Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: June 2nd week (08 June – 15 June)

11 Moody’s-rated public sector banks will require external equity capital of ₹70,000-95,000 crore, or about $10.6-14.6 billion. This amount is much higher than the remaining ₹20,000 crore budgeted by the government for capital infusion until March 2019.

Global software major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched “BaNCS App Development Kit” (ADK) that will enable banks to fast design and build their own apps and deploy it across devices and desktops seamlessly.“BaNCS ADK” will help banks to design and deploy both enterprise and consumer apps in a hybrid architecture, adopting modern principles of responsive web design.

DigiYatra initiative envisages providing airline travellers in India, a pioneering ‘digitally unified flying experience’ across all stages of their journey.

The park, coming up over 250 acres in Sultanpur village of Patancheru of Medak district, is said to be first of its kind park in India for medical devices and electronics and will focus on medical innovations, R&D and manufacturing.

Radha Chauhan has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Government e- Marketplace (GeM). GeM is an online platform for central and state government departments for purchase of goods and services.

Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna and Canadian partner Gabriela Dabrowski have beat their German-Colombian opponents Anna-Lena Groenefeld and Robert Farah in the final to clinch their maiden French Open mixed doubles title in Paris.

A book titled “The Crisis within Knowledge and Education in India” authored by Ganesh Devy released

During an inaugural session of the BRICS Media Forum in the Chinese capital, Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency and executive president of the Forum, announced that the news agency will invest $1 million for boosting media cooperation in the five-nation grouping.

Youssoufia, Morocco; A team of international scientists has found the world’s oldest human species’ fossil near the southern Moroccan city of Youssoufia, the Moroccan national Institute of Sciences of Archaeology and Heritage, date back to over 300,000 years ago.

World Oceans Day is a global day of ocean celebration and collaboration for a better future. It is observed globally on 8th June every year

Cristiano Ronaldo;
Serena Williams is the only female in the list and ranked at 51.
Virat Kohli is the only Indian athlete in the Forbes top 100 paid athletes list. ranked at 89

Bank credit growth has fallen to 5.1% year-on-year for the fortnight ending May 26, according to Reserve Bank of India’s data.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Yoga for Health and Harmony”.

The government will setup one hundred yoga parks across the country to promote yoga activities.

President Pranab Mukherjee has launched a mobile application, ‘Selfie with Daughter’, aimed at spreading awareness about female foeticide.

Sebi has approved the appointment of Mr Vikram Limaye as the MD and CEO of the National Stock Exchange of India limited , subject interalia to his being relieved from his BCCI (COA) assignment.

The state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has signed an agreement with the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to set up 25,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in its rural exchanges by next six months.

Jeje Lalpekhlua, Indian professional footballer, who scored the second goal for the team in the recently played international friendly against Nepal, has been adjudged the 2016 AIFF Player of the Year.

Sasmita Malik was adjudged the 2016 AIFF Women’s player of the year at the award ceremony

social activist and author,

As decided in the 14th Meeting of the GST Council held on May 18-19, 2017 in Srinagar, J&K, 18 sectoral groups have been constituted representing various sectors of the economy in order to ensure smooth roll-out of GST,

Ajay Jayaram (No.13), Kidambi Srikanth (No.14) and Sai Praneeth (No.15) badminton players are in top 15 ranking

2017-18 => 7.4%
2018-19 => 7.8% (increase by 40 bps from 2017-18)

SATH- Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital

The program will be implemented by the Aayog along with McKinsey & Company and IPE Global consortium, who were selected through a competitive bidding process.
To usher in transformation in the education and healthcare sectors along with State governments, NITI Aayog has launched the SATH (Sustainable Action for Transforming Human capital) programme.

The programme aims to identify and build three future ‘role model’ states for health systems

Thespian Soumitra Chatterjee is going to receive the prestigious France’s highest civilian award, the Legion of Honor.

Madhya Pradesh – Outlay- Rs 1,000 crore

Points to remember: (i) Government has launched a video conferencing aided legal service ‘Tele Law’ for the people living in rural areas.
(ii) The pilot to be rolled out across 1000 Common Service Centres (CSC) in Uttar Pradesh & Bihar. While in the first phase, the ‘Tele-Law’ scheme will be tested as a pilot across 500 Common service Centres (CSC) in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
(iii) This initiative will also serve as an opportunity to build capacity of 1000 women Para Legal Volunteers (PLV)
(iv) This scheme comes as a continuation to the Access to Justice Project for Marginalized Persons which is being implemented by Department of Justice and United Nation Development Programme (UNDP).

The tunnel has been created 30 metres beneath the Hooghly River
The Kolkata Metro transportation tunnel is unique to India because never before in the history of the country has a tunnel been made under a flowing river.

Aiming to reduce emissions and promote sustainability to help India’s smart city programme, France and the European Union have extended a grant of €3.5 million (nearly Rs25 crore) to India. Nagpur, Kochi and Ahmedabad will get the grant as part of the EU’s commitment under the Paris Climate agreement for implementing the ‘Mobilise Your City’ (MYC) initiative.

The United Nations held its first-ever Ocean Conference at UN HQ, New York, United States to renew member nations’ commitment to combatting rising sea levels, pollution, and harmful fishing practices for the protection of world’s waterways.

Second Mission Innovation (MI) and Clean Energy Ministerial held in Beijing, China from 6-8 June 2017.

The Rajasthan government has raised the insurance amount by Rs. 1 lakh in the present fiscal year in the ‘Raj Sahakar Personal Accident Insurance Scheme’ targeted to cover more than 25 lakh farmers

Rafael Nadal defeated Stan Wawrinka

Dr Jitendra Singh- The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER)
Announced in Imphal (Manipur)

India’s Jitu Rai and Heena Sidhu have clinched the gold medal in mixed team 10m air pistol event of the ISSF World Cup, beating Russia in the final in Gabala, Azerbaijan.

Shashikant Kutwal has won the gold medal at the 17th World Individual Chess Championship for differently-abled held in Slovakia. He is a railway employee and has been representing Central Railway, Indian Railways and India at various chess competitions.

British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton has won the Canadian Grand Prix for the sixth time defeating his Mercedes colleague Finland’s Valtteri Bottas and Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo, who was driving for Red Bull.

England has won the FIFA Under-20 World Cup, the country’s first world title at any level since 1966, after a victory over Venezuela.

US-based aviation company Cirrus Aircraft has launched the World’s smallest and most affordable private jet called ‘Vision Jet’ for Rs12.62 crore. The jet which had been in making for a decade has only one engine and can cruise at 555 kmph.

China is now the home to the world’s largest floating solar power plant. According to techstory.in, the power plant is now operational in Eastern China’s Huainan city in the Anhui province. The report states that the power plant that has the capacity of 40MW has been set up on a reservoir near a coal mine.

C. Narayana Reddy popularly known as Cinare was an Indian Telugu and Urdu poet and writer. Reddy won the Jnanpith Award in 1988 for his poetic work, Viswambara.

12 June; Theme for 2017: “In conflicts and disasters, protect children from child labour.”

The statistics ministry is set to change the base year of national accounts to 2017-18 from 2011-12 after completion of the household consumer expenditure survey and labour force data by the end of 2018.

The Centre has decided to open passport service centres in all the 800 district head post offices across the country in two years’ time to increase people’s access to the facility, especially in remote areas.

Senior bureaucrat Kajal Singh has been appointed as Executive Vice-President (Services) in Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN).

Bologna, Italy

Ministry of Food Processing Industries has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ANUGA, world’s largest promotional and investment trade fair organised in Germany.

The Railways has announced it will upgrade 40,000 coaches under its Mission Retro-fitment in the next five years to enhance the passengers’ travel experience, with better amenities and safety.

In the first initiative of its kind in the country, Odisha Space Applications Centre (ORSAC), the apex body for space technology applications in the state, has developed an exclusive portal to map the banking system in the state. ORSAC has developed the portal for the Reserve Bank of India and it is aimed at taking forward financial inclusion goals.

Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of 2,50,672 children engaged in labour, followed by Bihar with 1,28,087 children and Maharashtra where the number stands at 82,847.
According to CRY report, Over 8 lakh children in India between the age group 5 and 6 years are engaged in child labour. A large percentage, over 5 lakh of these children do not attend school.

The International Albinism Awareness Day is observed annually on 13 June 2017 with an aim to end multiple forms of discrimination that is faced by people who suffers from albinism.

Shah Rukh Khan- 65; Salman Khan- 71; Akshay Kumar- 80
Overall Top- Sean Combs

NTPC has energized 150 kWp Canal Top Solar PV System on cooling water (CW) channel at its 2320 MW Mouda Thermal Power Project, near Nagpur in Maharashtra

The eight private sector banks that got ‘high’ rating are — Axis Bank, DCB Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, RBL Bank and YES Bank.
The three foreign banks — Citibank, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank — that were surveyed got ‘high’ ranking.

Only one PSB i.e. IDBI Bank has got ‘high’ rating for adherence to code compliance

Private sector lender Yes Bank has partnered with mobile payments switch TerraPay to enable real time money transfer to bank accounts in India. Powered by TerraPay’s global clearing and settlement service, the partnership will make it faster and convenient for consumers to send money to any bank account.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has taken over the administration of Sahara India Life Insurance, a first of its kind move in the insurance sector.

RK Sharma, General Manager, IRDAI, has been named as the administrator to manage the affairs of the insurer.

The administrator will act as per the powers and duties and applicable provisions under the Insurance Act, 1938 and manage the business with the greatest economy, compatible with efficiency and regular reporting to the regulator, the order states.

The interest subvention will be given to Public Sector Banks (PSBs), Private Sector Banks, Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) on use of own funds and to NABARD for refinance to RRBs and Cooperative Banks. The Interest Subvention Scheme will continue for one year and it will be implemented by NABARD and RBI.

India’s annual rate of inflation based on wholesale prices decelerated further in May 2017 to 2.17 per cent from 3.85 per cent in April.

Points to remember: (i) Applicable for short term crop loans up to Rs 3 lakh
(ii) Interest subvention provided is- 5%; however the actual interest rate is 9%, after this 5% ISS the interest rate payable is only 9-5=4%. This is in case of prompt payment i.e timely payment. In case the repayment is not done timely, only 2% Interest Subvention will be provided i.e 9-2=7%. So interest rate applicable will be 7% in this case

A group of differently-abled children who received special training in magic, have become brand ambassadors of Anuyatra, a campaign of the state government for persons with special needs

The first Human Library event in India was held at Indore in 2016 at the IIM Indore campus. Delhi will be the fourth city to host the human library community in India after Indore, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The concept of Human Library developed in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2000.

A day trial of the Indian Army’s Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) Nag, equipped with imaging infrared radar (IIR) seeker, was successfully conducted in Rajasthan.

The project is one of the outputs of the “Together” project to educate migrant workers on their rights in Kuwait, implemented by Kuwait Society in cooperation with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kuwait.

Its languages will be Arabic, English, Hindi, Filipino and Urdu

Technology giant Google has topped the 2017 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list, with a brand value of over $245 billion. Further, US tech giants Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook were also among the five most valuable brands.

Former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank, has authored a 450-page book titled –‘Yug Purush, Bharat Ratna, Atal Ji’ whicjh was handed over to the President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee.

Anita Pallenberg was an Italian-German actress and model.

The IAC (Internal Advisory Committee) noted that under the recommended criterion, 12 accounts totaling about 25% of the current gross NPAs of the banking system would qualify for immediate reference under IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Court)

China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has approved $150 million equity investment loan to the India Infrastructure Fund, the bank’s first such loan to fund private projects. The bank, in which India is a lead partner, has approved two loans and one equity investment totalling $324 million to support infrastructure projects in India, Georgia and Tajikistan.

According to data furnished by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the CAD for last fiscal narrowed to 0.7 per cent of the GDP from 1.1 per cent in 2015-16 on the back of the contraction in trade deficit.

Net FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) inflows in 2016-17 marginally declined to $35.6 billion from $36 billion reported during 2015-16.

The One Family at a Time study by the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said about 200 million migrants globally sent more than USD 445 million in 2016 as remittances to their families, helping to lift millions out of poverty.

Top- India; followed by China

Indians working across the globe sent home USD 62.7 billion last year, making India the top remittance-receiving country surpassing China, according to a UN report.

The Bill would provide for a comprehensive resolution framework for specified financial sector entities to deal with bankruptcy situation in banks, insurance companies and financial sector entities.

State-owned oil firms IOC, BPCL and HPCL have signed an agreement to jointly set up the world’s largest refinery and petrochemical complex at Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra
Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will be the lead partner with 50 per cent stake while Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) will take 25 per cent stake each

Neeru Chadha has been elected as the first Indian woman member of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), a top body which adjudicates cases related to the international law of the seas.

Headquarters of International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) – Hamburg, Germany

Points to remember: (i) Name of winner?- Yeshe Dorjee Thongshi
(ii) Language?- Assamese writer

Israeli author David Grossman has won the prestigious 2017 Man Booker International prize in London for his latest novel “A Horse Walks into a Bar”.

Navies of India and Australia are participating in bilateral maritime exercise AUSINDEX-17 from June 13 to 17 in Freemantle, Australia with an aim to enhancing interoperability and cooperation between the two forces.

Telecom giant Verizon has acquired Yahoo’s core business for $4.48bn (£3.51m), thus ending Yahoo’s two-decade long run as an independent company. Verizon is the No.1 wireless operator in the US.
Verizon will combine Yahoo with AOL which was bought by it two years ago to establish a venture called Oath. The remainder of Yahoo which is not acquired by Verizon will change its name to Altaba Inc.

China has launched its first space telescope Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) to observe black holes, pulsars and gamma-ray bursts.