Weekly CA Quiz: September 2017 4th week

Explanation: India TV chairman and editor-in- chief Rajat Sharma has been appointed as the new president of the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) for 2017-18.

Explanation: Indian shuttler Vaishnavi Reddy has won the women’s singles U-19 title at the Belgian Junior Open after defeating top seed Vivien Sandorhazi at Herstal, Belgium.

Explanation: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has sanctioned a loan of about Rs 119 crore to construct seven bridges and improvement of one rural road project in five districts of Haryana.

Explanation: Saudi Arabia has invited women to a sports stadium for the first time to attend the kingdom’s 87th National Day celebrations with their families. This marks a shift from previous celebrations in the kingdom where women are effectively barred from sports arenas. Saudi Arabia has strict restrictions for women, including barring them from driving.

Explanation: To meet affordable housing targets, the Centre has extended the benefits of the interest subsidy scheme on home loans under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or PMAY (Urban) by 15 months beyond December this year. Now, the subsidy of up to ₹2.60 lakh on home loans for the middle-income group (MIG) will be available till March 2019.

Explanation: Home to around 253 million adolescents, India will next month host the World Congress on Adolescent Health, billed as the biggest global event in adolescent health this year.

Explanation: The Department of Biotechnology announced 3 missions focussing on the northeast India, including the B4, which is centred on the Brahmaputra’s biodiversity and biology.

Explanation: Abdul Majid, an icon of the Assamese film industry, an eminent actor, Director and writer has passed away.

Explanation: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana or ‘Saubhagya’, to supply electricity to poor households. The scheme will cover all rural families after electrification of all villages by December end, this year. The government said that states will be required to complete the household electrification by March 31, 2019. The total outlay for the Saubhagya scheme will be Rs 16,320 crore. The rural household outlay is estimated to be Rs 14025cr, with Rs 2295cr being for urban households.

Explanation: Amidst growing apprehensions over the slowdown in the Indian economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the formation of a five-member panel of economists headed by NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy to advise him.

Explanation: For the first time, India, US and Afghanistan will hold a joint trade and investment show in Delhi, as New Delhi steps up to its role of being a bigger development partner to Afghanistan.

Explanation: According to the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2017, India is third in the world in the number of nuclear reactors being installed, at 6, while China is leading at 20.

Explanation: After remaining non-functional for the last three years the Janakpur-Jayanagar Railway line connecting Nepal and India is expected to become functional by 2018.

Explanation: The 7th ASEM (Asia–Europe Meeting) Economic Ministers’ Meeting was held in Seoul, South Korea. Theme for this year’s meeting was ‘Innovative Partnership for Inclusive Prosperity’. Commerce Minister Mr. Suresh Prabhu represented India.

Explanation: The State Bank of India (SBI) announced SBI Intelligent Assistant (SIA) — a chat assistant aimed to address customer enquiries like a “bank representative” does. Developed by Payjo, an artificial intelligence (AI) banking platform, “SIA” is equipped to handle nearly 10,000 enquiries per second or 864 million in a day — which is nearly 25 per cent of the queries processed by Google each day.

Explanation: Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has formed a ten-member steering committee to help implement by March 2021 the new risk-based capital (RBC) regime that will also enhance protection to policyholders.

Explanation: So far, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) mega-project was being developed only with the Indian government’s financial assistance. Now a $4.5 billion soft loan from Japan International Cooperation Agency will be used to boost $100 bn Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor project.

Explanation: Indian wrestler Bajrang defeated Daichi Takatani of Japan in the men’s freestyle 65kg final to win the gold in the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games at Ashgabat in Turkmenistan.

Explanation: The Home Ministry is examining a report submitted by a high-level committee formed to propose new laws or amendments to deal with hate speech on the internet, said informed sources. The committee, headed by T.K. Viswanathan submitted its report to the Union Home Ministry recently.

The Karakoram, or Karakorum is a large mountain range spanning the borders of Pakistan, India, and China, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It is located in the regions of Gilgit–Baltistan (Pakistan), Ladakh (India), and southern Xinjiang (China), and reaches the Wakhan Corridor (Afghanistan).

Explanation: China has announced commissioning its first radar-evading J-20 stealth fighter jets into military service, giving its air force an edge in the region.

Explanation: The government has extended the deadline for sale of pre-GST goods with stickers of revised rates by three months to December 31.

Explanation: The observance of this day seeks to recognize contribution of unsung heroes behind international diplomacy who work as language professionals to facilitate dialogue and contribute to development and strengthens world peace and security.

Explanation: Padma Shri awardee and veteran film, television and theatre actor, director and writer Tom Alter has passed away

Explanation: India has registered a significant decline in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR). According to the just released SRS bulletin, IMR of India has declined by three points (8% decline), from 37 per 1000 live births in 2015 to 34 per 1000 live births in 2016, compared to two points decline last year.

Explanation: Bengaluru is the world’s most affordable technology hub, according to a study conducted by a realty consultancy firm.

Explanation: India’s top Internet companies led by Flipkart have created a lobby group called Indiatech.org that will represent the interests of Indian Internet start-ups to fight their international rivals. The lobby group will represent the interests of local companies such as Flipkart, Ola, Hike and others.

Explanation: According to India Ratings, India’s GDP growth estimate for the ongoing financial year 2017-18 is likely to come down to 6.7 per cent from 7.4 per cent earlier as “the combined effect of demonetisation and introduction of goods and services tax (GST) is proving to be more disruptive for the economy than was expected earlier”.

Explanation: Multilateral lending agency ADB (Asian Development Bank) has approved a loan of USD 80 million (about Rs 524 crore) for modernisation of Himachal Pradesh’s technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions.

Explanation: The INTERPOL General Assembly has voted to admit the State of Palestine and the Solomon Islands as new member countries. The membership of the world policing body now totals 192.

Explanation: Gujarat Tourism has won the “Hall of Fame” award for being the Best State in Comprehensive Development of Tourism category at the National Tourism Awards function organised by Ministry of Tourism.
Madhya Pradesh has won the ‘Best Tourism State’ national award for the third consecutive year. The state bagged total 10 awards in this programme, organised on the occasion of World Tourism Day.

Explanation: An Indian Police Service (IPS) Officer of Uttar Pradesh Cadre, Aparna Kumar has become the first Indian woman to scale Mount Manaslu, which is the eighth highest mountain peak in the world.

Explanation: India leapt up the global rankings by 12 places to take the 14th spot in terms of best country for expats to live and work in, says a HSBC survey.

Explanation: The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) registered National E-Governance Services Limited (NeSL) as an Information Utility (IU) under the IBBI (Information Utilities) Regulations, 2017. With this NeSL has become the first IU registered by the IBBI and the registration is valid for five years from the date of registration.

Explanation: Maryna Viazovska of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland, will receive 2017 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize for her contribution to number theory.

Explanation: World Rabies Day is celebrated annually to raise awareness about rabies prevention. The World Rabies Day 2017 theme: ‘Rabies: Zero by 30’.

Explanation: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has given its approval for implementation of umbrella scheme of “Modernisation of Police Forces (MPF)” for years 2017-18 to 2019-20.

The financial outlay for the scheme over the three year’s period is Rs.25,060 crore, out of which the Central Government share will be Rs.18,636 crore and the States’ share will be Rs.6,424 crore.

Explanation: The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) of the Ministry of Women & Child Development has started a monthly “Jan Sampark” program to enable the public to have interaction with its officials and staff for seeking information related to Adoption as well as flagging their concerns. The first of its kind programme was held in New Delhi.

Explanation: The first ever mobile, Internet and technology event in India — India Mobile Congress 2017 has started in New Delhi from 27th September.

Explanation: India has been ranked as the 40th most competitive economy — slipping one place from last year’s ranking — on the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, which is topped by Switzerland.

Explanation: State-owned IDBI Bank has sold 9 per cent stake in Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) for an undisclosed amount in a bid to mobilise funds by exiting non-core business. Earlier in Sep, the bank sold 1% stake in Sidbi.

Explanation: Google has acquired Bitium, a company that provides enterprise customers with identity and access management solutions, including single sign-on (SS) and provisioning for Cloud applications.

Explanation: The Boxing Federation of India (BFI) has unveiled its 2017-18 calendar which includes the prestigious South Asian Championship to be held in Guwahati from December 6-10.

Explanation: P.P. Antony, former national women’s hockey coach who also trained and taught coaches at the Bengaluru SAI centre, has passed away

Explanation: Veteran Bengali actor Dwijen Bandyopadhyay, a known name in theatre as well as cinema has passed away.

Explanation: National Award-winning filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar and veteran actress Hema Malini will be felicitated at the 4th Indian Film Festival of Russia, for their contribution to Indian cinema.

Explanation: Two Indians — Chanda Kochhar and Shikha Sharma —  most powerful women in business outside the United States
while Indra Nooyi featured in the top three on the US edition list.

Explanation: Shashi Shanker has been appointed as the chairman and managing director (CMD) of India’s biggest oil and gas producer ONGC.

Explanation: The World Gold Council has appointed President and Chief Executive of Franco-Nevada Corporation David Harquail as its new Chairman.

Explanation: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has lowered India’s growth forecast to 7% for 2017-18 owing to weakness in private consumption, manufacturing output and business investment in its Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2017. Earlier it was projected at 7.4%. Also the outlook for 2018-19 is now at 7.4 per cent from the previous 7.6 per cent projection.

Explanation: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that the developing Asia is on track to grow faster this year and next. Developing Asia is expected to grow by 5.9 and 5.8 percent in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Explanation: The Kandla Port Trust has been renamed Deendayal Port Trust. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had suggested renaming the Kandla Port after Upadhyay “who stood up for the upliftment of the poor and weaker sections of society”.

Explanation: INS Tarasa, a Water Jet Fast Attack Craft intended for extended coastal and offshore surveillance and patrolling, has been commissioned into the Indian Navy.

Explanation: Public sector lender IDBI Bank has initiated a turnaround plan – ‘Project Nishchay’ in consultation with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The project aims to accelerate the struggling lender’s turnaround programme and improve financial performance. The project will be led by senior management at IDBI Bank along with BCG.

Explanation: Russia has launched the world’s largest and most powerful icebreaker ship, designed to transport cargo via the Northern Sea Route in the Arctic Ocean. The nuclear-powered vessel, capable of breaking ice fields up to three metres thick, will also carry out rescue work in ice conditions and ice-free waters.

Explanation: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has launched a web portal called ‘PENCIL’ for effective implementation of the National Child Labour Project, (NCLP) in the National Conference on Child Labour organized by Ministry of Labour & Employment.

Explanation: Well-known journalist and Renowned Marathi writer Arun Sadhu has passed away at the age of 76.

Explanation: Former Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi has been sworned in as the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India on 25th September.

Explanation: Lalawmpuii Chawngthu has become the second woman in Mizoram to be inducted in the state’s council of ministers after a gap of 30 years. Lalhlimpui Hmar was the first woman Minister of State in Mizoram in 1987.

Explanation: India beat Australia by 5 wickets in the third ODI played between the two sides at Indore. The victory helped them to pip South Africa to claim the no. 1 spot in the ICC ODI rankings.

Explanation: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has won a fourth term in office by winning Germany elections that lifted the far-right party Alternative for Germany into parliament for the first time since the immediate aftermath World War II.