Current Affairs Quiz - 19th July, 2018 - Current Affairs MCQ

Jammu & Kashmir's first all-women branch of Jammu and Kashmir Bank was inaugurated. First Lady Usha Vohra e-inaugurated the first 'All-Women Branch of Jammu and Kashmir Bank' at a function organised at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Convention Centre (SKICC). The total staff strength of the bank is 13. Ms Vohra also launched special services and products designed exclusively for women clients of the bank, which included Pink Gold Saving Scheme, Pink Platinum Saving Scheme, Special Loan Facility for Women Entrepreneurs, Pink Gold Debit Card and Pink Platinum Credit Card.

The French National Football team has clinched the 2018 FIFA World Cup by defeating Croatia 4-2 in a thrilling final match at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on July 15. Croatia were playing in their first World Cup final. They were the smallest country to reach the Final in the modern era. For France, it was a first World Cup crown since winning on home soil in 1998. England's Harry Kane won the World Cup Golden Boot Award as top scorer with 6 goals. Croatia captain Luka Modric won the Golden Ball award for the World Cup's best player despite being on the losing side. Kylian Mbappe of France won the Young Player of the Tournament Award after scoring his 4th goal of the competition in the final.

Planning for its next three Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has added seven medal events to the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, published a 2020 Tokyo Olympics schedule with no agreement on when to race swimming finals, and set a timetable to add new sports to the 2024 Paris Olympics. The next Winter Olympics will now include: women's monobob, Big Air freestyle skiing for men and women, plus mixed team events in short track speed skating, ski jumping, ski aerials and snowboardcross.

E-commerce giant Amazon briefly crossed $900-billion market cap for the first time in its history becoming only the second company after Apple to achieve this milestone. This comes after Amazon announced it sold over 100 million products during its Prime Day sale. Apple is currently the world's most valuable company with a market cap of $935 billion.

The Reserve Bank of India will shortly issue Rs100 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series, bearing the signature of Dr Urjit R. Patel, Governor, Reserve Bank of India. The new denomination has Motif of "RANI KI VAV" on the reverse, depicting the country's cultural heritage. The base colour of the note is Lavender. The dimension of the banknote will be 66 mm x 142 mm.

The European Union regulators have slapped Alphabet-owned Google with a record 4.34 billion euro ($5 billion) antitrust fine for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile operating system. According to the EU, Google's parent company has unfairly favoured its own services by forcing smartphone makers to pre-install Google apps Chrome and Search in a bundle with its app store, Play.

Flipkart's digital payment subsidiary PhonePe has acquired Zopper Retail - a hyperlocal Point of Sale (POS) platform for small and medium businesses. The acquisition is a part of the company's strategy to aggressively ramp up its offline business. Zopper's CEO Neeraj Jain and the engineering leadership team has joined the team of PhonePe after the acquisition.

As part of Indo-US Bilateral Defence Cooperation, the 7th Defence Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) meeting was held between India and the US delegation in New Delhi. The meeting was co-chaired by, Secretary (Defence Production), Dr Ajay Kumar and Under Secretary of Defence for Acquisition and Sustainment, DoD, US Government Ms Ellen M Lord. The meetings are held twice a year, alternately in India and the USA with the aim to bring sustained leadership focus to the bilateral defence trade relationship and create opportunities for co-production and co-development of defence equipment.

RBI has approved the appointment of Girish Chandra Chaturvedi as non-executive (part-time) Chairman of the ICICI bank till June 30, 2021. Girish Chandra Chaturvedi was previously the petroleum secretary. ICICI Bank announced that Kochhar has decided to go on leave till the completion of an external inquiry into the matter of lending loan to Videocon group.

The Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) organized "India's Largest Apparel Trade Show - The 67th National Garment Fair" from 16th July to 19th July 2018 at Bombay Exhibition Centre, Mumbai. A Memorandum of Understanding between Govt of Gujarat & CMAI was signed to promote Gujarat as a destination for investments. The Fair was inaugurated by Kishore Biyani, CEO of Future Group.

UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has entered into a partnership with search engine giant Google to monitor the impacts of human activity on global ecosystems by using sophisticated online tools. The partnership was launched during a High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York. The aim of the partnership is to develop a platform to enable governments, NGO's and public to track specific environment-related development targets with user-friendly Google front-end.

Karnataka's first 'K-Tech Innovation Hub' was inaugurated in Belagavi by K J George, Karnataka Minister for IT/BT & ST. The K-Tech Innovation Hub backed by providing space and infrastructure, prototyping facilities and a world-class innovation network. The K-Tech Innovation hub leverages the globally connected ecosystem & brings infrastructure similar to the MIT Fab Lab to Belagavi.

The scientists from IIT Delhi have developed a silk-based hydrogel that emulates the process of hair growth, an advance that may help screen novel drugs for treating hair loss without using animal tests. The hydrogel is developed by combining a mixture of silk proteins, isolated from silkworm cocoons, and gelatin. Tyrosinase enzyme was used to develop a stable hydrogel system. The system provided an ideal environment to develop a complete 3D model of hair follicle regeneration. Hair loss is a common ailment, and can be stressful for the people experiencing it. A number of factors including genes, illness, trauma and surgeries can lead to temporary or permanent hair loss. However, as per researchers, alopecia - condition that occurs due to abnormal growth cycle or reduction in the size of hair follicles - is the major reason contributing to permanent hair loss.

European Union (EU) and Japan have signed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). It was signed at EU-Japan summit in Tokyo by EU Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It is biggest ever trade deal negotiated by the EU and creates free trade zone covering nearly third of the world's GDP.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will deliver the keynote address of the two-day event. The theme of which is, 'Strengthening India-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation'. Main AIM:-To find a common ground and expanding the scope of cooperation between India and ASEAN nations. The Delhi Dialogue is a premier annual event to discuss politico-security, the economic and socio-cultural engagement between India and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). The event has been held annually since 2009 many political leaders, policy makers, senior officials, diplomats, think tanks and academicians from various countries participate in the discussions pertaining to ASEAN-India relations.

India's first government sponsored 'Transgender Poets' meet held in Kolkata. This Meet was chaired by India's first transgender college principal Manabi Bandopadhyay, who read out several of her own poems at the two-and-a-half-hour event organised by the Sahitya Akademi. Some of the transgender poets who participated in the meet include Rani Majumdar, Aruna Nath, Anjali Mandal, Debdutta Biswas and Debojyoti Bhattacharya. In addition to the six poets, two guest transgender poets named Anurag Maitreyee, and Tista Das took turns to recite poems.

Repco Micro Finance Ltd, a non-banking finance company received Nabard 2018 award. The award is given service to self-help group in Tamil Nadu for the fiscal year 2017-18. The NBFC has disbursed loans amounting to ?2,500 crore to over 10 lakh beneficiaries. NABARD Financial Services Limited is a subsidiary of NABARD to provide financial services in areas of agriculture & microfinance.