting 8% contraction in 2020-21 as compared to 9% estimated earlier, on the back of a faster-than-expected recovery.

RBL Bank and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance have entered into a bancassurance partnership.

The Union Cabinet approved a proposal for setting up public WiFi hotspots across the country via public data offices or PDOs, which could even be a kirana shop or a paan shop. The move, aimed at helping accelerate the uptake of broadband Internet services, will not require the PDOs to get a license or pay a fee.
The public Wi-Fi Access Network Interface, which will be called ‘PM-WANI’, was first recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in 2017.

In a bid to provide basic amenities and conducive atmosphere to new entrepreneurs, a world class incubation centre is in the offing in Maharashtra.
The state government would sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Cornell University from New York, USA for setting up the incubation centre. With this, Maharashtra will become the first state in the country to come up with such a centre.

The Ministry of Agriculture has declared Lakshadweep as India’s first Union Territory to become 100 per cent organic.
Lakshadweep is second only to Sikkim, which was India’s first state to be declared completely organic.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the three lane 1.5 km long Koilwar bridge over Sone river in Bihar through Video Conferencing. A sum of 266 crore rupees has been spent on the bridge.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it has launched a USD 9 billion vaccine initiative that will offer support to its developing member economies to procure and deliver COVID-19 vaccines.
The Asia Pacific Vaccine Access Facility (APVAX) provides a comprehensive framework and resource envelope for supporting developing Asia’s vaccine access, using two complementary components.

The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians 2020 has been awarded to Dr. Carolina Araujo, Mathematician from the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She received the Prize for her outstanding work in algebraic geometry.
Dr. Araujo, who is Vice President of the Committee for Women in Mathematics at the International Mathematical Union, is the first non-Indian to receive this prize and will be a role model for all women.

Universal Health Coverage Day, commemorated each 12 December, is the anniversary of the first unanimous United Nations resolution calling for countries to provide affordable, quality health care to every person, everywhere.
The theme of 2020 is “Health for all: protect everyone”.

The Uttar Pradesh government has recently launched a scheme to take the unique culture of its ethnic Tharu tribe across the world. The scheme’s intention is to place these tribal villages on the tourism map.

India has dropped to the second position in Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s (BNEF) 2020 Climatescope survey ranking from first last year, as a result of a decline in clean energy investment, which fell 12 per cent in 2018-19 to $8.5 billion and has plummeted 32 per cent since 2017.
Chile has bagged the top spot in the survey reflective of its strong clean energy policies while, Brazil remained at the third position.

Equitas Small Finance Bank Ltd, (SFB) has launched a 3-in-1 account, which allows its customers to invest in wide variety of financial product using a single platform.
A 3-in1 account (savings +trading+ demat) will help the customers to keep all their banking and financial investments under one umbrella entity.

Edtech major Byju’s said it has inked an agreement with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to support the skilling of teachers and trainers.

Austria’s Sabrina Filzmoser and Brazil’s Flavio Canto have been appointed as International Judo Federation (IJF) climate ambassadors by IJF President Marius Vizer, in a bid to spread the message of environmentalism.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and IFRC (International Federation of Red Cross) Secretary-General Mr Jagan Chapagain signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on implementing the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) initiative.

With a view to effectively deal with increasing circulation of banknotes, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to set up an Automated Banknote Processing Centre (ABPC) in Jaipur for receipt, storage and dispatch of currency notes.

Top Indian tennis player Ankita Raina won her third doubles title of the pandemic-hit 2020 season, clinching the Al Habtoor challenge with Ekaterine Gorgodze (Georgia).

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in dominant style for his second victory of the season and 10th of his career.

The UNESCO has decided to launch an international prize in the field of ‘creative economy’ in the name of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The ninth edition of the Sustainable Mountain Development Summit (SMDS) in Dehradun has begun.
The theme for this year is Emerging Pathways for Building a Resilient Post COVID-19 Mountain Economy, Adaptation, Innovation and Acceleration.

Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank), on behalf of the Government of India, has extended a Line of Credit (LOC) of $448 million to the Government of Republic of Uzbekistan.

Ride-hailing platform Ola said it has inked an agreement with the Tamil Nadu government to invest Rs 2,400 crore for setting up its first electric scooter factory in the state.

Ratings agency Crisil revised upwards its FY21 GDP contraction estimate to 7.7 per cent from the earlier expectation of 9 per cent, and termed lower government spending as a “constraint” for growth.

Junior Asian champion Yash Vardhan of India won the 10m air rifle event at the 6th edition of the International Online Shooting Championship (IOSC).

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) had announced that the 2023 FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup will be hosted in Odisha, for a second consecutive time.
The tournament will be held at two venues, Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar and Biju Patnaik Hockey Stadium in Rourkela.