Weekly CA Quiz: December 2019 3rd week

The 14th edition of the ‘Toshali National Crafts’ Mela began in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The mela was organised by the Handlooms, Textile, and Handicrafts Department, Odisha. About 50 weavers from different states of the country participated in the mela.

The 8th India-China joint training exercise ‘HAND-IN-HAND 2019’ with the theme counter-terrorism under the United Nations’ mandate is being conducted in Meghalaya.

Amazon India has partnered with local store owners of India for its ‘I Have Space’ (IHS) programme to provide pickup and delivery services to customers.

State Bank of India (SBI) has signed a loan agreement with KfW, the German development bank, for 277 million dollars (about Rs 1,958 crore) for establishing an energy-efficient housing programme in India.

RN Ravi, Governor of Nagaland, was given additional charge of Meghalaya. He was assigned with the additional responsibility as Meghalaya Governor, Tathagata Roy, is on a leave.

India has slipped four places on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index 2020 to 112, due to rising disparity in terms of women’s health and participation in the economy. Moreover, India is now ranked in the bottom-five in terms of women’s health and survival and economic participation.

A Belgian carnival has been removed from UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list after officials found the “recurrence of racist and anti-Semitic representations” to be incompatible with its principles.

England cricketer Ben Stokes has been voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2019. The England batsman became the first cricketer to win the prize since Andrew Flintoff in 2005 after a summer of batting heroics during both the World Cup and the Ashes.

Lieutenant General Manoj Mukund Naravane, a soldier who has experience on all operational fronts- both land borders as well as counter insurgency operations, will be the next Chief of the Indian Army.

Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has been selected for national award by Union Rural Development Ministry for best performance in the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY). The award distribution ceremony will be held at Pusa, New Delhi.

Actress Gita Siddharth Kak passed away in Mumbai. The actress is best known for her role in M.S. Sathyu’s 1973 classic ‘Garm Hava’.

GeM_IndiaGovernment e-commerce portal GeM has launched a national outreach programme, ‘GeM Samvaad’, to bring on-board more local sellers.

Chief Minister N. Biren Singh inaugurated the three-day state-level orange festival begins at district headquarters Tamenglong. Tamenglong district is largest producer of orange fruit in Manipur.

In Madhya Pradesh, popular classical music festival ‘Tansen Samaroh’ began with traditional style in Gwalior with the recitations of Harikatha and Milad. The five-day festival is celebrated every year in the memory of one of the most eminent singers of Indian history, ‘Mian Tansen’.

The deadline for the government’s Accessible India Campaign (AIC) has been extended to March 2020 due to slow progress. Accessible India Campaign also known as Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan, was launched by PM Modi on 3 December 2015, on the occasion of International Day of People with Disabilities (PwD).

Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries debuted the world’s first marine carrier that transports liquefied hydrogen, using technology that will vastly expand cargo capacity of the green energy source.

In Turkey, the last remaining historical artifact has been removed from the ancient southeastern town of Hasankeyf ahead of its submergence as part of a dam project.

A bank account holder can now transfer any value of money online anytime with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowing the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) facility available for 24 hours a day throughout the year starting from December 16, 2019.

Mastercard has selected BharatPe for its Start Path program. Bharat Pe is the only company from India selected by Mastercard as part of the latest cohort.

India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have signed a 250 million dollar (about Rs 1,775 crore) loan to Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) to expand energy efficiency investments in India that will benefit agricultural, residential and institutional consumers.

England spinner Laura Marsh announced her retirement from international cricket. In her 13-year long career, Marsh featured in 103 ODIs, 67 T20Is and 9 Tests and scalped 217 wickets across all formats.

As the 2020 Tokyo Olympics edge closer, Haneda airport‘s operators have revealed that the robots will be greeting and guiding travellers.

Veteran actor and acclaimed theatre personality Shriram Lagoo has passed away in Pune. He was 92. Shreeram Lagoo, who has acted in over 100 Hindi and Marathi films, was an ENT surgeon. He has also worked in more than 40 Marathi, Hindi and Gujarati plays.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad launched the National Broadband Mission which aims to fast track growth of digital communications infrastructure, bridge the digital divide and provide affordable and universal access of broadband for all

Home Minister Amit Shah laid the foundation stone of the much-awaited Bharat Vandana Park in Dwarka, Delhi.

The Ministry of Labour and Employment has amended the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme to allow its members to withdraw money from the corpus if he/she remains unemployed for more than one month. This rule will come into effect from December 6.

Telecom operators will continue to pay 6 paise per minute for every outgoing call made to their competitors’ network till December 31, 2020.

As per RBI data on global operations, public sector and private sector banks wrote off ₹80,893 crore [provisional data], during the current financial year 2019-20 [till September 30, 2019] said by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur.

New Development Bank (NDB), earlier known as the BRICS Development Bank, has committed $100 million to India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund’s (NIIF) Fund of Funds.

The RBI informed that NEFT, RTGS transfer charges should be waived off to push digital retail payments. The new rules come into effect from 1 January 2020.

Moody’s has lowered its GDP growth projection for India for the fiscal year ending March 2020 to 4.9 per cent from 5.8 per cent.

Grandmaster Koneru Humpy finished second in the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix (WGP) which concluded in Monaco. Alexandra Kosteniuk won the Women’s Grand Prix. It is her her third consecutive tournament.

Ellyse Perry has been crowned the international women’s cricketer of the year, as Australia scooped the pool at the ICC awards. Perry claimed the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint award for the second time in three years, and was also named the ODI player of the year.

Politician writer Shashi Tharoor and clay right nandkishor Aacharya are among 23 writers who will be be honored with the Sahitya Academy Award 2019. The National Academy of letters announced the names of the winners recently.

Mohun Bagan’s president Gitanath Ganguly, a crusader against noise pollution and a member of Legal Aid Service of West Bengal, died after a heart attack in Kolkata. He was 83.

The Chhattisgarh government has conducted various programmes under the scheme ‘Suposhan Abhiyan’ in local languages in Bastar with the help of local artists.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched “Jal Sathi” initiative to engage the women from self-help groups in water distribution and consumer management with the aim of women empowerment.

The Goods and Services Tax or GST Council has fixed a uniform tax rate of 28 per cent on both state-run and private lottery.

A large-scale anti-hijacking exercise was conducted off the port of Kochi by the Navy, Coast Guard, the Cochin Port Trust and other agencies

Upgraded version of Pinaka guided rocket system successfully test-fired from Integrated Test Range, Chandipur, off the Odisha coast.

Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa has announced that in order to help perpetuate Mahatma Gandhi’s ideals, Portugal will be launching a Gandhi Citizenship Education Prize, each year inspired by his different thoughts and quotes.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a 2020 administrative budget of 726.7 million dollars, marking 5.2 per cent increase over the previous year’s net internal administrative expense budget.

Debt-ridden Ruchi Soya’s resolution is complete with Yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved depositing Rs 1,100 crore equity in a State Bank of India (SBI) escrow account to acquire the edible oil maker for Rs 4,350 crore.

The Indian men’s football team remained static at 108th spot in the year-ending FIFA rankings issued recently.India, however, lost 11 places throughout the year.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has informed that Railways is looking at a 50 lakh crore rupees investment over the next 12 years.

Unable to meet set targets for urban renewal in 500 cities, the Centre has decided to extend the mission period of its flagship initiative Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) by two more years to 2022 from 2020.

Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry has finalized a plan for setting up 500 skill hubs and labs in government schools. It has taken several initiatives to in order to achieve its vision of a Skilled India.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced the names of the newly discovered stars and planets, where the name “Sharjah” was chosen for a star with “Barjeel” being the name of one of its planets.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India signed a $490 million loan for public-private partnership (PPP) project to upgrade about 1,600 km of state highways and major district roads (MDRs) from single-lane to two-lane widths in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Fitch Ratings on Friday cut its growth forecast for India to 4.6 per cent for the 2019-20 fiscal from the previous estimation of 5.6 per cent.

The government e-marketplace GeM has signed two agreements with Bank of Maharashtra and UCO Bank to offer services like transfer of funds through GeM pool accounts and earnest money deposit (EMD) to the registered users on the portal.

Sweden trounced India 4-0 in the final of the U17 Women’s Football Tournament 2019 at the Mumbai Football Arena, Maharashtra.

Belgium has been crowned FIFA’s Team of the Year for finishing top of the world rankings for the second December in a row. World champions France conclude the year in second place, with Brazil third, England fourth and Uruguay fifth.

Devesh Srivastava took charge as the Chairman and Managing director of General Insurance Corporation of India.

Kannada writer and critic L.S. Sheshagiri Rao, referred to as LSS in literary circles, passed away in Bengaluru. He was 94.