Test : August 2019 Weekly Current Affair - 1" - Current Affairs MCQ

On July 31, 2019, Rajya Sabha passed the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019. It will amend the provisions under the 1988 Motor Vehicles Act. Background: The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2019 is based on the recommendations of the Group of Transport Ministers (GoM) headed by Shri. Yoonus Khan, the then Transport Minister of Rajasthan, to address the issue of road safety and to improve the facilitation of the citizens while dealing with transport departments. Vehicle Fitness: The Bill mandates automated fitness testing for vehicles and provides for compulsory recall of defective vehicles and power to examine irregularities of vehicle companies.

August 1, 2019, The Parliament passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) (Amendment) Bill, 2019. It provides a 330-day timeline for insolvency resolution process and specifies minimum payouts to operational creditors in any resolution plan. The amendments will bring greater clarity to mergers, demergers, and amalgamations as part of the resolution process. Earlier, the timeline was 270 days.It provides greater clarity on permissibility of corporate restructuring schemes, clarity on the rights and duties of authorized representatives of voters.It gives committee of creditors of a loan defaulting company an explicit authority over the distribution of proceeds in the resolution process.

On July 30, 2019, The Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Shri Prahlad Singh Patel informed that 2 languages- Nepali and Santhali from the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution will be included in the Sub-Field of Field “Literature” in the scheme component ‘Award of Senior/Junior Fellowships to Outstanding Artistes in the Fields of Culture’. The Ministry of Culture regulates a scheme component namely Award of Senior/Junior Fellowships to Outstanding Artistes in the Fields of Culture.The Nodal institute for handling the Scheme of Sr. /Jr. Fellowship till selection process is the Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT), Dwarka, Gujarat.

According to the Water Stress Index 2019, formulated by London-based risk analytics firm Verisk Maplecroft, India is the 46th highest risk country in the world. It measured the water consumption rates of households, industries and farm sectors and the available resources in rivers, lakes and streams and plotted the index with projected population growth trends to rank the cities facing the biggest threat to their water resources. Chennai is the “tip of the iceberg” for India’s water-stressed cities.11 out of India’s 20 largest cities face an ‘extreme risk’ of water stress and 7 are in the ‘high risk’ category. Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nashik, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Indore are among the cities facing ‘extreme risk’.

In order to boost the National Food Security, the pilot basis of One Nation One Ration Card scheme was launched by the government in four states namely Telangana , Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Families holding this card can buy subsidized rice and wheat from any ration shop in these four states. This program is expected to be implemented by August next year.A trial run of the project was conducted by the Telangana Civil Supplies Corporation last week where consumers from Andhra Pradesh bought their commodities from the fair price shop in Hyderabad.

On July 29,2019, Maharashtra Chief Minister(CM) Devendra Fadnavis has launched a special digitized policing system called “Automated Multi-modal Biometric Identification System (AMBIS)” to aid police investigations & it will soon be expanded across the country.Detection: AMBIS adopted by the Maharashtra Police, is an advanced crime detection database, detects crime based on the available fingerprint, palmprint and iris scan data of criminals on record as well as accidental finger/ palm-prints collected from crime scenes.AMBIS: It is an updated version of Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), which has limited utility, providing only one-to-one fingerprint matches has been used by Indian law enforcement agencies to explore finger and palm prints.

The postal department has decided to convert the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) into a small finance bank (SFB) with the aim to provide micro-credit at the doorsteps to individuals and SME’s (Small and medium-sized enterprises). The postal department also sets a target to open one crore accounts for IPPB in 100 days.

On August 1, 2019, RN Ravi (A 1976-batch Indian Police Service officer of the Kerala cadre,), a former Intelligence Bureau(IB) officer was sworn in as the 20th governor of Nagaland. Arup Kumar Goswami, Chief Justice (Acting) of Gauhati High Court(HC) administered the oath of office to Ravi at the Raj Bhavan in Kohima, Nagaland. Ravi succeeds Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya, whose tenure ended on July 19, 2019.

The scientists at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Kanpur have developed the world’s first robot hand for the rehabilitation of stroke patients. It is a two-finger robotic hand (exoskeleton) that uses a four-bar mechanism and has four degrees of freedom (DOF). It uses brain signals, with the help of the brain-computer interface (BCI).The exoskeleton is operated by a MEGA (Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis) microcontroller of 300 Mhz and powered by a battery which costs around Rs 15,000.It was developed by Professor Ashish Dutta and Professor K S Venkatesh. In order to develop the product, they had partnered with the University of Ulster, United Kingdom, and their teacher Girijesh Prasad, who belongs to Gorakhpur.

Union home minister & BJP( Bharatiya Janata Party ) President, Amit Shah will now head a 4-member panel of ministers, which was created in 2018 to propose action against mob lynching. The panel was headed by then Home minister Rajnath Singh when it was formed.The Four: The Group of Ministers (GoM) will have the members including S. Jaishankar(External Affairs Minister), Nitin Gadkari(union minister of road transport and highways), Ravi Shankar Prasad(Union Minister of Law and Justice) and Thawar Chand Gehlot(Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment).SC Notice: The Supreme Court(SC) had directed the Central Government, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the State governments to respond to the plea seeking implementation of its directions issued in July 2018 to tackle mob violence and lynching.

On August 1, 2019, India’s central banking institution, RBI(Reserve Bank of India) has allowed Bank of China (BoC) to provide regular bank services in India. BoC will be included in the Second Schedule of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. Second schedule: All commercial banks including State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC(Housing Development Finance Corporation) Bank, Punjab National Bank (PNB)and ICICI Bank(Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India) are in the second schedule. Banks in this schedule have to comply with RBI regulations.Addition: Jan Small Finance Bank Ltd has also been included in the second schedule. Apart from this, the name ‘Royal Bank of Scotland’ has been changed to ‘NatWest Markets Plc’.

India’s central bank, RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India) Money Museum, which was opened on March 11, 2019, aims at improving people’s knowledge of the banking system with the help of interactive displays at Council House Street in Central Kolkata, West Bengal has been drawing a lot of attention for its special initiative. The museum has a big tree made using unusable coins and demonetized notes attached with a computer model outlining how money gets transferred to the account digitally.It also has three divided sections. It includes 1st section(History of Money): This section depicts the evolution of the barrier system and the grains used as currency in medieval ages. 2nd section(History of Gold): It talks about gold and focuses on gold reserves in India. 3rd section(History of RBI): This is all about the history of RBI.

According to the CRISIL (formerly Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited), a global analytical company providing ratings, research and policy advisory services report titled “CRISIL’s India Outlook 2019: Uphill trek”, India’s GDP (gross domestic product) growth expected to grow by 6.9% in 2019 (FY-Fiscal Year 2020). It cuts the forecast from 7.1 % to 6.9% due to the triangulation of downside risks (weak monsoon, slowing global growth and Sluggish data for the first quarter (January to March) of the year 2019.

India’s senior executive editor of NDTV, Ravish Kumar was awarded 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award which is regarded as the Asian version of the Nobel Prize. He was awarded for “harnessing journalism to give voice to the voiceless”. Four other individuals were declared winners of this award along with Ravish Kumar. Four other winners of the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay award are as follows:-

On August 2, 2019, Parliament passed the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2019 which amends the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008. The new bill increases the threshold of annual passenger traffic for major airports to over 35 lakh from 15 lakh. It is increased as the number of air traffic passengers has been increased 117 million from 2008 to 345 million in 2019. Background: The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was introduced in Rajya Sabha on July 12, 2019 by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Mr. Hardeep Singh Puri and was passed on July 16, 2019. The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008 established the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (AERA). AERA regulates tariffs and other charges for aeronautical services provided at civilian airports with annual traffic above 15 lakh passengers and monitors the performance standard of services across these airports.

National Medical Commission (NMC) will consist of 25 members. A search committee comprising of Cabinet Secretary, Union Health Secretary, CEO of NITI (National Institute of Transforming India) Aayog and four experts nominated by the central government will recommend the names of post for the post of Chairman and part-time members. Each members’ term will be maximum period of four years without reappointment.

India’s first large scale trial for Two new TB vaccines, was launched by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The two drugs are IMMUVAC and VPM1002. The TB vaccine trial will be carried out in 6 States involving more than 12000 healthy household contacts of newly diagnosed TB patients with 2000 participants from each state.The six states are: Delhi, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and Karnataka and will be implemented over the next 7-8 months. It will be conducted in 7 main centres having six sub-sites.The trial commenced at the National Institute of TB and Respiratory Diseases (NITRD), New Delhi.

The infrastructure project status worth $10billion was granted to Maharashtra by India, to establish the world’s first ultra-fast Hyperloop project. This project stretching over 117.5km, will link Mumbai with the neighbouring city of Pune and travels to the destination in about 35minutes.Hyperloops freight at speeds up to 1200 km per hour (750miles per hour) using magnetic to levitate pods inside an airless tube.

India’s largest lender, State Bank of India’s(SBI) Shanghai branch has become the first Indian Bank to be connected to China’s National Advance Payment System (CNAPS). SBI is the only Indian Bank to have obtained the license to do business in local currency and also inducted to the CNAPS by the china’s central Bank, ‘People’s Bank of China (PBOC)’.SBI Shanghai allows offering a real-time transfer of local funds within China through the PBOC route.CNAPS: The CNAPS, launched in 2008 allows PBOC, to provide real-time settlement services for all payments cleared in China, as well as in all clearing banks in offshore yuan(basic unit of the renminbi) centers, such as Hong Kong. It is complemented by its international counterpart, the CIPS (China International Payments System / Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payment System), launched in 2015 with the aim of boosting global use of the yuan.

On August 2,2019, As a part of Digital India initiative & and bring technology to farmers, the minister for Earth Science, Science and Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan has launched a new mobile application called “Meghdoot” in New Delhi, developed by experts from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology(IITM) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR). The app will provide forecast relating to temperature, rainfall, humidity, and wind speed and direction, which play critical roles in agricultural operations. It also gives advisories to farmers on how to take care of the crops and livestock. Information given by the app is in the form of images, maps, and pictures. The app is available on Google Play Store & it also been integrated with WhatsApp and Facebook to help farmers share advisories with them. The app would be available for 150 districts in different parts of the country & It will be extended to other parts of the country in a phased manner.

NSO will be chaired by Pravin Srivastava, the chief statistician, and MoSPI secretary.

On August 5, 2019, Government announced to repeal Article 370 [except the first clause 370 (1)] and Article 35A which grants special status to Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Home Minister Amit Shah announced to bifurcate the state into 2 Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir.

President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind visited Benin, The Gambia and Guinea from 28 July to 3 August, 2019. It was the first ever visit of the Head of State/Head of Government of India to all 3 countries. President announced fresh Line of Credit (LoC) worth $100 million for developmental projects in Benin. It will help to meet its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also announced extension of e-visa facility to Benin. India offered to extend free tele-education courses to 15,000 Beninese students and tele-medicine courses to 1000 doctors and paramedics in Africa.

The President of Guinea, Alpha Condé conferred ‘The National Order of Merit’, its highest award to President Ram Nath Kovind. He was awarded for his contribution to overall relations and development of mutual cooperation between India and Guinea.