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

On December 30, 2018, Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi embarked on a day long visit to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.On December 30, 2018, Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, visited Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. On this occasion, he announced renaming of three islands of Andaman and Nicobar.
The 3 islands are:
• The Ross Island was renamed as Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Dweep,
• The Neil Island would now be known as Shaheed Dweep and
• The Havelock Island as Swaraj Dweep.

On December 30, 2018, Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan launched the Ujjwala Sanitary Napkin initiative in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Its objective is to provide access to hygiene products and employment to opportunities in every district of the state. Around 100 local manufacturing units will be set up by oil marketing companies at Common Service Centres (CSCs) across 93 blocks in all 30 districts of Odisha in the first phase. The units are expected to be ready by March 2019. The cost of setting up each manufacturing unit is expected to be Rs 2.94 crores. The sanitary napkins will be priced at Rs 42 per pack of eight pads. Each manufacturing unit will employ five or six Ujjwala beneficiaries and will thus employ nearly 600 women across all districts.

On 31st December 2018, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs headed by Minister of State Hardeep S. Puri, extended the Credit-Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for Middle Income Group (MIG) Scheme by another 12 months till March 31, 2020. Around 93, 007 beneficiaries have been covered till date and have already received Rs 1,960.45 crore of subsidy in the scheme under which the government provides a subsidy of up to Rs 2.67 lakh on home loans. The scheme covers two income segments in the MIG viz. Rs 6,00,001 to Rs 12,00,000 per annum for MIG-I and Rs 12,00,001 to Rs 18,00,000 per annum for MIG-II. The dwelling unit carpet area to avail the benefit of the scheme include ‘upto 160 sq.m’ and ‘upto 200 sq.m’ for MIG I and MIG II respectively. In the MIG-I, an interest subsidy of 4 per cent has been provided for loan amounts up to Rs 9 lakh, while in MIG-II, an interest subsidy of 3 per cent has been provided for loan amount of Rs 12 lakh.

On 31st December 2018, a ‘bancassurance’ pact was signed between State-owned Allahabad Bank and SBI Life Insurance to sell the policies of the insurer in over 3,200 branches of the Allahabad Bank. The agreement is considered as one of the largest Bancassurance partnerships in the country. The agreement was signed in the presence of Allahabad Bank Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mallikarjuna Rao and SBI Life MD & CEO Sanjeev Nautiyal.

On December 31, 2018, in its report titled ‘Growth Outlook for 2019’, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) stated that India will remain the fastest growing major economy with GDP growth estimated to be 7.5% in FY19. The reasons cited for the growth are: Better demand conditions, settled GST implementation, capacity expansion resulting from growing investments in infrastructure and better credit inflow especially in the service sector (that is of 24%).

On 31st December 2018, India Women Cricket team Vice-captain and Left-handed opener, Smriti Mandhana was adjudged ‘Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award for the Women’s Cricketer of the Year‘ as well as the ‘Women’s ODI Player of the Year’by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

On 31st December, 2018, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s alliance won Bangladesh’s election with a thumping majority giving her a third straight term. The alliance dominated by her Awami League, won 287 of the 298 seats for which results have been declared, the commission said. There are 300 constituencies in the country. The main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which boycotted the last poll in 2014, won just 6 seats.

The Government of India has appointed Sudhir Bhargava, an information commissioner in the Central Information Commission the new chief information commissioner. The government has also appointed four new information commissioners. President Ram Nath Kovind has approved the appointment of former bureaucrats Yashwardhan Kumar Sinha, Vanaja N Sarna, Neeraj Kumar Gupta and Suresh Chandra as the new information commissioners. The appointments came weeks after the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to disclose the process of appointment of the members of the Central Information Commission, including details on applicants and search committees. The court had asked the government to maintain transparency in the process.

On 1st January 2019, Andhra Pradesh got a separate high court which will temporarily function from the Chief Minister’s camp office in Amravati, the new capital of the state till a permanent building for the High Court is being set up at the ‘Justice City’in Amaravati. Since the bifurcation of the state on June 2, 2014, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have had a common high court at Hyderabad. With the creation of the new high court, the country now has 25 high courts. The present high court building in Hyderabad would be housing the High Court of Telangana and the ten judges, who were part of the common high court, will now be the judges of the Telangana High Court. The bifurcation of the courts into the High Court of Telangana and High Court of Andhra Pradesh came after the Supreme Court on 29th October passed an order for the burification and said that it expects a notification by January 01, 2019. Justice C Praveen Kumar, the senior-most judge among the judges allotted to Andhra Pradesh, was appointed as acting Chief Justice of AP High Court, that will have 15 other judges with effect from January 1 , 2019. Justice Thottathil B Radhakrishnan took over as the first Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court with effect from January 1 , 2019.

On January 1, 2019, Reserve Bank of India granted permission to Paytm Payments Bank to add new customers after it initially barred Paytm from opening bank accounts in June 2018. This was due to non-compliance of the KYC norms and because Paytm Payments Bank had failed to maintain Rs 100 crore net worth limit. Post the audit, Paytm Payments Bank had removed Renu Satti from the chief executive’s role and replaced her with veteran banker and ex-NPCI senior executive Satish Gupta.

From 1st January 2019, France introduced a new “GAFA tax” named after the large internet and technology companies Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon to ensure the global giants pay a fair share of taxes on their massive businesses in Europe.According to France’s finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, the new tax would raise 500 million euros (570 million dollars) in 2019. The unilateral move from France came after the deal for EU wide tax which required the support of all 28 EU states, crumbled earlier this month, with opposition from countries including Ireland, home to the European headquarters of Google and Apple. While other EU member states such as Britain, Spain and Italy are working on national versions of a digital tax, Asian countries such as Singapore and India are also planning their own schemes.

On 31st December 2018, private sector lender Axis Bank Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shikha Sharma retired from the services of the bank and Amitabh Chaudhry will be the new MD and CEO of the Axis bank from 1st January 2019. In April 2018, Shikha Sharma requested the bank board to reduce her new term which was started from June 2018 to 7 months from a three-year tenure without citing any reasons. 54 years old, an Indian Institute of Management -Ahmedabad alumnus, Amitabh Chaudhry who is the former MD and CEO of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company was appointed the MD & CEO of Axis Bank for the period of 3 years.

On December 31, 2018, Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik, launched a Rs 10,180-crore scheme, for overall development of small, marginal and landless farmers, dubbed as ‘The Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (KALIA)’ scheme in Odisha. This scheme consists of a life insurance of Rs.2 lakh for 57 lakh farmers and would grant them crop loans at zero per cent interest. Also, financial assistance of Rs 10,000 per farmer family per annum to around 30 lakh small and marginal farmers’ families. Furthermore, Rs. 5000 would be given to farmers for Rabi cultivation and equal amount will be given for Kharif Cultivation. For landless farmers, a unit cost of Rs 12,500 would be provided for goat rearing, poultry farming, duck rearing, bee keeping and mushroom cultivation. The scheme will be implemented in three phases. In the first phase of the initiative, Rs. 5000 would be disbursed to farmers between January 22 and January 25, 2019. The second phase will be completed by February 15, 2019.

On December 31, 2018, according to the RBI Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, number of complaints registered at banking ombudsman offices has increased to 25% owing to increased awareness and poor internal redressal mechanisms of banks. More than 57% of the total complaints came from the banking ombudsman offices in tier-1 cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Of all the complaints received at the ombudsman’s offices, 97% of them were resolved in 2017-18, up from 92% in 2017. The topic of complaints were related to non-observance of the fair practices code followed by those related to ATM, credit and debit cards, and for failure to meet commitments and mobile banking. Bank-wise distribution shows that most complaints received against public sector banks were pension-related while most complaints received against private banks were for credit cards discrepancies.

On January 1, 2019, the Department of Financial Services announced appointment of Hemant Bhargava, Managing Director, Life Insurance Corporation of India, as the Acting Chairman. This was done after VK Sharma retired from the position at LIC on December 31. While, he is a contender for the post of Full-Time Chairman at the state-owned life insurer, his retirement is due in July 2019. Therefore, the Banks Board Bureau has called eight candidates for interviews for the posts of Chairman and MD on January 4.

On January 2, 2019, Jair Bolsonaro was sworn in as Brazil’s 42nd president. Mr Bolsonaro, 63, won the presidential election by a wide margin against Fernando Haddad of the left-wing Workers’ Party.

On January 3, 2019, Information, Public Relations and Tourism Division of Andaman and Nicobar Administration announced that the Veer Savarkar International Airport in Port Blair will be an authorized Immigration Check post. Superintendent of Police (CID), Andaman and Nicobar Police has been appointed as the ‘Civil Authority’ for the purpose of the immigration check post. This would work as an entry into/exit point from India with valid travel documents for all classes of passengers. This opened up the Port Blair Airport for direct international flight and immigration facilities.

On 31st December 2018, the Mamata Banerjee led West Bengal government announced two welfare initiatives for farmers as a part of the ‘Krishi Krishak Bondhu’ scheme which will come into effect from New Year’s Day i.e. January 1, 2019. Under the first of the two schemes, If a farmer aged between 18 to 60 years dies a natural or unnatural death, the state government will pay his family Rs 2 lakh. The farmers will be able to start applying for the scheme from February 1, 2019. Under the second initiative, farmers would get Rs 2,500 twice a year for growing a single crop on one acre of land. The farmers will be able to apply for this scheme from February 1, while the amount will be calculated from January 1, 2019. The West Bengal government has already waived tax and cess on agricultural land to help farmers in distress.

On 2nd January 2019, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi approved the scheme for the merger of state-run Vijaya Bank, Bank of Baroda(BoB) and Dena Bank, marking the first-ever three-way merger in the country’s banking sector. The merger which will come into force on April 1, 2019 will form the third largest bank in the country, after government-owned State Bank of India and private sector lender ICICI. In the merger process, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank are transferor banks and BoB is the transferee bank. This means that all businesses, assets, rights, titles, claims, licences, approvals and other privileges and all property, all borrowings, liabilities and obligations of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank will be transferred to Bank of Baroda. The merged bank will have a combined business of Rs 14.82 lakh crore. There will be no impact on the service conditions of the employees and there will be no retrenchment following the merger.

On 2nd January 2019, the Reserve Bank set up an expert committee under former SEBI chairman U K Sinha to suggest long-term solutions for the economic and financial sustainability of the MSME sector. The eight-member committee will also examine the factors affecting the timely and adequate availability of finance to the sector. The RBI has announced the expert panel on MSMEs after it allowed a one-time restructuring of existing debt of up to 25 crore rupees for the companies which have defaulted on payment but the loans given to them have continued to be classified as standard assets. The restructuring has to be implemented by 31st of March 2020. The expert committee will submit its report by the end of June 2019. The panel will also review the current institutional framework in place to support the MSME sector and study the impact of the recent economic reforms on the sector and “identify the structural problems affecting its growth”.

30 years old former National level Volleyball player turned mountaineer, Arunima Sinha became the world’s first female amputee to climb Mount Vinson, the highest peak of Antarctica. The Padma Shree Awardee, Arunima Sinha became the first woman amputee to climb Mount Everest in 2013. She is from Uttar Pradesh and had lost one of her legs in a horrific incident in which she was thrown off the Padmawati Express train in 2011. Arunima Sinha’s aim is to summit seven peaks across seven continents. She had already scaled five peaks which are Mt Everest, Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt Ebrus. Mt Kosciuszko and Mt Aconcagua.

On 2nd January 2019, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the restructuring of existing National Health Agency as “National Health Authority” for better implementation of Pradhan Mantri – Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY). With this approval, the existing society “National Health Agency” has been dissolved and will be replaced by National Health Authority as an attached office to Ministry of Health & Family Welfare. National Health Authority will be chaired by Union Health Minister to enable the decision making at a faster pace, required for smooth implementation of the scheme. The National Health Authority will have full accountability, authority and mandate to implement the Pradhan Mantri – Jan Arogya Yojana. The proposed National Health Authority will be funded by existing budget that was approved earlier by the Cabinet for the National Health Agency, including costs related to IT, human resources, infrastructure, operational costs etc and no new funds have been approved.

On January 1, 2019, India, Pakistan exchanged lists of nuclear installations and list of prisoners for the 27th time through diplomatic channels inNew Delhi and Islamabad. This was done under the Agreement on the Prohibition of Attack against Nuclear installations that was signed in December 1988 which came into force in January 1991. The pact states the two countries must inform each other of nuclear facilities to be covered under the agreement on January 1 every year. India handed over a list of 249 Pakistani civilian prisoners and 98 fishermen in its custody. The Pakistani side handed over a list of 537 prisoners — 54 civilians and 483 fishermen — in its jails. The first such exchange was done in January 1, 1992.

With the effect from 1st January 2019, the three Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) – Punjab Gramin Bank, Malwa Gramin Bank and Sutlej Gramin Bank has been amalgamated into a single RRB by the Government. After consulting the sponsor banks of the three RRBs, the central government felt that in the interest of the banks and the areas served by them, they should be amalgamated into a single RRB. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), the Government of Punjab, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India and Punjab and Sind Bank are the sponsor banks of the said RRBs. The three banks were merged into one entity as part of the Centre’s roll out of the third phase of amalgamation of RRBs, which has laid a roadmap to bring down their number across the country from 56 to 38. The move will enable RRBs cut overheads, improve their capital and use technology, besides helping them draw better scale-efficiency, higher productivity, improved financial inclusion and greater credit flow to rural areas.

On January 3, 2019, as per the latest data of Association of Mutual funds in India (AMFI), HDFC Mutual Fund has surpassed ICICI Prudential MF to become the country’s largest asset management company (AMC) after a gap of over two years. As per the data, as of December 2018, HDFC MF managed assets worth Rs 3.35 lakh crore, while those of ICICI Prudential MF stood at Rs 3.08 lakh crore. And consequently, the assets under management (AUM) of HDFC MF have grown over 9 per cent in October-December quarter from the last quarter. Whereas, ICICI Prudential MF’s AUM reduced by 0.6 per cent. Among other firms, SBI MF stood at the third slot with AUM of Rs 2.64 lakh crore, followed by Aditya Birla Sun Life MF (Rs 2.42 lakh crore) and Reliance MF (Rs 2.36 lakh crore). Overall, asset base of the country’s mutual fund industry was at Rs 23.61 lakh crore at the end of December quarter.