Current Affairs - 26 October 2014

Airbus may partner Tatas for manufacturing defence transport aircraft

• NEW DELHI: French aircraft giant Airbus is likely to tie up with the Tatas to manufacture transport planes for the defence sector, sources familiar with the development told TOI.
  
  The planned partnership is likely to mark the first big-ticket entry after the Narendra Modi government raised the FDI limit in defence production to 49% from 26% to boost domestic manufacturing and reduce outgo of foreign exchange.
  
  The proposed entry of Airbus in partnership with the Tatas puts at rest doubts that were expressed when the sector was opened up. The government had faced criticism for not allowing majority control for foreign partners and there was an apprehension that global majors might stay away.
  
  India Air Force has plans to replace its Avros aircraft, and the Airbus-Tata combine is one among several groups that are expected to bid for the contract. An email sent to a Tata Sons spokesperson did not elicit any response.
  
  Several Indian companies ranging from Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries to the Mahindras and Bharat Forge have entered the defence industry but the Tata Group seems to have taken an early lead in a segment hitherto dominated by imports.
  
  The government has embarked on a "Make in India" campaign to ensure that the country emerges as a global hub for low-cost quality manufacturing; the defence sector is a key element in this strategy.
  
  In August the Union cabinet approved raising the FDI in the sensitive defence sector and opened up railway infrastructure to foreign firms. The cabinet had also decided that FDI beyond 49% would be allowed in state-of-the art defence equipment manufacturing, with technology transfer under Indian control and management.

Brows raised after Uddhav Thackeray keeps away from Modi event

• MUMBAI: Anti-Sena sentiments continued to run high in the BJP on Saturday, with Uddhav Thackeray's decision to keep away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Mumbai function lending credence to talks of the yet-to-be-bridged Sena-BJP gulf.
  
  The Sena president would also not be attending Modi's high tea in New Delhi, sources said, though the Sena sought to play down its significance. "There is nothing controversial about it. The high tea is meant for NDA MPs and not party chiefs," said a Sena MP. Some Sena MPs wouldn't be able to participate in the PM's event because of prior engagements, he added.
  
  Neither party, however, appeared closer to a final decision on government formation. A section in the Maharashtra BJP is of the view that keeping the Sena out of the government could be a risky proposition for the BJP, given the Sena's 63-strong presence in the House.
  
  "As the principal opposition party, the Sena may make matters difficult for the BJP government in the assembly. An aggressive Sena could reboot itself as a regional force. This could mean trouble for the BJP in Mumbai where civic polls will be held in 2017," said a senior BJP legislator from Mumbai.
  
  However, anti-Sena feelings continued to pervade the state unit. "The party already has 138 MLAs on its side, including several Independents," said a senior BJP functionary, adding that the Sena's aggressive stance towards the BJP in the run-up to the polls and the declaration of results was to blame for the attitude within his party

Akhilesh cracks the whip, sacks 70 ‘lal batti’ ministers for non-performance

• LUCKNOW : Reasserting his authority, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, in a sudden move on Saturday evening, sacked 70 persons holding the minister of state (MoS) rank allegedly for non-performance and serving their own interests. At present, there were 82 such 'ministers' in the Samajwadi Party government and only 12 of them, all holding constitutional posts, have been spared.
  
  The action has come barely 15 days after SP general secretary Ram Gopal yadav had said at the party executive meet in lucknow that many of these 'ministers' were involved in 'nefarious' activities and recommended strong action against them. Besides, a PIL challenging these appointments in the high court was coming up for hearing next month.
  
  Although there was no official release about the sacking, the appointment department confirmed that 70 nominated ministers had been removed and 12 of them spared. There was confusion about the number as an earlier release said that 16 nominated ministers had been allowed to continue, but later the number was revised to 12.

Nitin Gadkari, not for the first time, rides 2-wheeler without helmet

• NAGPUR/NEW DELHI: Road transport minister Nitin Gadkari kicked up a row after he rode his two-wheeler (MH49 P6327) for about half a kilometer to and fro without wearing a helmet to reach Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters in Mahal on Saturday morning. 
  
  Soon after taking charge of road transport ministry Nitin Gadkari had said no one will be spared for violating traffic rules whether it's a "politician or journalist" as he pushed for an international standard road safety law. Raising his concern over people's little respect for traffic laws in India, Gadkari had said, "People don't respect law here. Henceforth with the new act, advanced CCTV cameras would be installed at all traffic signals and anyone violating the law will be issued challan in the next 24 hours." 
  
  He had added, "If anyone violates the road rules more than three times, his driving licence will be suspended for six months and if he continues to violate after that, then the driving licence will be cancelled." Gadkari has called a meeting of state transport ministers and secretaries on Tuesday to take a final view on the proposed bill so that his ministry can circulate a Cabinet note for inter-ministerial consultation. The government has set the target to introduce the bill in the winter session. 
  
  On Saturday, the NDA minister refused to comment on TV, and later to TOI too, and was seen continuing to ride the scooter. When the Nagpur joint commissioner of police Anup Kumar Singh was asked about penalizing Gadkari, he said, "I'll have to look into the issue and wait for the return of commissioner of police KK Pathak who is on leave."

Modi, CMs of BJP-ruled states to attend Khattar’s swearing-in today

• PANCHKULA : The swearing-in ceremony of Haryana's first BJP chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, will be a big event with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, several union ministers, chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, BJP president Amit Shah and several other important people likely to attend the ceremony on Sunday.
  
  The swearing-in will be held in Sector 5 of Panchkula town adjoining Chandigarh. Haryana governor Kaptan Singh Solanki will administer the oath of office to Khattar. Departing from protocol, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the oath taking ceremony.
  
  This is the first time that a chief minister in Haryana is being sworn-in at a public ceremony instead of the event being held at the Raj Bhavan. BJP leaders said that nearly one lakh people could attend the ceremony. "People will come in big numbers. Common people will be able to see the ceremony for the first time," said Anil Vij, senior BJP legislator who is tipped to become a minister.
  
  Prime Minister Modi is likely to arrive at the Chandigarh airport before proceeding to Panchkula. "The ceremony is going to be a big event. Top leaders will be attending it," sate BJP president Ram Bilas Sharma said.
  
  The BJP, which till now used to play second fiddle to other regional parties in the state, created history by winning a majority 47 seats in the Haryana assembly polls.

NSA to oversee terror probe in West Bengal, get Mamata govt on board

• NEW DELHI: Taking a serious view of the revelations of a deep terror network in West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will send national security adviser Ajit Doval to the state on Monday to personally oversee the ongoing investigations and persuade the state government to be part of the solution.
  
  Doval will be accompanied by IB chief Asif Ibrahim during his visit, signalling the importance the government is giving to these developments. Doval's first engagement will be a meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
  
  The NSA will carry a personal message from the PM asking for "full support" of the state government in carrying out the investigations on an al-Qaida affiliate taking root in the border state.
  
  Faced with some resistance from the Mamata government on investigations into the terror network in the wake of the Burdwan blasts, an alarmed Central government has asked Doval to brief the Trinamool dispensation at length and "sensitise" it to the dangers of what has been unravelling.

79-year-old gifts kidney to son, Mumbai’s oldest donor

• MUMBAI: Nilesh Ruparel, a 36-year-old autorickshaw driver from Dombivli, has been in the news often for playing the Good Samaritan. He ferries physically challenged people for free and had once returned a passenger's bag containing Rs 4.75 lakh worth of valuables and cash. 
  
  Last month, he received a special gift from his father Vithaldas —a kidney donation. What makes the father-son story stand out, though, is the father's age; he is 79. 
  
  "The father is possibly the oldest donor in the city or the country," said nephrologist Dr A V Ingale who treated Nilesh when he was rushed to Fortis Hospital in Mulund in a diabetic stupor in August . The doctor admits that under ordinary circumstances he would have been reluctant to consider a donor who is over 65 years of age. 

9 killed, 24 injured in bus accident near Guwahati

• GUWAHATI: Nine people were killed and 24 others injured after a bus fell into a trench in Kaliabor, Assam.
  
  The bus was going from Lakhimpur district to Guwahati.
  
  According to reports, a total of 33 people were on the bus. The injured have been rushed to the nearest hospital.
  
  Eye witnesses said that the bus was speeding when the driver lost control of the bus and hit a culvert.

GENERAL AWARENESS PRACTICE QUESTIONS FOR ALL BANK EXAMS

• 1. Who replaced Arvind Mayaram as the Economic Affairs Secretary in October 2014?
  1) Anil Swarup
  2) S.K. Srivastava
  3) Alok Rawat
  4) Rajiv Mehrishi
  5) Vinod Agrawal
• 2. The European Parliament has awarded its highest human rights accolade, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to?
  1) Edward Snowden
  2) Denis Mukwege
  3) Leyla Yunus
  4) Muhammad Yunus
  5) Alan Rusbridger
• 3. Which of the following teams defended the Sultan of Johor Cup under-21 hockey title on October 19, 2014?
  1) India
  2) Great Britain
  3) Australia
  4) New Zealand
  5) South Korea
• 4. Who won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for his book "The Narrow Road to the Deep North"?
  1) Howard Jacobson
  2) Joshua Ferris
  3) Richard Powers
  4) Richard Flanagan
  5) David Mitchell
• 5. Who will head the National Committee to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of India's
  first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru?
  1) Karan Singh
  2) Sonia Gandhi
  3) Sushma Swaraj
  4) Arun Jaitley
  5) Narendra Modi
• 6. Who won the Challenger tennis tournament at the Indore Club Courts on October 19, 2014?
  1) Saketh Myneni
  2) Somdev Devvarman
  3) Yuki Bhambri
  4) R. Ramkumar
  5) None of these
• 7. Identify the mismatched pair regarding Author and Book.
  1) Joshua Ferris: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
  2) Karen Joy Fowler: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
  3) Joseph O'Neill: The Dog
  4) Niall Williams: History of the Rain
  5) Neel Mukherjee: How to be Both
• 8. Sultan of Johor Cup is an annual international under-21 field hockey tournament held in?
  1) Pakistan
  2) Bangladesh
  3) Malaysia
  4) Indonesia
  5) Iran
• 9. Who among the following is not a Golf player?
  1) Anirban Lahiri
  2) Baek Seuk-Hyun
  3) Bubba Watson
  4) Louis Oosthuizen
  5) Vladimir Klitschko
• 10. The Supreme Court lifted the 19-month ban on iron ore mining in which of the following states in April 2014?
  1) Karnataka
  2) Maharashtra
  3) Goa
  4) Odisha
  5) Kerala
• 11. Who is the author of the book "Urban Villager -Life in an Indian Satellite Town"?
  1) Mukul Kesavan
  2) Vandana Vasudevan
  3) Rashmi Bansal
  4) Chetan Bhagat
  5) None of these
• 12. DRT is associated with?
  1) Deposit insurance
  2) Recurring deposits
  3) Loan recovery
  4) Demand deposits
  5) Fixed deposits
• 13. Dactylography is commonly known as?
  1) Carbon dating
  2) Water printing
  3) Finger printing
  4) Electro cardiogram
  5) None of these
• 14. Curcumin is a derivative of which of the following?
  1) Ginger
  2) Turmeric
  3) Garlic
  4) Sunflower
  5) Jasmine
• 15. Who is the first Indian woman winner of Miss Universe?
  1) Aishwarya Rai
  2) Rita Faria
  3) Lara Dutta
  4) Sushmita Sen
  5) Diana Hayden
• 16. Which of the following books is not written by Salman Rushdie?
  1) Shame
  2) Midnight's Children
  3) The Satanic Verses
  4) The Moor's Last Sigh
  5) The Shape of the Beast
• 17. MENA refers to the countries in?
  1) Middle East and North African countries
  2) Middle East and North American countries
  3) Mediterranean Europe and North Atlantic countries
  4) Mediterranean Europe and North American countries
  5) None of these
• 18. Open market operations refer to the sale and purchase by the Reserve Bank of India of?
  1) Foreign currency
  2) Gold
  3) Government bonds
  4) All the above
  5) None of these
• 19. The agency that estimates national income in India is?
  1) RBI
  2) Planning Commission
  3) CSO
  4) Finance Ministry
  5) None of these
• 20. Who is the author of 'Panchatantra'?
  1) Banabhatt
  2) Vishnu Sharma
  3) Jaya Deva
  4) Hala
  5) None of these
• 21. IRDA is the Indian regulator for the?
  1) Banking sector
  2) Mutual funds
  3) Rural development
  4) Insurance sector
  5) None of these
• 22. The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is?
  1) Elected by Members of the Lok Sabha
  2) Appointed by the President
  3) The leader of the majority party in the Lok Sabha
  4) The Senior most member of the Lok Sabha
  5) None of these
• 23. Which two institutions are popularly referred to as the Bretton Woods Twins?
  1) IMF and World Bank
  2) World Bank and ADB
  3) ADB and IMF
  4) UNO and WTO
  5) UNESCO and UNICEF
• 24. Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body concerned with?
  1) Money laundering
  2) Stock markets
  3) Foreign Direct Investment
  4) Foreign Institutional Investors
  5) None of these
• 25. The movie 'Life of Pi' is based on a novel written by?
  1) Peter Carey
  2) Alan Hollinghurst
  3) Yann Martel
  4) P.H. Newby
  5) Eleanor Catton
• 26. LIDL, Walgreen, ASDA and Kroger are?
  1) Automobile companies
  2) Retailers
  3) Electronic product manufacturers
  4) Oil companies
  5) None of these
• 27. Which bank was the first to introduce the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) in India?
  1) HSBC
  2) Citibank
  3) Standard Chartered Bank
  4) HDFC Bank
  5) SBI
• 28. The Three Gorges Dam is located in?
  1) China
  2) Brazil
  3) Russia
  4) Japan
  5) Vietnam
• 29. Who created the cartoon character Richie Rich?
  1) Elzie Crisler Segar
  2) Dan Yaccarino
  3) William Hanna
  4) Walt Disney
  5) Alfred Harvey
• 30. Bombay House in Mumbai serves as the head office of the?
  1) Tata Group
  2) Reliance Industries limited
  3) Aditya Birla Group
  4) K.K. Birla Group
  5) Yash Birla Group
• 31. Recommendations of which committee led to the reforms in the banking sector in India in the Nineties?
  1) Malhotra committee
  2) Narsimham committee
  3) Mayaram committee
  4) Damodaran committee
  5) Tarapore committee
• 32. Which country is the largest producer of newsprint?
  1) Indonesia
  2) Finland
  3) Canada
  4) China
  5) None of these
• 33. India's Direct Cash Transfer scheme draws similarities from models of?
  1) Brazil
  2) Germany
  3) Australia
  4) USA
  5) UK
• 34. How many pairs of chromosomes exist in a human cell?
  1) 12
  2) 23
  3) 34
  4) 45
  5) 46
• 35. 'Relationship beyond banking' is the tagline of?
  1) State Bank of India
  2) Central Bank of India
  3) Bank of India
  4) Bank of Baroda
  5) Bank of Maharashtra
• 36. Which instrument measures blood pressure?
  1) Sphygmomanometer
  2) Hygrometer
  3) Saccharimeter
  4) Spherometer
  5) Lactometer
• 37. Who among the following is not a banker?
  1) Shikha Sharma
  2) Chanda Kochhar
  3) Nainalal Kidwai
  4) Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
  5) Arundhathi Bhattacharya
• 38. The currency of which of the following countries is Litas?
  1) Lithuania
  2) Liberia
  3) Latvia
  4) Laos
  5) Lebanon
• 39. Manama is the capital city of which of the following countries?
  1) Panama
  2) Liberia
  3) Bahrain
  4) Peru
  5) Uruguay
• 40. Bhaka Wata is a dance form of?
  1) Assam
  2) Tripura
  3) Bihar
  4) Odisha
  5) Jharkhand
• ANSWERS:
  1) 4 2) 2 3) 1 4) 4 5) 5 6) 1 7) 5 8) 3 9) 5 10) 3
  11) 2 12) 3 13) 3 14) 2 15) 4 16) 5 17) 1 18) 3 19) 3 20) 2
  21) 4 22) 1 23) 1 24) 1 25) 3 26) 2 27) 1 28) 1 29) 5 30) 1
  31) 2 32) 3 33) 1 34) 2 35) 3 36) 1 37) 4 38) 1 39) 3 40) 4