Current Affairs Questions & Answers - July 15, 2016

ANSWER: 90 percent

Explanation:
Government expects to earn INR 56,000 crore through the sale of its stake in PSUs this financial year. This will result in estimated receipts of INR 1706 crore to the government.

• Actual realisation amount will be based on market conditions and investor interest prevailing at the time of actual disinvestment.
• To create a belongingness among employees of NBCC, the decision has been made to allot additional shares to eligible and willing employees at discount of 5 percent to the issue/discovered (lowest cut off) price of the offer for sale.
• Government expects to earn INR 56,000 crore through the sale of its stake in PSUs this financial year.
• Around INR 36,000 crore of this comes from minority stake sales and the remaining INR 20,000 crore from strategic stake sales.

ANSWER: Special National Investment Fund

Explanation:
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approves the proposal of the Department of Telecommunications regarding the transfer of shares by ITI Limited to the Special National Investment Fund to meet SEBI’s minimum public shareholding requirement.

• ITI Limited will be allowed to meet SEBI’s requirements of minimum 25 percent public shareholding by August 2017.
• Cabinet also approved the revised cost estimate of INR 7290.62 crore for the ongoing Puntsangchhu-II Hydroelectric Project in Bhutan.
• Total escalation of the project at this stage is INR 3512.82 crore as per the government.

ANSWER: INR 15 crore

Explanation:
Centre will increase the small scale industry eligibility limit for manufacturers of jewellery articles from INR 12 crore to INR 15 crore and raised SSI exemption limit from INR 6-10 crore in a financial year.

• Requirements will also be simplified for maintenance of records and other compliance procedures for the nominal excise duty of 1 percent (without input and capital goods credit) or 12.5 percent (with input tax credit) on jewellery articles imposed in the Budget this year.
• These include no requirement to submit any ground plan of the premises for the purpose of excise registration.
• For the upcoming festive season, government has increased SSI eligibility to help jewellers tide over difficult periods.

ANSWER: NBFC

Explanation:
Proposed Kerala Bank, an ambitious project by CPI(M) - LDF government will function as a full fledged bank and not a non-banking financial institution.

• Proposed bank has great potential in view of the merger of the State Bank of Travancore with SBI.
• Kerala FM has allocated INR 10 lakh to set up a committee to prepare directions and recommendations in this regard.

ANSWER: 15

Explanation:
GoI has made it easier to get electricity connection with an electricity connection within 15 days of application as part of the steps taken in the previous two years to ease the process of getting connections.

• Ministry of Power has undertaken several reform measures to ease the process of Getting Electricity over a period of the previous two years.
• Measure taken will benefit industry and citizens alike.
• DERC has taken the necessary changes to permit low tension connection up to 150 KVA and rationalise the tariff for the same in 2015.

ANSWER: 8-8.5

Explanation:
Gross non-performing loans of banks are nearing peak levels and could be in the range of 8-8.5 percent by March close, 2016 according to domestic rating agency ICRA.

• Banks gross bad loans stood at 7.7 percent as on March 2016 adding asset quality is not expected to improve substantially in the near term.
• Report also said credit growth is likely to be in the range of 11-12 percent in 2016-2017 primarily driven by retail and other smaller ticket loans.
• In the previous fiscal, banks aggregated deposits grew by 6.4 percent as against 10.3 percent in 2014-2015.
• Deposit growth will be in the range of 10-11 percent in the current fiscal.

ANSWER: Digital banking

Explanation:
RBI has set up a working group to work out a regulatory framework to bolster financial technology and digital banking in India.

• The sub committee of the Financial Stability and Development Council at the meeting held on April 26 had decided to set up a group to look into the issue and report more intricate aspects.
• The mandate is to gauge implications, review and appropriately reorient the regulatory framework and respond to the dynamics of the rapidly evolving fintech scenario.
• Among terms of reference of the working group is to chalk out appropriate regulatory response with a view to re-aligning and reorienting regulatory guidelines and statutory provisions for enhancing financial technology/digital banking associated opportunities.

ANSWER: LeEco

Explanation:
LeEco and Qualcomm Technologies Inc, a subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc have formed a partnership to make the smartphone experience more powerful,seamless and convenient for consumers in fields like HD audio and video as well as hi-resolution imaging and gaming.

• Chipmaker Qualcomm Technologies has complemented the LeEco superphones.

ANSWER: 6

Explanation:
Following the success of its mobile application in Garhwal, the Uttarakhand police on 14th July launched an application for six districts of Kumaon region.

• Via this app, the police intends to bridge the gap with the people and provide them with information at the touch of a smartphone.
• The 7 key features of this app are tenant verification, reporting of crime incidents, information of lost and found, data on corruption, domestic aid and employee verification as well as altering police about traffic jams and details of wanted criminals.
• Application is extremely helpful for women.

ANSWER: Shuttl

Explanation:
Freecharge, a digital payment platform on 14th July 2016 announced the partnership with bus aggregator platform Shuttle to help 15,000 commuters in Delhi-NCR engage in cashless commuting

ANSWER: SAP

Explanation:
German software giant SAP and Indian School of Business announced a partnership to boost social entrepreneurship ecosystem in the nation.

• The ISB-SAP Social Enterprise Jumpstart will identify five social enterprise startups and provide training, mentoring and access to networks to boost growth.
• Startups will be identified through a nationwide selection process involving SAP, ISB and other experts from the startup ecosystem.

ANSWER: CSIS

Explanation:
Canadian spy agency Canadian Security Intelligence Service has joined Twitter with the statement “Now it’s your turn to follow us.”

• Canada’s ruling Liberals ran on an election platform to increase government transparency and oversight of the spy agencies of the nation.

ANSWER: Samson David

Explanation:
Infosys senior executive Samson David, tasked to spearhead the country’s flagship artificial intelligence platform Mana, has resigned from the company.

• This departure comes a day before Infosys announces closely watched first quarter results.
• David’s exit marks at leat the fifth high level exit with others like Rajiv Bansal, Sanjay Jalona, Gautam Thakkar and Michael Reh also leaving the company.

ANSWER: 5

Explanation:
UN’s cultural agency on 14th July 2016 added the five World Heritage sites to the danger list indicating armed militias pose grave danger to archaeological treasures.

• Sites named by UNESCO include the Old City of Ghadames referred to as the pearl of the desert and Hellenic archaeological site Cyrene.
• Rock art sites of Tadrart Acacus on the border with Algeria also features thousands of cave paintings dating back to 12000 BC to 100 AD.
• The other two are the coastal archaeological sites of Leptis Magna and Sabbratha.
• Since the 2011 led NATO military inflation, Libya has been in grips of conflict killing thousands of militia.

ANSWER: King Khufu

Explanation:
Items from the 4th dynasty of King Khufu or Cheops as he is known for whom the Great Pyramid of Giza was built as a tomb include the world’s oldest papyrus.

• Egyptian museum in Cairo has displayed the oldest papyrus dating back to 4500 years, detailing lives of pyramid builders.
• Papyrus were discovered in the year 2013 in the port of Wadi el-Jarf located 74 miles from the city of Suez.

ANSWER: Prafulbhai Doshi

Explanation:
Veteran RSS leader Prafulbhai Doshi passed away after suffering a massive heart attack at a New Delhi hotel at the age of 77.

• In a series of tweets, PM Modi condoled the death and expressed his grief.

ANSWER: Sheila Dixit

Explanation:
Congress on 14th July, 2016 announced Sheila Dikshit as the CM candidate for the next year’s assembly polls in critical important UP.

• The announcement of the same was made by senior Congress leader Janardan Dwivedi.

ANSWER: Boris Johnson

Explanation:
Boris Johnson, the former London Mayor and Leave campaign figurehead in Britain EU referendum was appointed foreign secretary in new PM Theresa May’s government.

• Johnson cast into political exile after the June 23 referendum, was handed the task inevitably dominated by handling Britain’s departure from the EU following last month’s decision to leave.

ANSWER: Peru

Explanation:
The Peru government on July 13, 2016 has declared Zika health emergency across the northern half of the nation.

• Emergency was declared after 102 people were infected by the virus, 34 of which are pregnant women.
• States under emergency include Amazonas, Cajamarca, Huanuco, La Libertad, Lambayeque, Loreto, Piura, San Martin, Tumbes, Ucayali and Lima.
• Zika is from the Ugandan forest where the virus originated and named after it.
• It was declared a public health emergency by WHO on February 1, 2016

ANSWER: Pulses

Explanation:
Union Government on 12th July 2016 constituted a high level committee to review the minimum support price and bonus for pulses.

• The committee will be headed by CEA Arvind Subramaniam and has been asked to submit the report within two weeks.
• Production of pulses is expected to rise to 20 MT in 2016-2017 from 17 MT in 2015-2016.
• Increase has been caused by a sharp increase in MSP announced earlier but will fall short of 25 MT needed on a yearly basis.

ANSWER: Mhadei

Explanation:
Indian Navy’s only ocean going sailboat, Mhadei has returned to the homeport in Goa.

• A team of six young women registered a historic first when they returned to Goa from Mauritius.
• Skipper of the vessel was Lt Cdr Vartika Joshi.
• The all women crew of Mhadei has been under training by first Indian to solo circumnavigate the globe Cdr. Dilip Donde.

ANSWER: Bansal Group

Explanation:
An agreement was signed between Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited and Bansal Group for the redevelopment and modernisation of Habibganj Railway Station located in Bhopal, M.P.

• The Habibganj station would now be the first station to be redevelopment and this station is one of the eight such railway stations which have been allocated to IRSDC by the Ministry of Railways.
• IRSDC has been entrusted with the task of railway development.