Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Apr 02, 2017

ANSWER: Harmanpreet Kaur

Explanation:
Indian Women’s T20I captain Harmanpreet Kaur has been given Sydney Thunder’s Women’s Player of the Year award for the second season of the Women’s Big Bash League.

Pat Cummins, who was brought in a replacement for Mitchell Starc during Australia’s tour of India, after the Ranchi Test, won the Michael Hussey Medal for the Best Men’s Player of the Year award for the Men’s Sydney Thunder franchise.

28-year-old Kaur became the first ever Indian cricketer to be picked by a Big Bash League franchise, when the Sydney Thunder picked her in their squad.

Kaur’s selection was soon followed by that of Smriti Mandhana, who was picked by the Brisbane Heat, later in the year.

During her time with the Thunder, Kaur played in 13 matches and scored 296 runs at a very, very impressive average of 59 and a strike-rate 116.

She also slammed the joint-second most number of sixes in the competition and also hit 17 fours during her stint.

Harmanpreet Kaur: Know More

• Born: 8 March 1989 Moga
• Nationality: Indian
• Current team: India women's national cricket team
• Date joined: 7 March 2009 (India women's national cricket team)
• Odi shirt number: 84

ANSWER: Kanha

Explanation:
Kanha has become the first tiger reserve in India to officially introduce a mascot - Bhoorsingh the Barasingha - to present the hard ground swamp deer as the spirit of the reserve and spread awareness to save it from possible extinction.

Barasingha, or swamp deer, is the state animal of Madhya Pradesh.

The Kanha tiger reserve, spread over Mandla and Balaghat districts, is the only place in the world where the species exists.

The idea emerged from the work of Nagpur’s award-winning cartoonist Rohan Chakravarty, who makes cartoons and illustrations on wildlife.

The cartoonist choose the Barasingha, an endemic variety of deer, as the park’s mascot. ‘Bhoor’ means tawny/golden and ‘Singh’ means antlers.

Bhoorsingh will soon feature in more artwork, posters and merchandise for the park management at Kanha.

As per the forest department, the mascot will not only play an important role in attracting the younger generation towards conservation but will also be used to spread awareness in form of stories and comic strips.

The good conservation practises coupled with grassland management by the forest department saw the population, which was on the brink of extinction in the 70's, to increase to more than 800 now.

Kanha: Know More

• State: Madhya Pradesh
• Area: 940 km^²
• Established: 1955

ANSWER: echallan, mParivahan

Explanation:
The government has launched two mobile apps, echallan and mParivahan, that provide access to various services and information, and enable citizens to report any traffic violation or road accident.

eChallan is an integrated enforcement solution to manage traffic violations through an Android-based mobile app and back-end web application, for use by the Transport Enforcement Wing and Traffic Police.

This system is already operational in all regional transport offices in Uttar Pradesh, and both transport department and traffic police departments in a number of states are going to adopt the system shortly.

mParivahan is an empowering app for the citizen which provides access to various services, information and utilities related to the transport sector, bring convenience to citizen and transparency in the system.

The apps also have additional functionalities – like road accident and traffic violation reporting by citizen, concept of virtual and enforceable DL/RC and so on, apart from a host of other technological advanced tools, utilities and services.

ANSWER: Chandrababu Naidu

Explanation:
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu was conferred with One more Prestigious Award. US - India Business Council conferred ‘USIBC Transformative Chief Minister’.

The Council Chairman Johan Chambers extended an invitation to Naidu to deliver a keynote address at the Second Annual West Coast Summit.

More than 150 Representatives of various Technology Giant Companies will be attending this Summit.

He will be receiving the award at the second annual West Coast Summit to be held in Menlo Park, California on May 8.

He has been requested to deliver his message on the occasion and a message towards award function has been received by the CMO.

AP: Know More

• Area: 160,205 km^²
• Founded: 1 October 1953
• Population: 49.67 million (2011)
• Capitals: Hyderabad, Amaravati

ANSWER: Both the above

Explanation:
A three-year Comprehensive Scheme for Powerloom Sector Development was launched by Union Textile Minister Smriti Zubin Irani at Bhiwandi on April 1, 2017 and simultaneously at 47 powerloom centres in the country.

It aims to boost common infrastructure and modernisation of the powerloom sector.

The scheme, with an outlay of INR 487 crore for three years from 2017-2018, has nine major components, including two new ones.

The two new schemes are: Pradhan Mantri Credit Scheme for powerloom weavers and solar energy scheme for powerlooms.

Existing powerloom units, new ones, and group enterprises in weaving will now get 20 % of project cost with a ceiling of INR 1 lakh as margin money subsidy and 6% interest subvention, both for working capital and term loan up to INR 10 lakh for a maximum period of five years.

Powerloom units with maximum eight looms each will be eligible for 50 % subsidy for going in for solar energy for captive use, be it on grid or off grid system.

Funds made available for upgradation of plain powerlooms, establishing yarn banks, and group workshed scheme have been increased and the minimum number of looms needed for group workshed scheme has been brought down to 24 from 48.

Some of these existing schemes such as yarn bank and insitu upgradation of plain powerlooms have huge response already and these have been modified to benefit more weavers.

A helpline was introduced for weavers to get details of the scheme.

ANSWER: Union Petroleum and Natural Gas

Explanation:
Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on April 1, 2017 launched a supply of BS-IV grade fuel in 12 towns through video-conferencing.

This commences a new era of clean transportation fuels that would benefit 1.25 billion citizens of India by substantially reducing pollution levels.

Even though India is not a polluting country, it has shown commitment for reducing vehicular emission.

Oil companies were asked to expedite their efforts to introduce BS-VI standards by April1, 2020

The oil upgradation programme commenced in 1991.

Oil companies have achieved emission standards by continuously introducing advance technology and making huge capital expenditure.

The oil industry has spent over INR . 28,000 crore after 2010 for supplying BS-IV grade fuel. It was in addition to INR. 35,000 crore already spent before 2010.

Mr. Tripathi said oil companies would further spend INR 28,000 crore to supply BS-VI specification oil by 2020. As of now total investment made to upgrade oil comes to around INR 90,000 crore.

The Supreme Court has banned the sale of BS-III vehicles from April 1.

BS-VI: Know More

• According to Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry, India has reduced its diesel content from 10,000 ppm in the most of the country in 1996 to a maximum of 50 ppm in 2017.
  The proposed BS-VI regulation will reduce diesel sulphur content to a maximum 10 ppm.
• This will be enabling the introduction of advanced emission control technologies, including diesel particulate filters and selective catalyst reduction systems.
• This will be needed to meet BS-VI emission standards.
• As the technology for BS-V is not very different, it was decided to go straight to BS-VI grade fuels from BS-IV.

ANSWER: Smart India Hackathon

Explanation:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 1 addressed the "Smart India Hackathon", said to be the world's largest hackathon.

Aimed at promoting innovation, the exercise would see nearly 10,000 students producing digital solutions to 598 problems.

The 598 problems have been identified and posted by 29 central government departments and include issues like geo-fencing of airports, online toll collection, smart traffic management, cyber attacks and smart drones to make the airspace safer.

The 36-hour non-stop digital programming competition started at 8 a.m. on Saturday in 26 different locations in the country with each location handled by one central department or ministry.

The top three teams were awarded INR 1 lakh, 75,000 and 50,000 respectively and the digital solutions so awarded would be used by the ministry/departments for improving their governance systems, if necessary, with suitable upgradation.

All the prize winners are to be connected to form a Community of Innovative Minds.

The hackathon also aims at improving awareness about patents in the country.

According to World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), India registers 40 patents per million population.

WIPO: Know More

• Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
• CEO: Francis Gurry (1 Oct 2008)
• Founded: 1967
• Parent organization: United Nations

ANSWER: Germany

Explanation:
Germany's armed forces on April 1, 2017 launch a cyber command, with a status equal to that of the army, navy and air force, meant to shield its IT and weapons systems from attack.

Military planners fear that wars of the future will start with cyber attacks against critical infrastructure and networks, extensive online espionage and sabotage.

The Bundeswehr's new Cyber and Information Space (CIR) Command, based in the former West German capital of Bonn, will start off with 260 IT specialists.

It will grow to 13,500 military and civilian personnel by July.

With the new digital force, Germany is taking a leading role among NATO allies, its new commander, Lieutenant General Ludwig Leinhos, announced.

The main tasks would be to operate and protect the military's own IT infrastructure and computer-assisted weapons systems, as well as surveillance of online threats.

Centre would also develop and war-game offensive capabilities.

However, any full-scale cyber attacks abroad would have to be approved by the German parliament, just like any other military mission.

The security of national and government IT systems, meanwhile, remains the responsibility of the interior ministry which oversees the domestic security agency that handles counterespionage.

The German government has been sensitised to cyber security since the parliament was attacked last year, with security sources suspecting Russian hackers behind the attack.

Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen had announced the creation of the cyber command two years ago to protect the military from increasing numbers of online attacks.

IT systems of the Bundeswehr had been targeted more than 280,000 times up till now.

ANSWER: INR 25 crore

Explanation:
The government approved grants-in-aid of INR 25 crore to agro-economic research centres and units beyond 2016-17.

The amount will be required to continue the grants-in-aid to the existing 15 AERCs/AERUs.

The employees of 12 AERCs and three AERUs situated in different states will be benefited.

This would provide policy oriented Agro Economic Research inputs through field studies and reviewing / monitoring of Flagship programmes of the agriculture and allied sector.

This would lead to better agricultural development policy and programmes which in turn would raise employment potential in both farm and non-farm areas, it said.

It will be reviewed after one year for taking the final decision on the recommendations of the review committee, chaired by S M Jharwal, Chancellor, India Gandhi National Tribal University.

This committee was set up by the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DACFW), to review the functioning of AERCs/AERUs.

The review committee has recommended that the AERCs/AERUs must be retained and strengthened and that the present pattern of grant-in-aid to these grass-root research institutions must be continued.

The committee has also made recommendations regarding functioning and improving governance of the AERCs/AERUs.

AER: Know More

• The Agro-Economic Research (AER) Scheme is an on-going scheme initiated in 1954-55.
• It is for undertaking research studies on agro-economic problems of the country.
• The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation has set up 15 AERCs/AERUs in different Universities/Institutes with a view to conduct policy oriented research/evaluation studies on topics of interest.

ANSWER: INR 46,247 crore

Explanation:
The government has raised a record INR 46,247 crore through disinvestment, of which INR 10,779 crore has come from strategic disinvestment and SUUTI's investment.

With this, the disinvestment proceeds of 2016-17 has exceeded the revised estimates (RE) of Rs 45,500 crore set in 2017-18 Budget.

Record achievement of INR 46,247 crore include INR 35,468 crore from CPSE disinvestment and INR 10,779 crore from strategic disinvestment and SUUTI's investment.

The Budget for 2016-17 had set a target of INR 56,500 crore from PSU disinvestment.

Of this INR 36,000 crore was to come from disinvestment of CPSEs and INR 20,500 crore from strategic stake sale of PSUs.

In the Revised Estimates, this target of INR 56,500 crore was scaled down to INR 45,000 crore.

ANSWER: INR 110 billion

Explanation:
RBI increased the foreign portfolio investors' limits on investment in government bonds by INR 170 bn for the April-June period.

Limit for investment by FPIs in central government securities has risen by INR 110 bn while the same for SDLs rose by INR 60 bn.

On the central government securities, the cap on general category has been increased to INR 1565 bn from 1520 bn. For long term investors, the limit has risen to INR 745 bn from INR 680 bn earlier.

Total increase in investment caps for FPIs in g-secs is up INR 2310 bn from INR 2200 bn.

On the SDLs, the cap on investment by FPIs including long term ones has been moved to INR 270 bn from the earlier INR 210 bn.

The limits for the long term investors remaining unutilised at the end of March 2017 will be released for investment under the general category in April 2017.

Existing conditions, including the security-wise limits, investment of coupons being permitted outside the limits and investments being restricted to securities with a minimum residual maturity of three years, will continue to apply.

The operational guidelines relating to allocation and monitoring of limits will be issued by capital markets regulator SEBI.

RBI: Know More

• The Reserve Bank of India is the central bank of the country.
• The Reserve Bank of India was set up on the basis of the recommendations of the Hilton Young Commission.
• The Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 (II of 1934) provides the statutory basis for the functioning of the Bank, which commenced operations on April 1, 1935.
• After the partition of India, the Reserve Bank served as the central bank of Pakistan upto June 1948 when the State Bank of Pakistan commenced operations.
• The Bank, which was originally set up as a shareholder’s bank, was nationalized in 1949.

SEBI: Know More


• Founder: Government of India
• Founded: 12 April 1988
• Headquarters: Mumbai
• Number of employees: 643 (2012)
• Present chairman: Ajay Tyagi