Current Affairs
November 29 2013
1. Sachin Tendulkar appointed as UNICEF’s first brand ambassador for South Asia
i. Indian Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar on 28 November 2013 appointed as UNICEF’s first brand ambassador for South Asia.
ii. Sachin Tendulkar will work for promoting hygiene and sanitation in the South Asian region for two years. iii. Sachin Tendulkar was already involving with the UNICEF campaigns for polio and global hand washing.
iv. According to UNICEF, almost half the population in India defecates in the open and 681 million people practice open defecation in South Asia.
v. Children under five years of age are the most vulnerable to the effects of poorsanitation and annually more than half a million children in South Asia die of diarrhoea caused by unsafe drinking water, poor hygiene and lack of sanitation.
2. RBI relaxed the norms for participation of NBFCs in Insurance Joint Ventures
i. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 28 November 2013 relaxed norms for participation of Non-Banking Finance Companies (NBFCs) in the insurance joint ventures by allowing them to hold more than 50 percent in such companies.
ii. The notification of Reserve Bank of India has stated that – it has been decided that in cases where IRDA issues calls for capital infusion into the Insurance joint venture company, the RBI may, on a case to case basis, consider need based relaxation of the 50 percent group limit.
iii. In the operation of Insurance Company, the IRDA often requires an insurance company to expand its capital taking into account the stipulations of the Insurance Act and the solvency requirements of the insurance company.
3. Assam Pavilion receives Gold award at IITF-2013
i. The Assam Pavilion was adjudged “First for Excellence in display amongst State Governments and Union Territory Pavilions” and was given the award of Gold Medal in the India International Trade Fair 2013 at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.
ii. This is the first time in the 33 years of history of the IITF that a State Government has consecutively received the prestigious Gold Award in succession after the Gold Awards in 2012.
iii. The theme of this year was “Inclusive Growth” and the themePavilion set up reflected the growth of various sectors in the State.
iv. The stall set up by the Directorate of Tea where various types of Tea were shown and testing procedure of teas were demonstrated was another highlight.
v. This year 57 organisations participated in Assam Pavilion, of which 40 are Micro Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and the remaining 17 are Govt. departments, public sector undertaking (PSU).
4. Law intern names Justice Ganguly
i. The woman law intern has informed the three-judge panel that it was former Supreme Court Judge A.K. Ganguly who had allegedly sexually harassed her in December last.
ii. According to highly placed sources, following the naming of the judge, the probe committee comprising Justices R.M. Lodha, H.L. Dattu and Ranjana Desai had recorded the statement of Justice Ganguly. The panel submitted its report to the Chief Justice of India P. Sathasivam on Thursday.
iii. The Committee was set up by the CJI as a fact finding panel to find out the veracity of the contents of a blog in which the law intern had highlighted the alleged sexual harassment incident involving the judge concerned.
iv. The woman intern had alleged that the retired judge had misbehaved with her in a hotel room last December when the nation was protesting against the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman in the capital.
v. The contents of her blog were published in a newspaper and the committee was asked to probe into the correctness of her statement and the alleged incident.
5. Noted Dalit Writer Omprakash Valmiki Passed away
i. Noted Dalit writer Omprakash Valmiki passed away on 17 November 2013 at Dehradun, Uttarakhand. He died at the age of 63 after prolonged illness due to cancer.
ii. Omprakash Valmiki is one of the most famous Dalit litterateurs in Hindi and he portrayed the life of Dalits with an authentically Dalit voice.
iii. He was born in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh in 1950. He worked with Government Ordnance Factory Dehradun.
iv. Valmiki’s autobiography Joothan is one of his famous works. In his autobiography Joothan (1997) he spoke in detail about the caste discrimination, persecution and humiliation that he faced, when he is growing up. Joothan is regarded as a milestone in Hindi literature.
6. Google has set up election portal in India
i. Google on 28 November 2013 setup an election portal in India, the largest democracy of the world.
ii. The portal will provide polls and politics related news to users in India. The launched search engine will also provide information on the political parties.
iii. This portal will help the voters of India to get the answers on elections and voting-related queries to make an informed decision. Initially, during the first phase of the launch will cover the videos and information related to state elections in Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Mizoram.
iv. It will cover news from leading publications and broadcasters both in English and Hindi.
7. Silvio Berlusconi expelled from Italian Parliament
i. The Italian Senate on 27 November 2013 expelled ex- Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from Parliament over his tax fraud conviction.
ii. The Senate declared Berlusconi ineligible for parliament after he was convicted of masterminding a complex system of illegally inflated invoices to cut the tax bill for his Mediaset television empire.
About Silvio Berlusconi
• He was born on 29 September 1936.
• Berlusconi, 77, is an entrepreneur, media tycoon and politician.
• In 1993, Berlusconi founded his own political party, Forza Italia – Go Italy – named after a chant used by Italian football fans.
• Berlusconi as Italian politician dominated for two decades and he served three times as Prime Minister (In between 1994-2011). He was the member of Italian senate.
8. The National Green Tribunal on 28 November 2013 stated that state law can’t prevail over central rules on sand mining
9. European Union has signed an agreement to provide the financial assistance worth 122 million dollar to Egypt to tide over the financial crisis
10. Four new species of freshwater catfish recently discovered in Idukki and Pathanamthitta districts of Kerala
11. ISRO and NASA will coordinate functions of their Mars Orbiters-Mangalyaan and MAVEN once both get into orbit of the Mars planet in September 2014
12. Google has setup an election portal in India to provide polls and politics related news to users in India
13. The 9th International Heavy Minerals Conference (HMC 2013) was held in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh from 27 to 29 November 2013
14. The CCEA has approved the proposal to undertake scientific deep drilling in the Koyna intra-plate seismic zone, in Maharashtra
15. A music album that contains original poems of Swami Vivekananda was launched by Jitin Prasada to commemorate his 150th birth celebrations
Current Affairs Questions:
1) Which major industrial group of the country on 27 November, 2013 withdrew its application with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a banking licence?
Tata Sons, which is the holding company of the Tata Group (It thus became the second industrial group after Videocon-promoted Value Industries to opt out of the race for banking license that now has 25 entities in the fray. For Tata Sons, the constraining factor was the RBI guideline for new bank licences that required all financial services entities in a group to be necessarily owned by the non-operating financial holding company (NOFHC). To comply, the Tatas would have had to re-organise the existing financial services structure of the Group. The Tata move comes just two months before the final licences for new banks are to be issued by the RBI)
2) Vietnam’s 13th National Assembly on 28 November, 2013 passed an amendment to the country’s Constitution of 1992 in its sixth session in capital Hanoi. What are the two major implications of this amendment?
This amendment reaffirms the leading political and economic role of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)
The amendment also states that land rights can be revoked for socio-economic projects and the armed forces must be loyal to the party
(The amendment passed on 28 November was actually seen as a setback in comparison with the first draft of the amendment, because it reaffirms that the state must play a central role in the economy — a point the proposed draft had removed)
3) Following the attack on a woman at an ATM in Bangalore during November 2013, the Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) urged recently the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to drop which plan associated with increasing the penetration of ATMs in the country?
‘White-label ATMs’ (Under the plan of White-label ATMs, it would be the responsibility of the private agencies to locate, install, and maintain these ATMs. BEFI is of the view that security is a major issue with White-label ATMs. India’s first white-label ATM ‘IndiCash’ was started during 2013 by Tata Communications Payment Solutions Ltd. (TCPSL), a subsidiary of Tata Communications)
4) What ease in norms for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) involved in insurance joint-ventures was announced by the RBI on 28 November, 2013?
They have been allowed to hold more than 50% in such companies (As per existing norms, an NBFC could not hold more than 50% of the paid-up capital of an insurance joint-venture)
5) Which famous British motorcycle brand on 28 November, 2013 made its entry into the Indian market with 10 models?
Triumph (These motorcycles have been priced between Rs. 5.7 lakh and Rs. 20 lakh (ex-Delhi))
6) Gen. Raheel Sharif, who took over as the new Chief of Pakistani Army on 29 Nvember, 2013 is the ……..Chief of Pakistani Army?
15th (He replaced the outgoing Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani)
QUIZ:
1. Who will decide the office of profit?
(A) President and Governor
(B) Union Parliament
(C) Supreme Court
(D) Union Public Service Commission</span></div>
2. A Money Bill in the Parliament can be introduced only with the recommendation of the—
(A) President of India
(B) Union Cabinet
(C) Speaker of the Lok Sabha
(D) Union Finance Minister
3. Who was the first Deputy Prime Minister of India ? (A) Morarji Desai
(B) Vallabbhai Patel
(C) G. B. Pant
(D) Devi Lal
4. Which of the following is also known as ‘Eternal city’ ? (A) London
(B) Rome
(C) Athens
(D) Berlin
5. Submerged objects can be located using—
(A) Radar
(B) Sonar
(C) Quassar
(D) Pulsar
6. Plants growing well in hill crevices are:
A. Lithophytes
B. Ermophytes
C. Chasmophytes
D. Psammophytes
7. Information of birth rate, death rate, ex ratio, age distribution of population can be got from:
A. Nasality table
B. Mortality table
C. Age distribution table
D. Life table
8. Distant objects can be seen with the help of
(a) chronometer
(b) microscope
(c)telescope
(d) spectroscope
9. Conversion of chemical energy into electrical energy occurs in ?</p>
(a)dynamos
(b) electric heaters
(c)battery
(d) atomic bombs
10. The best colour (s) for a sun umbrella will be
(a)black
(b) black on top and white on the inside
(c)white on top and black on the inside
(d) printed with all the seven colours of rainbow
11. Recoil of a gun is an example of
(a) conservation of mass
(b) conservation of energy
(c) conversion of Potential Energy into Kinetic Energy
(d) conservation of linear momentum
Answers:
1. (a) 2. (a) 3. (b) 4. (c) 5. (b) 6. (a) 7. (d) 8. (c) 9. (c) 10. (c) 11. (d)
