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GK Power Capsule – April` 2014 (The Hindu Review)
1.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan
kept
the repo rate unchanged in Bi‐Monthly
Monetary
Policy on 1st April since retail inflation
still
remains 'sticky', but introduced steps to
increase
liquidity and contain volatility in the
a.
Bank Rate – 9 % (Unchanged)
b.
Cash Reserve Ratio – 4 % (Unchanged)
c.
Statutory Liquidity Ratio – 23 % (Unchanged)
d.
Repo Rate – 8 % (Unchanged)
e.
Reverse Repo Rate – 7 % (Unchanged)
f.
Marginal Standing Rate – 9 % (Unchanged)
2.
The 15th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA)
Awards
2014 was held in Tampa Bay, US from 23
April
to 26 April 2014.
a.
Best Picture ‐ Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra‐
Bhaag
Milkha Bhaag
b.
Best Direction ‐ Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra ‐
Bhaag
Milkha Bhaag
c.
Performance in a Leading Role (Male) ‐
Farhan
Akhtar ‐ Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
d.
Performance in a Leading Role (Female) ‐
Deepika
Padukone ‐ Chennai Express
e.
Music Direction ‐ Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari,Jeet
Ganguly
‐ Aashiqui 2
f.
Outstanding Contribution To International
Cinema
‐John Travolta
g.
Lifetime Achievement ‐ Shatrughan Sinha
3.
The 61st National Film Awards for 2013 was
announced
in New Delhi on 16 April 2014 by the
Directorate
of Film Festivals. Ship of Theseus
directed
by Anand Gandhi was selected as the Best
feature
film.
a.
Best Actor – Raj Kumar for Shahid in hindi
and
Suraj Venjaramoodu for Perariyathavar
in
Malyalam
b.
Best Actress – Geetanjali Thapa for Liar’s
Dance
in Hindi
c.
Best Direction – Hansal Mehta for film Shahid
4.
Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram has
been
designated as new Finance Secretary.
Previous
Finance secretary was Sumit Bose.
This
GK Capsule has been prepared by Career Power Institute Delhi (Formerly Known as
Bank Power). This has
been
prepared on the basis of news and events appeared in The Hindu Newspaper in the
month of April 2014.
5.
Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha was appointed as 41st
Chief
Justice of India. He will succeed Justice P.
Sathasivam.
6.
Justice G Rohini was appointed as the Next Chief
Justice
of Delhi High Court.
7.
Ratan Tata was appointed as a member of the
Board
of Boao Forum for Asia (BFA). The post is a
rare
distinction for an Indian in the Chinese
government‐backed
influential body.
8.
Viktor Orban was re‐elected as Prime Minister of
Hungary
for the second consecutive four‐year term.
9.
Rajeev Suri appointed as President and CEO of
Nokia
Corporation.
10.
Marie‐Lousie Coleiro Preca was sworn‐in as the
President
of Malta.
11.
R Gandhi was appointed as the Deputy Governor of
the
Reserve Bank of India for a period of three
years.
He replaced Anand Sinha.
12.
D K Pathak was appointed as the new Director
General
of the Border Security Force.
13.
Karim Massimov, the Chief of Staff of Kazakhstan
was
named as the new Prime Minister of the
country
by the President, Nursultan Nazarbayev.
14.
President Francois Hollande appointed Interior
Minister
Manuel Valls as next prime minister of
France.
15.
NR Narayana Murthy was honoured with the 2014
Canada
India Foundation Chachalani Global Indian
Award
in Toronto, Canada.
16.
Environmental activist Ramesh Agrawal won the
prestigious
Goldman Environmental Prize for the
year
2014.
17.
Hollywood star John Travolta received the Most
Popular
All Time International Star in India at the
International
Indian Film Academy. The 15th IIFA
awards
were held in Tampa Bay, Florida from 23 to
26
April 2014.
18.
Time Magazine released the 100 most influential
people
in the world list on 24 April 2014. The four
Indian
have made it in to the list. The cover page of
the
annual issue of Times Magazine features
American
Pop singer Beyonce Knowles. The Four
Indians
who made in to the list are Narendra Modi,
Arvind
Kejriwal, Arundhati Roy and Arunachalam
Muruganantham.
19.
Vijay Seshadri won the prestigious 2014 Pulitzer
Prize
in the poetry category.
20.
Ratan Tata received the Knight Grand Cross award
by
UK Government.
21.
Union Government announced that legendary poet
and
film lyricist Gulzar was selected for the 45th
Dadasaheb
Phalke Award 2013.
22.
British‐American physicist Stuart Parkin won
Millennium
Technology Prize 2014.
23.
Indian American novelist, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Lowland
has
been shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women's
Prize
for Fiction.
24.
Koyal Rana won the 51st edition of the Femina Miss
India
2014 crown.
25.
MS Dhoni won the United Kingdom’s 2014 Asian
Award
for outstanding achievement in Sports.
26.
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd recieved the Most
Efficient
Navratna Award for the year 2013.
27.
Renowned music director Zubin Mehta won the
special
jury award of Times Now NRI Awards 2014.
28.
George Clooney stepped down from his role as UN’s
Messenger
of Peace amid the reports of his
engagement
with the human rights lawyer, Amal
Alamuddin.
29.
Union Ministry of External Affairs appointed Suresh
Kumar
Reddy as India's first Ambassador to the
separate
Indian Mission to Association of Southeast
Asian
Nations (ASEAN) & East Asia Summit.
30.
Indian‐American professor Rajendra Singh was
named
as one of ten Solar Champions of Change by
the
White House.
31.
Indian‐American hotelier Sant Singh Chatwal
pleaded
guilty at a US court for violating federal
election
laws by using straw donors.
32.
President Barack Obama nominated Sunil
Sabharwal
as the next US Alternate Executive
Director
of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
33.
Election Commission confirmed Amir Khan as its
national
icon for the Lok Sabha elections 2014. The
other
four national icons were President A P J
Abdul
Kalam, cricketer M S Dhoni, badminton star
Saina
Nehwal and boxer Mary Kom.
34.
British actor Bob Hoskins died.
35.
Arturo Licata, the World’s oldest man died in Italy.
36.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel laureate in
literature
died.
37.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anja Niedringhaus
shot
dead by a policeman in Afghanistan.
38.
Prime Minister of South Korea Chung Hong‐won
resigned.
He resigned over the government’s
inability
and untimely response to the ferry
disaster
that happened on 16 April 2014.
39.
Nancy Powell, the US Ambassador to India
announced
her resignation.
40.
Earthquake of magnitude 8.3 on Richter Scale
struck
Solomon Islands on 13 April 2014.
41.
The Supreme Court reconstituted a Special
Investigation
Team to monitor the probe into the
black
money case. Court appointed retired judge
MB
Shah as its Chairman and retired Judge Arijit
Pasayat
as the Vice Chairman.
42.
The Supreme Court constituted a three‐member
committee
headed by N R Madhava Menon to frame
guidelines
to prevent misuse of public funds by the
government
and its authorities by providing
advertisements
in newspapers and television.
43.
South Korean ferry carrying 459 passengers and
crew
drowned on 16 April 2014. The ferry ran into
trouble
some 20 kilometres off the island of
Byungpoong.
44.
United States and India launched a reading
initiative
named READ (Read‐Engage‐Achieve‐
Dream)
Alliance. This initiative has been launched
with
an aim to improve the reading skills of
millions
of primary school‐aged children in India.
45.
Publisher Simon & Shuster announced that they
will
release a book named Hard Choices authored
by
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
46.
A memoir entitled "Crusader or Conspirator?
Coalgate
and other Truths" authored by former
Coal
Secretary PC Parakh was released.
47.
A memoir entitled the 'The Accidental Prime
Minister:
the making and unmaking of Manmohan
Singh'
authored by Sanjaya Baru was released.
48.
India dropped to 78 in the latest Freedom of the
Press
freedom index. Sweden topped the list.
49.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC)
released its report titled Climate Change
2014:
Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability in
Yokohama,
Japan. The report warns that due to
global
warming, poorer Nations may see fall in
their
GDP by 2%.
50.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited handed over a
Dornier
Nabhrathna light‐weight aircraft to DRDO.
51.
India successfully test fired indigenouslydeveloped
surface‐to‐air
Akash missile from at
Chandipur
Wheelers island Odisha.
52.
India test‐fired an exo‐atmospheric interceptor
missile,
called Prithvi Defence Vehicle with
capability
to neutralise any long‐range missile at
higher
altitude. This interceptor was test‐fired for
the
first time from Integrated Test Range at
Wheeler
Island, about 100 km from Balasore in
Odisha.
53.
Admiral Robin K Dhowan took over as the 22nd
Chief
of Indian Navy. He is a successor of Admiral
DK
Joshi, who resigned taking moral responsibility
of
the accident on INS Sindhuratna in Mumbai.
54.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
released
a report. World military expenditure
declined
by 1.9 percent in real terms, since 2012.
The
release ranked India at the ninth position in
the
list of top spenders in 2013 compared to 8th
rank
in 2012. As per the report the three highest
spenders
with substantial increases are China,
Russia
and Saudi Arabia.
55.
INS Vikrant, the decommissioned aircraft carrier of
the
Indian Navy has been sold for 60 crore rupees
to
a company named IB Commercial Pvt Ltd.
56.
India and Nepal started a joint military exercise
named
Ex‐Surya Kiran Drills VI at Saljhandi in
Rupandehi
district of Nepal.
57.
India threatened to drag the European Union to the
World
Trade Organization if the 28‐nation bloc did
not
lift its ban on the import of Indian mangoes and
vegetables.
58.
Petroleum minister M Veerappa Moily has made it
clear
that once the Election Commission lifts its
model
code of conduct on May 12, its order for the
deferment
of a new gas pricing regime based on the
Rangarajan
formula will cease to exist and a price
hike
would come into effect.
59.
Government said foreign investors will pay only 5
per
cent withholding tax on interest earned from
such
investments till May 2015.
60.
The United States named China and India among
countries
on its blacklist of countries failing to
properly
protect US copyrights and patents but
kept
their status unchanged from the previous
review.
61.
India is now the world's third largest economy in
terms
of purchasing power parity, ahead of Japan
and
behind the US and China which hold the top
two
spots. This was revealed by the 2011 round of
the
World Bank's International Comparison
Program
(ICP) released.
62.
Centre revealed names of 18 persons in the
Supreme
Court who allegedly stashed black money
with
LST Bank in Liechtenstein and against whom
prosecution
have been launched by the Income Tax
department.
63.
Social Progress Index 2014 has put India at a
dismal
rank of 102. The study measures a country’s
achievement
on three pillars of satisfying Basic
Human
Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and
Opportunity
to progress. Top three countries are
New
Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland.
64.
Given even the first forecast of the met predicts a
60%
chance of El Niño and a 23% chance of a
deficit
monsoon, the government is taking no
chances
and is finalising a comprehensive
contingency
plan for 500‐odd districts to deal with
any
exigency.
65.
India slid down to 83rd spot among 148 economies
in
terms of leveraging information and
communications
technologies (ICT) for growth and
well
being, says a World Economic Forum report.
66.
The railways will launch semi‐high‐speed trains
that
will run at an average speed of 130 km per
hour.
To start with, these trains are expected to
become
operational on three routes — Delhi‐
Chandigarh,
Delhi‐Lucknow and Delhi‐Bhopal — by
the
end of this year.
67.
Andhra Pradesh has recorded highest growth in
terms
of both milk production and per‐capita milk
availability
at over 41 per cent and about 36 per
cent,
respectively.
68.
India has concluded an 'in substance' agreement
with
the US to combat possible tax evasion by
Americans
through Indian financial entities. The 'in
substance'
agreement with India under Foreign
Account
Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was
concluded
on April 11, the US Treasury said.
69.
The Supreme Court lifted the nearly one‐and‐a‐half
‐year
ban on iron ore mining in Goa.
70.
International Monetary Fund expects country's
economic
growth to move up to 5.5 per cent in the
current
fiscal and 6.25 per cent in the next fiscal.
71.
China's economic growth recorded its slowest pace
in
18 months at the start of 2014. The economy
grew
7.4 percent in the January‐March quarter
from
a year earlier.
72.
Finance ministers and central bank governors of
the
Group of 20 Nations reiterated their
commitment
to boost global growth by 2 per cent,
or
over USD 2 trillion, over the next five years and
achieve
exchange rate flexibility. G‐20 said in a
communique
issued on the sidelines of the annual
spring
meeting of the International Monetary Fund
and
the World Bank in Washington.
73.
Having received USD 70 billion in 2013, India has
topped
the list of countries receiving remittances
from
overseas workers, the World Bank said.
74.
Global rating agency Fitch pegged India's growth at
5.5
percent in the current fiscal and 6 percent in
2015‐16.
75.
Gold and silver imports declined 40 per cent to USD
33.46
billion in 2013‐14 mainly due to restrictions
imposed
by the government. Imports of gold and
silver
in 2012‐13 stood at USD 55.79 billion.
76.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the services
sector
declined by about 61 per cent year‐on‐year
to
USD 1.8 billion during April‐January.
77.
Congress CM Prithviraj Chavan's Maharashtra has
emerged
as the number one investment destination
in
India replacing Gujarat.
78.
India's GDP is poised to accelerate to 5.5 per cent in
2014‐15
on the back of improved performance in
industry
and services but it may take some time for
the
country to reach its potential growth rate, says
an
Asian Development Bank (ADB) report.
79.
In a bid to prevent bank failures in the future, a
high‐powered
panel has proposed the setting up of
a
Financial Resolution Authority (FRA) to deal with
any
exigency in a financial institution and even
allow
"temporary public ownership" of troubled
banks.
The committee under Financial Stability and
Development
Council, chaired by RBI deputy
governor
Anand Sinha, said the experience and
expertise
of Deposit Insurance and Credit
Guarantee
Corporation (DICGC) could be
transformed
into the proposed FRA to deal with
failures
of banks.
80.
Reserve Bank's plan to put in circulation Rs 10
plastic
currency notes on trial basis will be delayed
as
the initial bids have failed to qualify the technical
criteria
and the whole process will start again. The
selected
cities are Kochi, Mysore, Jaipur, Shimla and
Bhubaneswar.
81.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board deferred
a
decision on HDFC Bank's proposal to increase its
overseas
shareholding limit to 67% from 49%.
82.
Government is planning to make additional
infusion
of up to Rs 7,000 crore in the public sector
banks
during the current fiscal. In the interim
budget,
the government provided Rs 11,200 for the
public
sector banks.
83.
Of the 369 million debit and credit cards in the
country,
10‐15 per cent are used only for online
transactions,
the Reserve Bank said.
84.
Qatar‐based Doha Bank has entered into an
agreement
with HSBC Bank Oman to purchase the
latter's
banking business in India.
85.
Stepping up pressure on public sector banks (PSBs)
to
bring down bad loans, the finance ministry has
widened
its monitoring of non‐performing assets
(NPA)
from ‘top 30’ NPA accounts to ‘top 50’ for all
state‐owned
lenders.
86.
ICICI Bank has lodged an FIR in a city police station
alleging
fake currency notes with a face value Rs 10
crore
were deposited in its different branches in
the
past several years.
87.
After launching accounts on Facebook and Youtube,
the
country's largest lender SBI took one more step
on
the social media front by launching a twitter
handle.
88.
IDFC Ltd and Bandhan Financial Services Pvt Ltd
won
banking licences, with the Raghuram Rajan's
RBI
approving permits for only two of the 25
applicants.
89.
Reserve Bank asked banks not to levy penal
charges
on customers who don't maintain a
minimum
balance in basic savings bank accounts.
90.
A recent and most modern acquisition of the Indian
Air
Force from the United States, the C‐130J Super
Hercules
military transport aircraft, crashed near
Gwalior.
91.
Fiji’s military rulers set September 17 as the date
for
the South Pacific nation’s first democratic
elections
in nearly eight years following a military
coup.
92.
India’s total external debt stock stood at $426
billion
as on December 31, 2013, or 5.2 per cent
higher
than that on March 31, 2013. The external
debt
to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio has
marginally
worsened to 23.3 per cent from 21.8 per
cent.
93.
Ajay S. Shriram has been elected President of
Confederation
of Indian Industry (CII) for 2014‐15.
He
succeeds S. Gopalakrishnan.
94.
The BJP announced the expulsion of senior leader
Jaswant
Singh and Subhash Mahariya for six years.
95.
President Pranab Mukherjee cleared the repromulgation
of
the SEBI (Securities and Exchange
Board
of India) Ordinance. The move to arm the
regulator
with more stringent powers against the
proliferation
of chit fund companies and the
Rs.2,000‐crore
Sardhaa chit fund scam.
96.
The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) asked
Japan
to stop its whaling programme in the
Antarctic.
Japan catches about 1,000 whales each
year
in the region for what it calls scientific
research.
97.
Communications satellite INSAT‐3E has completed
its
life and gone out of service.
98.
The Centre will provide an assistance of Rs. 352
crore
to farmers for replanting horticulture crops
that
were hit by untimely rain and hailstorm earlier
this
month in parts of Maharashtra, Madhya
Pradesh,
Karnataka and Rajasthan. The fund
release
was sanctioned by an Empowered Group of
Ministers
(EGoM) headed by Union Agriculture
Minister
Sharad Pawar.
99.
RBI Governor, Raghuram Rajan said that the central
bank
had adopted the new Consumer Price Index as
the
key measure of inflation instead of Wholesale
Price
Index.
100.NATO
decided to freeze bilateral cooperation,
while
the European Union promised to help
Ukraine
reduce its energy dependence on Russia.
101.The
RBI‐appointed Urjit Patel panel, in its report,
has
set CPI target of 8 per cent by 2015 and 6 per
cent
by 2016.
102.Axis
Bank, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary,
announced
the launch of ‘Asha Home Loan’, a 30‐
year
home loan product for first time home buyers
in
the lower income segment, seeking affordable
EMIs.
103.The
1992 Babri Mosque demolition was an “act of
planned
sabotage” , news portal Cobrapost claimed
on
the basis of a sting operation it carried over a
period
of two years.
104.India
marched towards establishing its own
navigation
system when its Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle
(PSLV‐C24) put into precise orbit the
country’s
second navigation satellite, the Indian
Regional
Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS‐1B).
IRNSS‐1B
will form part of a constellation of the
seven
navigation satellites. It was the 25th success
in
a row for the PSLV, after it majestically lifted off
from
the first launch pad at Sriharikota.
105.Doha
Bank will be opening its first branch in
Mumbai
next month.
106.The
Uttar Pradesh police lodged an FIR in Bijnore
against
Bharatiya Janata Party’s general secretary
in‐charge
of Uttar Pradesh Amit Shah for his alleged
“hate
speech” in Muzaffarnagar.
107.India
was the third most affected country in 2013
by
the notorious Zeus malware‐attack that is used
to
steal sensitive data from industries like finance.
108.Mukesh
Ambani‐led Reliance Jio Infocomm has
signed
an agreement with younger brother Anil
Ambani‐controlled
Reliance Communications
(RCom)
for sharing the latter’s extensive intra‐city
optic
fibre infrastructure.
109.Social
media giant Facebook has crossed 100
million
active users in India, its largest base outside
the
US.
110.Sabotage
is one of the six possible reasons for the
sinking
of kilo‐class submarine INS Sindhurakshak
in
August 2013 according to the committee report
chaired
by Commodore Deepak Bisht.
111.India’s
Mars Orbiter completed half the distance of
its
epic voyage to the red planet. On 10 April, the
spacecraft
sailed past 34 crore kilometres of its 68‐
crore‐km
curved path. On November 5, 2013, the
Polar
Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV‐C25) put the
Mars
Orbiter into its earth‐orbit. ISRO has been
continuously
monitoring the spacecraft using its
deep
space network station at Byalalu, near
Bangalore.
112.The
World Bank projected an economic growth
rate
of 5.7 per cent in fiscal year 2014 for India.
113.The
National Association of Software and Services
Companies
(Nasscom) appointed Executive Vice‐
Chairman
of Cognizant India R. Chandrasekaran as
its
Chairman for 2014‐15.
114.Delhi
witnessed a record 64.77 per cent voter
turnout.
115.State
Bank of India has hit the overseas bond
market
with a dual tranche benchmark issue of 5‐
year
and 10‐year maturity to raise up to $1 billion.
116.Election
Commission directed the Chief Secretary
of
Uttar Pradesh to initiate criminal proceedings
against
Azam Khan and Amit shah and ban public
meetings
where they are expected to be present.
117.India
has decided to send the naval stealth frigate
INS
Shivalik to participate in an international fleet
review
and maritime exercise hosted by the
Chinese
Navy on April 23. China’s People’s
Liberation
Army (PLA) Navy is hosting the review
and
exercise in the northeastern port of Qingdao,
the
headquarters of its North Sea fleet, as it
prepares
to mark its 65th anniversary with great
fanfare.
118.Gunmen
attacked Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister
Saleh
al‐Mutlak’s convoy in the Abu Ghraib area
west
of Baghdad.
119.Insurance
Regulatory and Development Authority
(IRDA)
imposed a fine of Rs.1.77 crore on Reliance
Life
Insurance for violation of various norms.
120.U.S.
regulators have warned Facebook and
WhatsApp
to uphold the data privacy of their users,
following
the announcement of their $19 billion
merger.
121.Libya’s
interim Prime Minister Abdullah al‐Thani
stepped
down.
122.In
a ground‐breaking trial, researchers in the UK
will
test artificial blood made from human stem
cells
in patients for the first time.
123.Supreme
Court recognised the transgender
community
as a third gender along with male and
female.
124.Noida
Authority sealed realty firm Supertech’s two
40‐storey
towers with more than 800 flats
following
the Allahabad High Court’s order to
demolish
the buildings.
125.India‐born
poet Vijay Seshadri has won the
prestigious
2014 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry
category
for his collection of poems “3 Sections.”
126.State
Bank of India launched three digital banking
facilities
at the customer’s door step using TAB
banking;
one for customers opening Savings Bank
accounts
and another for Housing Loan applicants.
The
third is e‐KYC (Know your Customer).
127.The
Mt Gox bitcoin exchange in Tokyo is headed
for
liquidation after a court rejected its bankruptcy
protection
application.
128.The
Supreme Court made it clear that it was open
to
the Delhi Lieutenant‐Governor deciding on the
timing
for dissolution of the Assembly and it could
not
impose any opinion on him or the President of
India
as to when they should take a call on the
issue.
129.The
Supreme Court made it clear that private
companies
that share revenue from natural
resources
such as spectrum with the government
would
be subjected to audit by the Comptroller and
Auditor
General.
130.Russia,
the United States, the European Union and
Ukraine
have agreed on a plan to resolve the crisis
in
Ukraine through a constitutional reform that
would
grant more powers to Russian‐speaking
regions.
After eight‐hour talks in Geneva, the
Foreign
Ministers of the four nations signed a joint
statement
on de‐escalation of the Ukraine crisis.
131.India’s
foreign exchange reserves jumped to
$309.444
billion in the week ended April 11 on the
back
of a healthy rise in currency assets.
132.China
has for the first time released details of its
recently
announced “maritime Silk Road” plan,
announcing
that the Indian Ocean‐focused initiative
will
prioritise building ports and improving
infrastructure
in littoral countries like Bangladesh
and
Sri Lanka.
133.Syria
will hold presidential elections on June 3,
despite
a civil war.
134.After
a six‐year‐long court battle, Rohit Shekhar
heaved
a sigh of relief when the Delhi High Court
decreed
him to be the biological son of Congress
leader
N.D. Tiwari.
135.For
the first time, senior Indian Army officers
interacted
with the Chinese General responsible for
troop
operations on implementing the Border
Defence
Cooperation Agreement (BDCA).
136.Pakistan
conducted a successful training launch of
the
short range surface‐to‐surface ballistic missile
Hatf
III (Ghaznavi), which can carry nuclear and
conventional
warheads to a range of 290 km.
137.Reserve
Bank of India has suggested that banks
introduce
two‐stage authentication to ensure
security
of transactions. The banks have been
mandated
to issue EMV (card with chip and pin) to
certain
category of customers and for the other
customers,
banks have been given option to either
issue
EMV cards or adopt Aadhaar biometric
authentication
as additional factor of
authentication.
138.India
has concluded an ‘in substance’ agreement
with
the U.S. to combat possible tax evasion by
Americans
through Indian financial entities. The ‘in
substance’
agreement with India under the Foreign
Account
Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) was
concluded
on April 11, the U.S. Treasury said.
139.Promoters
of National Power Exchange have
decided
to wind up the company. National Power
Exchange
is jointly promoted by NTPC, PFC and
NHPC
and private sector Tata Consultancy Services.
140.India
and Bhutan signed an agreement for the
development
of joint hydropower projects in a bid
to
further strengthen their bilateral strategic
partnership.
141.Air
passengers can now use portable electronic
devices
such as mobiles, laptops and tablets in all
phases
of flight, the Directorate General Civil
Aviation
(DGCA) said.
142.AAP
leader Somnath Bharti was on assaulted
allegedly
by BJP workers at the Assi ghat at an
election‐related
programme.
143.WhatsApp
now has 500 million regular, active
users
around the world. Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg
announced in February that his social
network
was acquiring WhatsApp for $19 billion.
144.The
Supreme Court has clarified that children
born
out of a live‐in relationship, where the couple
have
lived together for a long time as husband and
wife,
could not be called illegitimate.
145.Siddharth
, a Hindi film by Indian‐Canadian
director
Richie Mehta, was the surprise winner at
the
Beijing film festival.
146.The
tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands is
taking
on the United States and the world’s eight
other
nuclear‐armed nations. The island group that
was
used for dozens of U.S. nuclear tests after
World
War II was filing a suit against each of the
nine
countries in the International Court of Justice
in
The Hague, Netherlands.
147.The
much‐publicised Inflation‐Indexed Bonds
(IIBs)
failed to attract investor interest, either retail
or
institutional, in the last financial year. The
Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) is now planning to relaunch
this
product in a restructured form.
148.The
Enforcement Directorate filed a “prosecution
complaint”
before a Delhi court against former
Telecom
Minister A. Raja, Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam
MP K. Kanimozhi and DMK chief M.
Karunanidhi's
wife Dayalu Ammal among others
for
money laundering in the 2G spectrum allocation
case.
149.Japan
and the United States have announced joint
support
for the U.N. Women’s Safe City Programme
in
Delhi. The announcement was made during U.S.
President
Obama’s visit to Tokyo.
150.Ecuador’s
President Rafael Correa has ordered all
U.S.
military officers to leave the country by the end
of
the month and cancelled a security cooperation
programme
with the Pentagon, U.S. officials said.
151.Syria
still holds around eight per cent of its
declared
chemical weapons material, as the
deadline
for it to be handed over expired on 27
April
according to Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint
Organisation
for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons‐U.N.
team.
152.The
Philippines and the United States announced
they
would sign an agreement to allow a greater
U.S.
military presence on Filipino soil for the next
decade.
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