Genaral Awareness Test (July - 15) - Set - 2

ANSWER: C D Balaji

Explanation:
Commodore C D Balaji (Retd) on 3rd July’15 took charge as the Director of the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) and Programme Director of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). He succeeded P S Subramanyam, Distinguished Scientist.

ANSWER: Tobacco

Explanation:
In a notification, RBI said Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is prohibited in the manufacturing of cigars, cheroots, cigarillos and cigarettes, of tobacco or of tobacco substitutes.

ANSWER: India

Explanation:
India retained the title defeating Sri Lanka in the final held in Bengaluru. The top three teams were India (gold), Sri Lanka (silver) and Nepal (bronze).

ANSWER: United States

Explanation:
United States lifted the FIFA Women's World Cup for the third time. US defeated Japan in the finals.

ANSWER: 6th July’15

Explanation:
No explanation is available for this question!

ANSWER: Digital India

Explanation:
Secretary, Labour and Employment Shankar Aggarwal on 6th July ’15 launched the Website of Employees’ Provident Fund Organization, EPFO, as part of Digital India Infrastructure.

ANSWER: Rastrapti Nilayam, Bollaram

Explanation:
The Nakshtra Vatika is the garden of plants with medicinal values and represents the Nava Grahaas and the 27 stars in the lunar calendar. The plants are arranged in such a manner to coincide the planetary arrangements.

ANSWER: C-DOT

Explanation:
Two Wi-Fi products launched by C-DOT viz. Long Distance Wi-Fi and Solar powered Wi-Fi address the connectivity problem of rural areas, hilly terrain, highways, dense vegetation, tunnels etc. C-DOT has also developed a light weight Green Power Source to make the solution self-sustainable. Using this solution, reach of BharatNet can be increased beyond Panchayats to the remotest part of country. 100 Gbps OFC link system called “Suteevra” addresses the telco’s requirement of optimizing communication transport backbone in smart cities, IT parks, Industrial Complexes, Inter City Traffic, Data Centres etc.

ANSWER: 12

Explanation:
The Helpline is currently operational in two languages in English and Hindi.

ANSWER: Kruti Tiwari

Explanation:
Kruti had secured 47th rank in this year's JEE Advanced and came first among the women candidates. Kruti will be associated with the Digital India campaign for the next one year, for which she will travel extensively across the country.

ANSWER: Tunisia

Explanation:
On 4th July 2015 President of Tunisia Beji Caid Essebsi declared state of emergency in the country for 30 days. The decision was taken against the backdrop of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) gun attack on 26 June 2015 on Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba on the Mediterranian coast and calls for more such attacks by the militant organisation during the holy month of Ramadan.

ANSWER: Haryana

Explanation:
On 5th July’15 Bibipur Panchayat launched “Digital India with Laado”, a campaign to replace names of family-heads in the nameplates with their daughter’s moniker. The representatives would visit every home in Jind and convince people to replace names of the head of the house with that of their daughters.

ANSWER: Pashu Poshan

Explanation:
National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) launched a mobile application that will recommend a balanced diet for cows and buffaloes. It will help boost dairy farmers' income by raising milk yield and cutting feed cost.

ANSWER: 160

Explanation:
National Floor Level Minimum Wage has been hiked from 137 rupees to 160 rupees per day which will be effective from first of this month.

ANSWER: 2016

Explanation:
As per the statement made by R S Sharma, Secretary Electronics and IT, the government has targeted to connect every Panchayat through broadband by December 2016.

ANSWER: 94%

Explanation:
Election for 24 seats of Bihar Legislative council passed off peacefully. An estimated 94% voting was recorded during poll. Counting of vote will take place on the 10th July’15. All eyes are on the result of this poll as the election has been dubbed as semifinal before the upcoming assembly polls in September-October with a grand alliance of JDU RJD and the NDA taking on each other.

ANSWER: Haryana

Explanation:
The initiatives include Phase-I of PARIVARTAN School MIS portal, ITI online admission portal, Knowledge Lit Career courses introduced by Haryana Knowledge Corporation Limited and implementation of digital university framework in Kurukshetra University.

ANSWER: e-Hastakshar

Explanation:
C-DAC through its e-Hastakshar initiative enables citizens with valid Aadhaar ID and registered mobile number to carryout digital signing of their documents on-line.

ANSWER: Telangana

Explanation:
The Hyderabad-headquartered ICRISAT launched the Green Phablet, priced about ?18,600, for farmers in Telangana. The institute would maintain servers to safe keep the information. And even if the users lose their device, they could get back the information in no time.

ANSWER: Kamal Bawa

Explanation:
He is an internationally recognised evolutionary ecologist and a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, was elected a fellow of the London-based society.

ANSWER: Mithali Raj

Explanation:
She is the captain of Indian Women’s cricket team. She reached the record after her unbeaten 81 runs in the match against New Zealand where India was chasing a target of 220 runs. She also received the Arjuna Award in 2003 and the Padma Shri in 2015.

ANSWER: Aseel Shaheen

Explanation:
Every year, the All England Club in London invites 60 overseas officials, and the 41-year-old Shaheen is one of them but the only one to create history.

ANSWER: Tashi and Nungshi Malik

Explanation:
The siblings had scaled the highest peak in the world on May 19, 2013 at a tender age of 21 and they featured in the 60th edition of Guinness World Records.

ANSWER: Jin Liqun

Explanation:
He is the former Finance Minster of China. He was nominated by China to be the first president of the Beijing-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

ANSWER: S N Sahai

Explanation:
Senior IAS officer S N Sahai has been appointed as the new Home Secretary of Delhi. Sources said Home Ministry issued the order appointing Mr. Sahai, a 1986 batch Union Territory cadre officer. Mr. Sahai's name was zeroed in as a compromise candidate for the high post after continuous tussle between the Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and the Arvind Kejriwal-led government on the issue.

ANSWER: Maharashtra

Explanation:
Sant Dnnyaneshwar Maharaj Palkhi will start its journey towards Pandharpur on 9th july’15. Wari is spiritual identity of Maharashtra with a history of more than 800 years. Pune city becomes witness to the vibrations of the prayers and chants as it is well positioned on the route between Alandi, Dehu and Pandharpur. Though the Warkaris are mainly from the farmer community of Maharashtra they are also backed by academicians, professionals, foreigners and people from urban areas within Maharashtra and nearby states.

ANSWER: Sikkim

Explanation:
The facility was formally launched at the Baluakhani Taxi stand in Gangtok by the State Transport Minister DT Lepcha and Tourism Minister Ugen Gyatso. A total of 40 vehicles have been exclusively earmarked for operations under the prepaid scheme. The aim of launching the prepaid Taxi service is to ensure uniformity in taxi-fairs and saving the tourists from fleecing by the unscrupulous taxi operators.

ANSWER: Odisha

Explanation:
The Odisha government has decided to implement the National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, in the state from 1st October this year. Food and Consumer Welfare Secretary of Odisha, Madhu Sudan Padhi, told that the state government has initiated the process for identification of the priority households by approving eight exclusion and five auto-inclusion criteria.

ANSWER: Amiya Chandra

Explanation:
Amiya Chandra is the Joint Director-General of Foreign Trade in the Union Commerce and Industry Ministry.

ANSWER: A S Dulat & Aditya Sinha

Explanation:
AS Dulat, was the chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) during Vajpayee government. Aditya Sinha has been a journalist since February 1987. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the New Indian Express and DNA. The book focuses on initiatives launched by the Vajpayee government between 1998 and 2004 to restore normalcy in India's most beautiful but troubled state.

ANSWER: HDFC Bank

Explanation:
With this, HDFC became the first bank in India to offer the service of Watch Banking.

ANSWER: Goa

Explanation:
The Youth Delphic Games are held at every four years and invites participants of the age group of 15 to 25 years.

ANSWER: Satpayev Oil Block

Explanation:
The Satpayev oil block is an offshore field (1582 sq km) in the Northern Caspian Sea, in water depths of 6-8 m. It has a potential reserves estimated at 1.8 billion barrels crude oil and natural gas.

ANSWER: Gennady Padalka

Explanation:
He achieved the feat by spending 804 days on the International Space Station (ISS). He surpassed cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, also a Russian, record of 803 days, nine hours and 41 minutes in the space which Sergei achieved across six missions from 1998 to 2005.

ANSWER: Vyapam

Explanation:
A bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu clarified that all cases will be transferred to the CBI from Monday and the agency will file its report before it on 24th of this month. The apex court slammed Madhya Pradesh High Court and said it is washing its hands off the Vyapam scam as it could have ordered a CBI probe.

ANSWER: Press Council of India

Explanation:
On 9th July’15, PCI chairman Justice C K Prasad said the government may enact a law for the safety of journalists and the cases involving murder of journalists should be automatically referred to CBI. According to the report more than 80 journalist were killed in the country in the last two decades. It said, 60 journalists were killed in states like Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and not a single person was convicted. It has recommended that all the cases of attacks on journalists shall be referred to special courts and trial should be completed within a year of filing of charge sheet.

ANSWER: Bashar Nawaaz

Explanation:
He took his last breath at his native place Aurangabad (Maharashtra). His gazals are popular in India as well as Pakistan. His books ‘Rayagan’, ‘Ajanabee samandar’ was very appreciated by gazal lovers. As lyricist he wrote number of gazals for hindi movies like ‘Bazaar’, ‘Loree’, ‘Jaane vafaa’, ‘Tere Shahar me’, etc. The Gazal “Karoge yaad to har baat yaad aayegee” from film Bazaar is all time hit song. Bashar Navaaz was honored with ‘Galib award’ of Galib Academy New Delhi, Maharashtra State Urdu Academy award, Maharashtra State Iftekhaar E Adab award.

ANSWER: Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan

Explanation:
The scheme will target students in the age group of 6 - 18 years. Other schemes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan will be used for implementing this scheme. The Abhiyan also provides a platform for schools in a dual track approach to make learning of scince exciting to children.

ANSWER: Yanis Varoufakis

Explanation:
In a statement published on his personal blog on 6th July’15, Varoufakis said he was stepping down to allow Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to reach a new deal with European creditors. The announcement came as European Union leaders scrambled for a response following the overwhelming "No" vote in yesterday's referendum.

ANSWER: Ravichandran Ashwin

Explanation:
Ashwin was not present during the Award Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan on August 29, 2014 as he was a part of the India ODI team, which was touring England at that time.The bowler from Tamil Nadu has taken 124 wickets in 25 Tests, 139 in 99 ODIs and 26 wickets in 25 T20 internationals.