General Awareness Test (August - 15) - Set 3

ANSWER: Soudelor

Explanation:
After pounding Taiwan, Soudelor made a landfall in Fujian Province and moved from there to neighbouring Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces and has weakened.

ANSWER: Salem

Explanation:
It is the major dam in the state and its sluice gates are normally opened every year on June 12. However, during deficient storage years, the date of release used to be deferred. The release on 9th Aug’15 would help to irrigate over 12-lakh acres of land in the Cauvery Delta districts for Samba Crop.

ANSWER: Indonesia

Explanation:
Led by Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth, India will be fielding its biggest contingent at the prestigious championships which will be held at the Gelora Bung Karno stadium. It is for the first time that India will have two players in the top 5 -- Saina (World No 2 in women's singles) and Srikanth (World No 3 in men's singles).

ANSWER: Atul Keshap

Explanation:
He became the second Indian origin diplomat to be posted after Richard Rahul Verma.

ANSWER: Mysuru

Explanation:
The top 10 ranked cities in the city are Mysuru, Thiruchirapalli (Tamil Nadu), Navi Mumbai, Kochi (Kerala), Hassan, Mandya and Bengaluru (Karnataka), Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala), Halisahar (West Bengal) and Gangtok (Sikkim).

ANSWER: NIYATAM

Explanation:
The move is part of a larger interaction with states called NIYATAM or NITI Initiative to Yield Aspirational Targets and Actionable Means, where the NITI Aayog plans to engage with them on six issues.

ANSWER: GlobalSat for DRR

Explanation:
The proposal to name the satellite after Dr. Kalam was made by Milind Pimprikar, Chairman of CANEUS (Canada-Europe-US-Asia) headquartered in Montreal, Canada. The satellite to be used for earth observation and disaster risk reduction will be renamed as UN Kalam GlobalSat.

ANSWER: Our People, Our Community, Our Vision

Explanation:
Besides, the ASEAN foreign ministers meet was participated by India’s Minister of State for External Affairs of India Gen (Retd) VK Singh.

ANSWER: Hindukush

Explanation:
No explanation is available for this question!

ANSWER: AAP

Explanation:
Aam Aadmi Party government has announced that it will celebrate Independence Day as Swaraj Parv with a three-day grand cultural programme planned in Connaught Place. The Swaraj Parv will include Hindi Kavi Sammelan, Urdu Mushaira, qawwali show and musical drama.

ANSWER: IGNOU

Explanation:
The inmate is the only gold medalist from Varanasi region of IGNOU, which covers 20 districts. Ajeet Kumar Saroj, a culpable homicide convict was on 8th Aug’15 escorted to the Banaras Hindu University where he was awarded his diploma at the 28th convocation of IGNOU. Ajeet, is serving a 10-year imprisonment. He was lodged in jail in February 2012 and has pursued four certificate courses from IGNOU before pursuing the Diploma in Tourism Studies.

ANSWER: Author and Poet

Explanation:
Mr Rai, aged 101, was recipient of the Karnataka Sahitya Academy award in 1969 and the national award the same year for the best teacher.

ANSWER: School Nursery Yojana

Explanation:
Urging every student to plant a tree each, Mr Javadekar said that every school must earmark space to prepare a small nursery where the saplings could be planted. The Minister also presented a sapling and a packet of seeds to students from each school for planting in their school. He exhorted the students to take the grown sapling planted by them along with their annual results to their homes.

ANSWER: Justice B U Joshi

Explanation:
Desai is the second judge in the case who has visited the crime scene. Justice B U Joshi, who was earlier conducting the trial in the case, had also visited the Gulberg Society in 2010. On 10th Aug’15 during the visit, Desai was accompanied by S M Vora, who is an advocate of riot survivors, and special public prosecutor R C Kodekar as well as defence lawyers.

ANSWER: Jain Community

Explanation:
The court considered it a criminal act amounting to suicide and directed to register cases under section 306 of IPC. The Court banned this ritual, following a Public Interest Litigation filed by human rights activist a decade ago, claiming that the ritual is a social evil and should be considered as a suicide. The ancient ritual, also called Sallekhana, is the voluntary starvation to embrace death. Jain religious leaders has strongly criticized the court judgement. Reacting to judgement, Tarun Sagarji Maharaj has said that this judgement has been given without properly understanding the principles of Jain Religion.

ANSWER: Shreya Ghosal

Explanation:
Nasriya Naseem won the best actress award for her performance in the films 'Om Shanthi Hosana' and 'Bangalore Days' while Shreya Ghoshaal was adjudged the best female playback singer. Anna Fathima was adjudged the best child actress award.

ANSWER: Gurbaj Singh

Explanation:
The decision to suspend Gurbaj was taken after a meeting of Hockey India's disciplinary committee headed by Harbinder Singh with the midfielder and former India coach Jude Felix. The coach levelled the charges against Gurbaj in his report after last month's Hockey World League Semifinals in Antwerp, Belgium.

ANSWER: Michael Clarke

Explanation:
Australia captain Michael Clarke will retire from international cricket at the end of the current Ashes series. He averages only 16 from eight innings and Australia are 3-1 behind with one match left at The Oval on 20 August 2015.

ANSWER: Raghavendra Gadagkar

Explanation:
Gadagkar is a professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He is also the president of the Indian National Science Academy and has published more than 270 research papers and two books.

ANSWER: Supreme Court

Explanation:
The court made it clear that even for availing facilities PDS, kerosene and LPG distribution system the card will not be mandatory. It barred the authorities from sharing personal biometric data collected for enrollment under the scheme. It directed that the information received by UIDAI shall not be used for any other purposes, except in criminal investigation with the permission of the court. A Constitution bench of the apex court will also decide the larger question of whether collecting biometric data for preparing Aadhar cards infringeds an individual's privacy and if right to privacy was a fundamental right.

ANSWER: Sundar Pichai

Explanation:
The Chennai born 43-year-old IIT Kharagpur graduate is the second person of Indian-origin to head an IT company after Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella, who became the CEO of software giant Microsoft in February 2014.

ANSWER: Japan

Explanation:
Japan switched on a nuclear reactor for the first time in nearly two years, as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks to reassure a nervous public that tougher standards mean the sector is now safe after the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Of Japan's 25 reactors at 15 plants for which operators have applied for permission to restart, only five at three plants have been cleared for restart.

ANSWER: Leander Paes

Explanation:
Sania is only the second tennis player after Leander Paes to be named for the top award. Paes had been bestowed the honour way back in 1996 after his bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympics. The Hyderabadi girl had won the Arjuna award in 2004. In 2006, she was bestowed the Padma Shri the country's fourth highest civilian honour.

ANSWER: World Bank

Explanation:
The objective of NCRMP-II is to reduce vulnerability to cyclone and other hydro-meteorological hazards of coastal communities in the States of Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal; and increase the capacity of the State entities to effectively plan for and respond to disasters. NCRMP-II has four components which are: (i) Early Warning Dissemination Systems; (ii) Cyclone Risk Mitigation Infrastructure; (iii) Technical Assistance for Multi-Hazard Risk Management; and (iv) Project Management and Implementation Support.

ANSWER: Kochi

Explanation:
The invitation was formally accepted by the Kerala State Tourism Dept. on 10th Aug’15.

ANSWER: M.Veerappa Moily

Explanation:
No explanation is available for this question!

ANSWER: Alphabet

Explanation:
Google has a new owner: a holding company called Alphabet, run by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Alphabet owns a few other things, too: namely, every company ever created or acquired under the tech giant’s many-tentacled purview.

ANSWER: 9th August

Explanation:
The theme for this year was “Post 2015 Agenda: Ensuring indigenous peoples' health and well-being”.

ANSWER: Disha

Explanation:
The app also aims to offer digital literacy to tribal and Dalit women in the state. The app can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store.

ANSWER: Amitabh Bachchan

Explanation:
On 10 Aug’15, Amitabh Bachchan accepted the proposal of Maharashtra Forest Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar to be the Maharashtra’s Tiger Ambassador of the state.

ANSWER: 37%

Explanation:
Indirect tax revenue jumped over 37.6 percent to over 2.1 lakh crore rupees during April-July period of current fiscal due to the higher excise collections. A press release issued by the Finance Ministry on 11th Aug’15 stated that the indirect tax collections were 1.53 lakh crore rupees during the similar period of the previous fiscal. While in July 2015-16, the indirect tax collections grew by 39.1 percent from a year ago period to 56,739 crore rupees.

ANSWER: Libya

Explanation:
The prime minister of Libya's internationally recognised government, Abdullah al-Thani, has announced his resignation. The announcement was made in a surprise move live on television, hours after peace talks between the country's rival factions restarted. During the talk show, Prime Minister Al-Thani faced angry questions from citizens who blamed his government for the lack of basic services such as electricity and poor security in areas of it controls. Al-Thani said during the show that if his exit is the solution, he resigns. He added that his resignation will be submitted to the parliament on 16th Aug’15.

ANSWER: Mount Kinabalu

Explanation:
The park is expected to open from September 1st, but visitors will be able to climb up to only Laban Rata because trails to the summit, which were damaged by the earthquake, have not been repaired. Laban Rata is the last stop for climbers heading to the summit.

ANSWER: PSPCL

Explanation:
Apart from Punjab, Gujarat is the second state which has got A+ Rating. Union Minister of State for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal has formally announced the award of the rating to the PSPCL.

ANSWER: June

Explanation:
According to data released by the Central Statistics Office, the manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 75 percent of the IIP, grew at 4.6 percent in June this year. But output of capital goods, a barometer of investment, contracted 3.6 percent, and mining sector output fell 0.3 per cent during the month. Power generation growth stood at 1.3 percent in June.

ANSWER: 13th

Explanation:
No explanation is available for this question!

ANSWER: China

Explanation:
The People’s Bank of China said the centre of the yuan’s trading band was reset 1.9% lower at 6.2298 per US dollar, its weakest point against the US dollar for almost three years.

ANSWER: 12th August

Explanation:
The theme of International Youth Day 2015 is “Youth Civic Engagement.”

ANSWER: 41

Explanation:
The States that have reported the maximum number of tiger deaths include Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

ANSWER: 34

Explanation:
He will meet the ruler, the vice president and also the prime minister of the country.