Weekly CA Quiz: February 1st week (1 Feb – 7 Feb)

Government owned banks will have to tap the equities market and quickly sell non-core assets since the union budget have allocated just about Rs 10,000 crore capital for banks what are struggling with huge pile up of bad loans.

The government will borrow Rs 3.5 lakh crore from the market in 2017-18, around Rs 75,000 crore lower than the current fiscal.

This year, under the State category, Rajasthan and Telangana emerged Winners of Excellence while the Award of Recognition went to Odisha and Nagaland.

Former Union minister and Indian Union Muslim League leader E Ahamed was declared dead in Delhi, triggering confusion about the scheduled budget presentation in Parliament.

In a significant step to cleanse the system of funding of political parties, Finance Minister Arun Jaitely announced that donations to political parties can soon be made by purchasing electoral bonds from authorized banks.
Donor could purchase bonds from authorised banks against cheque and digital payments only.

RBI has allowed NRIs access to the exchange traded currency derivatives (ETCD) market to hedge currency risk arising out of their investments in India, a move aimed at providing them additional heding options.

General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) and Place of Effective Management (POEM) to come into effect from April 1

Ministry of Railways and Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane Group (FS Group) a Government Company of Italy managing the Italian railway sector have signed an MoU for technical cooperation in rail sector especially in the areas safety in train operations.

Organizers of Tokyo 2020 want their Games to be remembered for being nature-friendly, and keeping that in mind, the medals are going to made from recycled mobile phones. The move is not only aimed at promoting sustainability, but also at saving costs.
The Japanese public have been asked to donate unwanted mobile phones and other electronic items to help make 5,000 medals.

Anushka Sharma has been chosen to be the face of PM Modi’s initiative, the Swach Bharat Abhiyaan along with Mr Amitabh Bachchan for the same. She is the female ambassador of this massive country wide campaign, and has been picked for her popularity with youth across rural and urban India, particularly women.

Noted singer Neeti Mohan has become the first Indian female singer to collaborate with UN for women empowerment.
She has joined the ranks of Ashton Kutcher, Nicholas Cage, Demi Moore, Ashley Judd, Gillian Anderson for United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund project titled “Music To Inspire – Artists UNited Against Human Trafficking”.
She has composed Udne De as a tribute to all the women and in support of equality for all as a part of this project.

The Summit was postponed after four nations Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and India requested for it following escalation of tension between India and Pakistan.

The five countries include Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Eminent stage craft director, theatre personality, actor, director, artist, painter and writer Asim Basu passed away after a prolonged illness.

Google has been ranked 1, followed by Apple and Amazon.

India and Sri Lanka on signed an agreement to construct a multi-ethnic tri-lingual school in a north central district of the island nation that would provide opportunities to Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim students to learn in a multi-cultural environment.

With an aim to provide “immediate relief” to lakhs of acid attacks victims, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved additional financial assistance of Rs 1 lakh from the Prime Minister National Relief Fund (PMNRF).

For the first time since the Supreme Court recognised transgender people as a third gender in 2014, as many as 18 students in Bihar have been allowed to appear for the Board exams conducted by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) under the third-gender category.

Telangana government launched the Kakatiya Hub for Social Innovation in Nizamabad, which is expected to be up and running by September.

India’s third largest private bank, Axis Bank, has tied up with Earthport Plc, a cross-border payment network, to enable faster outbound cross-border payments for its customers through Earthport’s state-of-the-art global payments network.

Axis Bank has become the first bank in India to connect with Earthport’s global payments network, which spans over 60 countries.

It is the first company in the sector to launch an app on the iWatch.

Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance is joint venture between the Edelweiss Group and Tokio Marine Holdings of Japan.

These co-branded debit cards will be exclusively used for the purchase of IFFCO products only.

The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and their UAE counter parts will take part in a joint exercise and sharing of operational expertise.
Indian Coast Guard Ship (ICGS) Samudra Pavak has arrived on a goodwill visit to Dubai and has anchored itself at Port Rashid.

Tata Group patriarch Ratan Tatahas launched TeamIndus Foundation’s ‘Moonshot Wheels’ – a bus which will traverse the country with an aim to inspire the next generation about India’s first private moon mission.
Moonshot Wheels is a bus which will traverse nine states, 12,500 kms in 12 months, across India impacting 36,000+ students in government schools.

For now the course has only been integrated for secondary and higher secondary students, and is in plans to be introduced for all classes.

The Railways Ministry is planning A 240-KM broad-gauge railway line connecting two major islands, with bridges and stations along the coast, rail link connecting Port Blair with Diglipur on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands – a first in the country that will bring the group of islands on the rail map.

Ministry of Minority Affairs has launched 3 schemes:
Nai – Roshni for Leadership Development of Minority Women focuses on the development of women belonging to minority communities with an aim to empower them.
Begum Hazrat Mahal National Scholarship For Meritorious Girls is belonging to minorities which is implemented through Maulana Azad Education Foundation.
Mahila Samridhi Yojana is implemented through National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation (NMDFC) wherein skill development training is imparted to a group of women in various areas of trades.

The scheme will provide financial assistance to outstanding sportspersons who had brought glory to the country in sports, but are now living in indigent circumstances.

To make India an innovation-driven economy, NITI Aayog, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) together launched a mega initiative “India Innovation Index” that will rank states on Innovations through country’s first online innovation index portal that will capture data on innovation from all Indian states on innovation and regularly update it in real time.