Test : May 2019 Weekly Current Affair - 4" - Current Affairs MCQ

A subsidiary of NABARD (The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development), Nabventures notified its first time funding termed ‘NABVENTURES Fund I‘ which is a Rs 700-crore venture capital fund for equity investments to provide support for agriculture, food and rural start-ups (which would help improve rural livelihoods). The fund has a proposed corpus of Rs 500 crore, has a greenshoe option of Rs 200 crore and has received an anchor commitment from NABARD.The aforementioned fund is registered with SEBI as a Category II Alternative Investment Fund and would raise the resources from domestic and global investors.

India’s 3rd-largest non-life insurance provider in the private sector, HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company launched a scheme termed ‘Mosquito Disease Protection Policy’ which will cover a person against common mosquito-borne diseases, namely, Dengue Fever, Malaria, Chikungunya, Japanese Encephalitis, Kala-azar, Lymphatic Filariasis and Zika Virus.There has been a stark rise of 300% dengue cases in India between 2009-2017,according to the report published by National Health Profile 2018.These mosquito-borne diseases leads to financial burden due to hospitalisation or affects the No Claim Bonus of any conventional Health Insurance.

Mumbai Indians won their 4th IPL title after defeating Chennai Super Kings by 1 run at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad.

Andre Russell from Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) won the most valuable player award. He got Rs 10 lakh cheque as prize money which was collected by Shubham Gill on this behalf.

The Mutua Madrid Open 2019:

All Indian armed forces comprising Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force hold joint exercise Bull Strike at Teressa Island in Andaman and Nicobar.The objective is to enhance their coordination in dealing with major security challenges which are currently facing the country and also to showcase joint operation capability of the three forces, Indian Army, Navy and Air Force and further enhance operation coordination.Total 170 troops from all three services participated and carried out para drop operations in a Combat Free Fall and Static Line mode.

Former Director and Chief Executive Officer at LIC HFL (Housing Finance Ltd) AMC (Asset Management Company), Dinesh Pangtey has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) Mutual Fund. He succeeds Shri Raj Kumar. He has 35 years of experience across various sectors like insurance sector, private equity, life, pension and group superannuation scheme.He strategized the setting up of the new fund under SEBI AIF platform & directly raised 92 per cent of the base corpus. The fund is poised soon to exhaust the greenshoe option and close at Rs 1000 Cr.

A 51-year old former Indian cricketer GS Lakshmi became the first ever, female match referee, to be included into the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s International Panel of Match Referees. Earlier, Claire Polosak had become the first ever woman umpire to stand in a men’s ODI. Previously in 2008-2009, she officiated her first match in women’s domestic cricket and has also supervised 3 women’s One Day International (ODI) and 3 T20 International matches.

On 12th May 2019, Mumbai based Indian racing driver Jehan Daruvala made his maiden victory in Race 2 during the 2019 FIA Formula 3 (F3) season in Barcelona-Catalunya. The Team Prema driver is the only Indian on the grid, completed on top after a dominant drive ahead of JuriVips and Niko Kari. FIA F3 Championship was created by merging the erstwhile GP3 Championship and FIA F3 European Championship.Jehan is the only Indian to win a Grand Prix when he won the New Zealand Grand Prix in 2017 and then went on to become the only Indian to win a race in the erstwhile FIA F3 European Championship, which used slower cars.

The 6th Session of the biennial Global Platform for (DDR) Disaster Risk Reduction (GP2019) has started in Geneva, Switzerland from 13th May to 17 May 2019 and is co-chaired by Switzerland and UNISDR. The session is summoned under the theme, ‘Resilience Dividend: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Societies’.The agenda of the session is to represent the next key opportunity for the international community to enhance the implementation of the Sendai Framework, related Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, and commitments of the Paris Climate Agreement.The session has been hosted by Switzerland’s Government and has been summoned and organized by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).

For the fiscal year 2020 (FY20), India was chosen as the Co-chair of the Consultative Group (CG) of Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) during the session of the GFDRR in Geneva, Switzerland.India expressed its interest to co-chair the meet, at the 5th session of GFDRR held in October 2018.India became a Member of the Consultative Group (CG) of GFDRR in 2015 and this will be India’s 1st time in co-chairing the CG meeting of GFDRR which will, in turn, help India in working with the member countries and organisations in advancing the disaster risk reduction agenda during its tenure.

The opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations was held in the China National Convention Center, Beijing, where Xi Jinping, Chinese President delivered a keynote speech. The Forum on Global Influence of Asian Civilizations is 1 of the 6 parallel forums of the “Conference of Dialogue on Asian Civilizations”.The Forum on Global Influence of Asian Civilizations is organized by the National Radio and Television Administration of the People’s Republic of China. The theme of the forum was “Asian Values for the World” where the speakers discussed the rich and contemporary values of Asian civilizations.

Ireland becomes second country in the world after UK to declare ‘climate emergency’.The country’s climate action minister, Richard Bruton, warned climate change was the greatest threat facing humanity and the level of urgency was justified. An amendment to a parliamentary report declaring a “climate emergency” and calling on parliament “to examine how (the Irish government) can improve its response to the issue of biodiversity loss” was accepted without a vote late Thursday. Irish Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, who moved the amendment, called the decision “historic”.

HDFC has collaborated with IMGC (India Mortgage Guarantee Corporation) for a mortgage guarantee-backed home loan. Mortgage guarantee is a financial product which compensates lending institutions for the losses that may occur when a home owner defaults on a mortgage loan.In ‘mortgage guarantee’, the risk of the home loan gets transmuted from the bank/FIs (financial institution) to the mortgage guarantee company.This collaboration will help HDFC provide more loan to a home loan customer on an improved eligibility.This initiative will also support the government’s mission under Prime Minister ‘Awas Yojana Scheme‘ to provide Housing for all by 2022.

A 23-year-old pilot from Mumbai, Captain Aarohi Pandit, became first woman in the world to cross the Atlantic Ocean solo in a Light Sports Aircraft (LSA). She had started her journey from Wick, Scotland (United Kingdom) and landed her aircraft at Iqaluit Airport, Canada, post a 3,000 km long flight, under extremely bad weather conditions, with short stopovers in Greenland and Iceland.This mission is a part of her ongoing 1-year-long global circumnavigation flight launched with her friend Keithair Misquitta. Aarohi Pandit will return to India by July 30, 2019.Social Access is the not-for-profit-communications firm which organised and sponsored the expedition.