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

Australia is conducting 7 nation Indian Ocean military exercise along with Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore. Australia sent 4 Naval Ships and one military aircraft along with 1000 security personnel making it one the biggest military exercise.The exercise is aimed to counter the growing Chinese influence in the India Ocean.The Australian forces started the exercise from Sri Lanka and reached India on 26th March 2019. After India, Australian forces moved to other participating nations and will return after two and half months.

On April 1, 2019, the merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank into Bank of Baroda has come into effect. With this amalgamation, Bank of Baroda becomes the India’s second largest public sector bank and third largest commercial bank after State Bank of India (SBI) and HDFC Bank. India’s first ever three-way merger of banks has started its operation over Rs 15 lakh cr as of balance sheet, with deposits and advances of 8.75 lakh crore and 6.25 lakh crore rupees, respectively.Government has also infused Rs 5,042 crore into Bank of Baroda by way of preferential allotment of equity shares.Centre’s shareholding in the merged entity is 65.7%.BoB now has over 9,500 branches, 13,400 ATMs and 85,000 employees.

On his 80th Birthday, Batman will become the first Inductee of Comic-On Museum’s Character Hall of Fame,in a ceremony at 50th Annual Comic-Con International in San Diego, USA on 17th July 2019. The Batman is a fictional character of DC Comics. The Character of Batman was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in 1939.

ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV C-45), in its 47th mission, has successfully launched the 436 kg Electronic intelligence satellite EMISAT and 28 co-passenger satellites into their designated orbits from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. This was the 71st launch vehicle mission for Sriharikota.The military satellite, EMISAT, was successfully injected into intended sun-synchronous polar orbit of 748 km height.The foreign satellites have been launched under an agreement with theAntrix Corporation, the commercial arm of ISRO, consisting of 24 from the US, two from Lithuania and one each from Spain and Switzerland.Emisat is a satellite based on ISRO’s Indian Mini Satellite -2 (IMS-2) bus platform. The satellite is aimed at electromagnetic spectrum measurement.

The Third edition of India-Australia bilateral exercise, AUSINDEX 19 will be held from 2nd April to 16th April 2019 at Vishakhapatnam. The bilateral exercise will deepen defence and strategic relationship between the two countries.The Focus of the exercise will be on anti-Submarine warfare.More than 1000 Australian defence personnel from Navy, Army and Air Force will visit India making this the largest defence force deployment of Australia in India.Australian Navy ships HMAS Success and HMAS Parramatta arrived in Chennai on 28th March and these ships will participate in military exercise with Indian Navy in Vishakhapatnam.

Following the 1400 years old tradition, Japan’s government has unveiled an New Imperial Era named “Reiwa” or “pursuing harmony” for soon-to-be Emperor Naruhito. The new era to begin on May 1 will succeed the “Heisei” era (1989-2019) of Emperor Akihito. The term for the new era consists two characters Rei and Wa. Rei means “commands” or “order” and Wa means “auspicious” or “good”.The names change occurs when a new emperor takes the throne.There have been four eras in Japan’s modern history viz. Meiji era (1868-1912), Taisho era (1912-1926), Heisei era (1989-2019) and now Reiwa era. The Emperor of Japan is the head of the Imperial Family and the head of state of Japan. Presently, the Emperor of Japan is the only head of state in the world with the English title of “Emperor”.

Kandhamal Haldi (turmeric), Odisha’s locally grown turmeric in its Kandhamal district has received the Geographical Indications (GI) tag from Intellectual Property India. It is organically grown by tribals. In 2018, Kandhamal Apex Spices Asso ciation for Marketing (KASAM) in Phulbani, had applied for registration of the Kandhamal turmeric. It was accepted under sub-section (1) of Section 13 of the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999.

The Indian Army has achieved a record-breaking feat by constructing ‘Maitri’, the 260-feet longest suspension bridge over the Indus river in the Leh-Ladakh region in just 40 days.The combat engineers belonging to ‘Sahas aur Yogyata’ regiment of ‘Fire and Fury Corps’ of the Indian Army undertook the construction of ‘Maitri’.500 tonnes of bridge equipment and construction material was ferried to build this bridge.The bridge “Maitri” was inaugurated on 1st April, ’19 by Naik Phunchok Angdus (Retd.), an 89-year-old war veteran along with war veterans of 1947-1948, 1962, 1971 and 1999 in the presence of Lt. Gen Yogesh Kumar Joshi and General Officer Commanding ‘Fire and Fury Corps’.Since the term ‘Maitri’ symbolises friendship, the bridge has been named ‘Maitri bridge’ so as to symbolise the excellent civil-military relations between the military personnel and the locals of the Leh-Ladakh region.The bridge will provide connectivity to the remote areas of Ladakh and help residents of the largest villages in Ladakh, namely, Choglamsar, Stok and Chuchot.

Bolivia has signed the agreement to join the International Solar Alliance. The main motive behind this is to establish a coalition of solar resource-rich countries to address the identified gaps in their energy requirements through a common approach. India, with a target to produce 100 GW of solar energy by 2022, would account for a tenth of ISA’s goal.

On 3rd April 2019, India has signed an agreement with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development Consultancy Service (NABCONS) for setting up India-Africa Institute of Agriculture and Rural Development (IAIARD) in Malawi to enhance capacity in the areas of agro-financing and entrepreneurship development for African countries.In this Institute, the trainees from Malawi and other African countries will be trained in the areas of micro-financing and agro-financing.This agreement will strengthen the bilateral relations between India and Malawi with the African Union.

Starting from 1st May, 2019, India’s private sector bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank would become the first lender to levy charges on peer-to-peer (P2P) UPI transactions available across all platforms, namely, Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, Trucaller Pay among others. For Kotak Mahindra Bank’s account holders, the first 30 peer-to-peer UPI fund transfer would be free of cost. Once a person exceeds 30 UPI transactions, he will be charged Rs. 2.50 per transaction for of Rs. 1000 or less. For transfers exceeding Rs. 1000, the bank will charge Rs. 5 plus 18% GST. No additional charges have been imposed upon reception of money via UPI for merchant transactions or bill payments. Since more than 90% of Kotak Mahindra Bank’s customers do an average of 5-10 transactions every month, and the charges would be levied only when a customer exceeds 30 transactions, this step has been taken to curb abuse of the UPI system. There has been a reduction in charges on merchant transactions through UPI . Instead of the 25 paise charge on transactions up to Rs. 1000 and 50 paise charge on exceeding Rs. 1000, NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) has brought it down to a flat rate of 10 paise for all transactions (along with an ad valoreum charge of 0.04% divided between the issuing bank and the acquiring bank).

The 82-year-old Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika who was in power for the last 20 years (since 1999) has resigned after prolonged weeks of mass protest.Under Article 102 of the Algerian Constitution, the Parliament could be asked to declare a president unfit to rule the country if he is unable to function properly due to ill-health.Until elections, Abdelkader Bansalah, the chairman of the upper house of the Parliament is expected to become the caretaker president for three months.

On 1st April 2019, Saurav Ghosal moved up two places to become the first Indian male squash player to break into the top 10 of the latest PSA (Professional Squash Association) world ranking. He is ranked at 10th Place which is his career best ranking. Saurav Ghosal performed brilliantly in the 2018-2019 PSA World Championship which was held in Chicago, USA and reached up to the quarter finals.Two Indian Women Squash player named Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal had entered into top 10 of PSA World ranking earlier. At Present, Joshna Chinappa is India’s best female squash player (Ranked 15th) and Saurav Ghosal is India’s best Male Squash Player (Ranked 10th).

The Kho-Kho Federation of India (KKFI) launched an ambitious franchise-based league for the sport named Ultimate Kho-Kho. There will be an initial draft of players where athletes from across the world, including England, South Korea, Iran, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, will be part of the eight franchise. KKFI and Dabur have together appointed Tenzing Niyogi (former sports advisory leader at Ernst and Young) as the CEO of the league. Indian Olympic Association Secretary General and former KKFI president Rajeev Mehta is the chairman of the league.

The Reserve Bank of India has set the limits for Ways and Means Advances (WMA) to Rs. 75000 crore for the first half of the financial year 2019-20 (April 2019 to September 2019). As and when the government of India utilises 75% of the WMA limit, the central bank would activate fresh floatation of market loans. The rate of interest issued on the Ways and Means Advances (WMA) will be Repo Rate while the overdraft will exceed the Repo Rate by flat 2%. The WMA needs to be vacated after 90 days.

RBI has reduced 0.25 basis points in the Policy Rates under liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) with immediate effect.The Change in Policy rates are as follows:

At an estimated cost of $2.6 billion, the United States has approved the sale of 24 multi-mission Lockheed Martin-built MH-60 “Romeo’”Seahawk helicopters to India. These choppers designed for targeting ships, hunting submarines and conducting search-and-rescue operations at sea, would replenish the age-old fleet of British-made Sea King helicopters, used by India. This particular sale proposal would help in strengthening the US-India strategic relationship by aiding the foreign policy and the national security of the US.The sale approval by the US will not only provide India’s defence forces the ability to carry out anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare missions but also the capability to perform secondary missions. The secondary missions is inclusive of vertical replenishment.The choppers are currently deployed with the US navy and are reviewed as the world’s most capable maritime helicopter constructed to operate from aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and frigates.The whooping cost of $2.6 billion includes other supporting equipment and ammunition, namely, 10 Hellfire missiles, 30 MK 54 torpedoes and 38 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System rockets.The main contractor of the deal is Lockheed Martin’s “Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems”.Defence trade between India and the US has risen extravagantly in the last 10 years and is estimated to reach $18 billion in 2019.

On the 3rd of April, 2019, UAE honoured PM Narendra Modi with its highest civilian award, the Zayed Medal for boosting the bilateral ties between both of the nations. United Arab Emirates’s highest civilian decoration, the Order of Zayed, awarded to those who contribute to international leadership in strengthening relations with the country.Past recipients of this award were Russian president Vladimir Putin, former US president George W Bush, French leader Nicolas Sarkozy and German politician Angela Merkel.The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited India on 24-26 of January, 2017 as the chief guest for Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited UAE on February 10-11, 2018.India-UAE’s commercial relations are broadly based on energy cooperation, investments made by UAE in India, business and investments made by Indian expatriates in the UAE.

Vipin Anand has assumed the charge of Managing Director of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). In March 2019, he was appointed by Centre as the LIC MD. He will succeed interim chairman, Hemant Bhargava. Vipin Anandi. In the tenure of more than 35 years, he served as the head of LIC’s western zone, comprising of 23 divisions. He has also headed LIC’s east-central zone headquartered at Patna.

On 4th April 2019, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has received the In-Flight Connectivity license from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for enabling in-flight and maritime connectivity (IFMC) within Indian airspace. BSNL and Inmarsat, which is the satellite partner of BSNL, also operates the GX Aviation service will be able to offer in-flight connectivity to airlines.With this facility users can send messages, surf the internet and/or tweet, when a flight is at a minimum height of 3,000m in Indian airspace. Presently any form of internet connectivity for both domestic and international flights is not available on Indian flights.After, this facility enabled, users will still have restricted amounts of data available for their uses, applicable for all airlines.

Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma has announced his incursion into smart mobility with the launching of an AI (Artificial intelligence) enabled electric motorcycle. This launch is expected to hit the roads by June this year.He has set up Revolt Intellicorp Pvt Ltd, headquartered at Gurugram, to make personal mobility practical, affordable and sustainable, earmarking around Rs 500 crore of investment.He has claimed that Revolt Intellicorp is going to be a game changer in the automobile industry.

Under the ambitious Project75-India, the Indian Navy desires to build 6 standard diesel-electric submarines. These submarines would be 50% massive in size than the Scorpene class submarines which are under-construction at the Mazagon Dockyards Limited. This would incur an overall cost of Rs. 50,000 crore. Since the maritime force needs the boats to have minimum 12 Land Attack Cruise Missiles (LACM) and Anti-Ship cruise missiles (ASCM), it wants the diesel-electric submarines to be furnished with heavy-duty firepower.The firepower required for these diesel-electric submarines is multiple times higher as compared to that of Scorpene.The main weapons of the Scorpene are: the heavyweight torpedoes and the Exocet surface to surface missiles.The submarines should have the ability to carry and launch 18 heavyweight torpedoes in the sea.The navy has commenced the tender process by issuing the draft to the foreign vendors and the probable Indian partners by first issuing the Expression of Interest (EoI) to the foreign vendors, then continuing the stance with the Indian partners.

South Korea has unveiled the world’s first nationwide 5G mobile networks. This has made South Korea to be the first providers of the super-fast wireless technology. Top 3 telecom providers namely SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus have began their 5G services on 3rd April.This 5G service will bring smartphones to instantaneous connectivity which will be 20 times faster than 4G. allowing users to download entire movies in less than a second.This service is important for the future development as it is expected to bring about $565 billion in global economic benefits by 2034.

The first global multi-stakeholder conference on synergies is summoned by (UN DESA) the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the (UN FCCC) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change between the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change, in Copenhagen, Denmark.On 2nd April, 2019, (UNSCN) the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition had hosted an event titled ‘Sustainable diets for healthy people and healthy planet’ . The event proffered a platform for sharing experiences and challenges in upgrading to healthy and sustainable diets. This in turn extends to the alignment of climate and 2030 agendas, namely, SDG 2 and SDG 13.

On 5th April, 2019,Davis Malpass senior Treasury official and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, was unanimously chosen as the next president of the World bank. He will succeed Jim Yong-Kim.He was born on 8th march 1956 in Michigan.Kristalina Georgieva,chief executive officer of the bank, has been acting as the interim President. Malpass is nominated by Donald Trump.He is currently serves as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and Previously held a senior role in the US State Department for Latin American Affairs.