Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Nov 17, 2015

ANSWER: Syed Akbaruddin

Explanation:
Akbaruddin has been appointed as the next Permanent Representative of India to the UN at NY replacing Asoke Kumar Mukerji who assumed the office in April 2013. He will head the Indian diplomatic mission to the UN and enunciating on the country’s stand in the global forum. He is a 1985 batch IFS officer serving as Additional Secretary in MEA currently. He also served as MEA spokesperson and was Chief Coordinator of successful India Africa Foreign Summit held in New Delhi from 26 October to 29 October 2015. Other diplomats who have been permanent reps of India to UN include Nirupam Sen, Hardeep Singh Puri and Brajesh C Mishra.

ANSWER: Saeed Jaffrey

Explanation:
Senior Bollywood actor Saeed Jaffrey has passed away on 15th November 2015 from age related ailments at the age of 86. He has acted in several movies including Gandhi, A Passage to India, My Beautiful Laundrette and more. He also appeared in the critically acclaimed Satyajit Ray directed Shatranj Ke Khiladi. He was the first Indian to receive an OBE and has also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and went to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship.

ANSWER: Mitchell Johnson

Explanation:
Australian cricketer Mitchell Johnson announced his retirement from test cricket. He will retire as Australia’s fourth-highest Test wicket taker (311), behind only Shane Warne (708), Glenn McGrath (563) and Dennis Lillee (355).He is ranked 25th among Test wicket-takers from all nations. He was identified as a talented cricketer by Dennis Lillee.

ANSWER: 17.53%

Explanation:
Cumulative value of exports for the period April-October 2015-16 was USD 154292.24 million (INR 992503.57 crore) as against US$ 187288.74 million (INR 1130539.38 crore) registering a negative growth of 17.62 per cent in Dollar terms and 12.21 per cent in Rupee terms over 2014. .Imports during October, 2015 were valued at USD 31120.06 million (INR 202460.88 crore) which was 21.15 per cent lower in Dollar terms and 16.38 per cent lower in Rupee terms over the level of imports valued at USD 39468.76 million (INR 242109.24 crore) in October, 2014.

ANSWER: 16th November

Explanation:
National Press Day is celebrated on November 16 since 1966 when the Press Council of India started functioning as a statutory, autonomous, quasi judicial body. The first newspaper in India was ‘Hickey’s Gazette’ or ‘Bengal Gazette’ started on January 29, 1780 by an Irishman, James Augustus Hickey. TOI started its career as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce.

ANSWER: NSCN-K

Explanation:
Government has declared the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), NSCN (K), all its formations and front organisations as a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. A Gazette Notification was issued on November 6th 2015 to this effect. NSCN-K has resorted to terrorism by eliminating civilians and security forces.

ANSWER: 11%

Explanation:
The food industry of the country is pegged to grow 11% annually to reach INR 4 lakh crore by 2018, pas per the research report. The industry is current valued at USD 39.71 billion, according to a joint report by IIM-C and Academic Foundation. Food and grocery are a considerable part of India’s consumption accounting for 31% of the consumption basket. India’s retail market is expected to grow by USD 865 billion by 2023 currently valued at USD 490 billion.

ANSWER: Reliance Industries Limited-Sports

Explanation:
Former Indian Premier League Chief Operating Officer Sundar Raman has joined Reliance Industries Limited as Chief Executive Officer-Sports. He is joining Reliance as CEO sports and will work to consolidate and integrate RIL sports portfolio including Foundation Activities in Sports. RIL is involved in many sports ventures and JVs.

ANSWER: NCERT

Explanation:
Professor Senapaty has joined as director of National Council of Educational Research and Training on 16th November 2015. Before his, he was the principal of Regional Institute of Education, Bhopal. Senapaty is a alumnus of BJB College, Bhubaneswar and Devi Ahilya Bai University, Indore. He started his career with NCERT as associate professor in education of RIE, Bhopal. His area of specialisation is teacher education and ICTE, and he is a UNESCO expert in this field.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
5 winners are Bengaluru based Lightmetrics Technologies Private Limited and Packal, Delhi based Neuron and Swift File Transfer, and Thane based Survelytics. Next Big Idea contest started in July 2015 to discover the 5 most innovative tech companies from India which will leverage their presence in Ontario.

ANSWER: All of the above

Explanation:
Government of India has raised duty refund rates on numerous items including iron, steel, garments and marine products to promote exports previously on a decline for 11 months. Central government has notified the Schedule of revised All Industry Rates of Duty Drawback effective from November 23, 2015, the Finance Ministry said. Duty drawback is refund of duties on imported inputs for export items.

ANSWER: Venus

Explanation:
Astronomers have discovered a new rocky exoplanet 39 light years away which can host an atmosphere. Though the aim was to find a twin earth, a Venus type exoplanet has been discovered instead. The planet-GJ 1132b -orbits a red dwarf star only 1/5th the size of the Sun. The star is also cooler than the Sun, emitting just 1200th as much light. GJ 1132b circles its star every 1.6 days at a distance of 1.4 million miles. It has high temperature of 232 degree C.

ANSWER: Raptors Amur falcons

Explanation:
Centre will develop Doyang Lake in Nagaland well known for its longest travelling Amur falcons, raptors known for flying long distances as an eco-tourism spot. Amur falcons reach Doyang every year from their flight between Mongolia and South Africa. Amur flacons weigh around 150 grams and covered 5,6000 kms flying 5 days from Mongolia to reach Nagaland.

ANSWER: CII

Explanation:
Global provider of cloud based e-commerce marketplace cloudBuy has signed an agreement with CII for online e-commerce gateway. This platform will facilitate transactions worth 3.5 billion pounds over the coming 5 years. Earlier, the two had inked an MoU to further formation of the contractual agreement.

ANSWER: Micromax

Explanation:
Following Xiaomi and Motorola, Micromax subsidiary YU Televentures will seek the handsets offline in partnership with Reliance Retail. MicroVAX launched YU last year as an online brand. YU Televentures has inked a strategic partnership with Reliance Retail to this effect.