2010 Current Affairs Quiz

Members of the group of rich nations, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), on May 10, 2010 have voted unanimously to invite Israel to join, despite Palestinian objections. Joining the OECD is likely to boost Israel's economic standing and help attract investment. The 31-member OECD said Slovenia and Estonia would also be invited to join. The Organisation's Secretary-General, Angel Gurria, hailed the move as a “new chapter” in the body's history.

Hari S Bhartia, Co-Chairman & Managing Director of Jubilant Organosys Ltd has been elected as the President of CII for the year 2010-11. He succeeds Venu Srinivasan as the new CII President. B. Muthuraman, Vice Chairman, Tata Steel, has been elected as the Vice President of CII for the year 2010-11.

French writer Philippe Claudel has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize with his novel 'Brodeck's Report'. Claudel will share the £10,000 prize money with US translator John Cullen. The annual book award is given to a living author whose work has been translated into English from any other language and published in the UK.

Ela Bhatt wins Niwano Peace Prize for 2010: Indian social activist Ela Bhatt (76) on May 13, 2010 received the Niwano Peace Prize for 2010 in Tokyo for her contribution to the uplift of poor women in India. The award included a certificate, a medal and prize money worth $2, 15,390. Bhatt established the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in 1972. It now has over 1.2 million members. She has received a number of awards including the Ramon Magsaysay Award and France's Legion d'honneur.

India's exports in the financial year 2009-10 (April-2009 to March-2010) were US $ 176574 million (Rs 835264 crore) as against US $ 185295 million (Rs. 840754 crore) in 2008-09, registering a negative growth of 4.7 per cent in Dollar terms and 0.7 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year, according to the provisional data released by Ministry of Commerce & Industry on May 10, 2010.
India's imports in the financial year 2009-10 were US $ 278681 million (Rs. 1318188 crore) as against US $ 303696 million (Rs. 1374434 crore) in 2008-09, registering a negative growth of 8.2 percent in Dollar terms and 4.1 percent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.
Oil imports during the financial year 2009-10 were valued at US$ 85473 million which was 8.7 per cent lower than the oil imports of US $ 93667 million in the corresponding period in 2008-09.
Non-oil imports during 2009-10 were valued at US$ 193208 million which was 8.0 per cent lower than the level of such imports valued at US$ 210029 million in April 2008- March, 2009.
The trade deficit for 2009-2010 was estimated at US $ 102106 million which was lower than the deficit of US $ 118401 million during 2008-2009.

The government has set up a committee under HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh to review a proposal for an Rs 50,000-crore infrastructure debt fund. The proposed fund would be used to finance infrastructure projects that have begun commercial operations and could replace the existing practice of taking loans from commercial banks.
The Planning commission had floated a concept paper in February to set up the fund that would help meet long-term needs of public private partnership projects (PPP) by tapping foreign and domestic pension and insurance funds, sovereign funds and multilateral institutions.
The fund was conceptualised to address the need of infrastructure companies in India, that do not have access to loans of 10 to 20 years for long-term projects like developing airports and roads. Most commercial banks' loan tenure is less than 10 years.
The government-promoted India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL), which was set up to facilitate lending for infrastructure projects, lends funds for roughly the same time period, since it works in consortium with banks.

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting on May 12, 2010 constituted a Committee headed by Dr. Amit Mitra, Secretary General FICCI to review existing Television Rating Point (TRP) system in India and suggest measures to bring in place an effective mechanism for a transparent TRP system in the country.
The Committee has been constituted in the backdrop of deficiencies in the present system of generation of Television Rating Points (TRPs) in India given its possible impact on the programming content of TV channels. The mandate of the Committee is expected to address issues related to accuracy, accountability, transparency and objectivity in the generation of TRPs.
The Committee on TRPs will have the following Members:
Dr. Amit Mitra: Secretary General, FICCI will be the Chairman while Rajiv Mehrotra, Managing Trustee, PSBT, eminent Journalist Neeraja Choudhary, Director, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Director, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and D.S. Mathur, Retired Secretary to GOI will be members. Joint Secretary (Broadcasting), Ministry of Information & Broadcasting will be the Member Secretary of the committee.
The committee will also assess and aim to bring in transparent norms in selection of sample homes used for generating TRP ratings -serious questions have been raised about the improper selection of sample homes and it is alleged that a very sample concentrated in urban areas is used to generate TRP ratings.

The Union Cabinet on May 13, 2010 approved the setting up of the Pharmacopoeia Commission for Indian Medicine (PCIM). It will have the following objectives:-
Publication and revision of the Ayurvedic, Siddha and Unani Pharmacopoeia as well as their formulations and also to develop and publish standards of other plants and natural products relevant to Indian Systems of Medicine.
Develop standards for quality, identity and purity of raw materials and compound formulations as well as to develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the manufacture of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) drugs.
Maintain National Repository of authentic reference raw materials used in the manufacture of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani medicines and supply of reference standards to the stakeholders.
Generate and maintain repository of chemical reference marker compounds/extracts of the plants or other ingredients used in standardizing Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani medicines and supply them to the stakeholders.

The Reserve Bank of India was established on April 1, 1935 in accordance with the provisions of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. The Central Office of the Reserve Bank was initially established in Calcutta but was permanently moved to Mumbai in 1937. Reserve Bank of India was nationalised on 1 Jan 1949.
President of India, Pratibha Devisingh Patil released a commemorative postage stamp to mark the Platinum Jubilee of the Reserve Bank of India on January 16, 2010. The five-rupee stamp depicts the iconic New Delhi offices of the apex bank, which has the statues of the mythological Yaksha and Yakshini, designed by famous sculptor Ramkinkar Baij.

Defence Minister AK Antony on May 13, 2010 approved a series of measures to give a major boost to Defence Research in the country and to ensure effective participation of the private sector in Defence technology. Several of these measures are based on the recommendations of the P. Rama Rao committee which submitted its report on restructuring the DRDO in 2008.

The key measures:

Establishment of a Defence Technology Commission with the Defence Minister as its Chairman De-centralisation of DRDO management
Making DRDO a leaner organisation by merging some of the DRDO laboratories with other public funded institutions with similar discipline, interest and administrative system
Engagement of Human Resource (HR) expert as consultant to revamp the entire HR structure of DRDO Establishment of a commercial arm of DRDO

The State Bank of India has won the prestigious Asian Banker Achievement Award for being the strongest bank in Asia Pacific region, instituted by the Qatar Financial Centre Authority and the Asian Banker magazine on May 10 2010.

The Union government has decided to enforce BS III norms across the rest of the country from October 1. The BS III will be with respect to two-, three- and four-wheelers. The govt could not enforce the norm from April 1 as the refinery companies were not prepared.

. Dr Mathur received the Energy Efficiency Visionary Award along with three others from across four continents at a ceremony held in Washington n May 12, 2010.
BEE's Bachat Lamp Yojana has become the world's biggest clean development mechanism (CDM) to gain United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) approval.
The other award winners include Jimena Bronfman, Chile’s Vice-Minister of Energy; Jonas Hafstrom, Swedish Ambassador to the US; and Dr. Joseph Oteng-Adjei, Minister for Energy, Republic of Ghana.

The number of credit cards in circulation as of March 2010 was 18.31 million, a drop of over 26% over 24.69 million in 2008-09.
Six million credit cards or about a quarter of the total number of cards a year ago were cancelled by banks during the last fiscal.
Apart from cutting down new issuances, banks also began to cut credit limits for existing customers as part of a de-risking exercise.
Accounting rules that required banks to set apart more capital against unused credit limits also forced banks to cull out inactive and risky cards. Some of those measures are reflected in the 4 per cent drop in card spends in 2009-10. Total credit card spends fell to Rs 62,852 crore from Rs 65,356 crore in 2008-09.

Mahabaleshwar's Strawberries on May 17, 2010 joined the illustrious league of Geographical Indication (Gl) status after receiving the registration from the Ministry of Commerce. The strawberry mainly grown in Mahabaleshwar-Panchagani belt of Western Maharashtra region has now received the GI status and now will be recognised as “Mahabaleshwar Strawberry”, brand name for the strawberry.
According to Geographical Indication Registry, the Gl goods are defined as that aspect of industrial property which refers to the geographical indication referring to a country or to a place situated therein as being the country or place of origin of that product.
Typically, such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness which is essentially attributable to the fact of its origin in that defined geographical locality, region or country.

The SBI General Insurance Company, the 74:26 joint venture between the State Bank of India and the Insurance Australia Group Limited (IAG), will start operations in full swing from August with an initial equity capital of Rs 150 crore, according to the SBI Chairman, O. P. Bhatt. Of the initial capital base, SBI will contribute Rs 111 crore while the foreign partner will contribute Rs 39 crore, in line with the stake holding ratio. IAG will also invest Rs 503 crore as premium to the equity share

Antrix Corporation Ltd., the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation has been conferred with the prestigious Globe Sustainability Research Award 2010 by the Globe Forum, Stockholm, Sweden. It is an international award founded by Globe Forum, with the purpose of fostering sustainable development in society. The award was conferred on Antrix for its outstanding contribution towards improving livelihoods among the rural poor while reducing their vulnerability to climate risks. Antrix had demonstrated the use of space technology and Information Technology (IT) solutions to reach out to grassroots through the Sujala Watershed Development programme in five districts in Karnataka in 2002-2009.

The Uber Cup, also called the World Team Championships for Women, is a major international badminton competition contested by women's national badminton teams. South Korea made history by ending China's 12-year hold on the Uber Cup with a 3-1 victory at Kuala Lumpur's Putra Stadium on May 15, 2010.

The Maruti Story', a book coauthored by Maruti Suzuki Chairman R. C. Bhargava and journalist, Seetha was released in 2010.

Viswanathan Anand retained the FIDE World Chess Championship, defeating Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in the final game of the series in Sofia on May 11, 2010.

Mumbai is India's most expensive and world's fourth most expensive office market, according to CB Richard Ellis Group's semi-annual Global Office Rents survey released recently London's West End remains the world's most expensive office market followed by Hong Kong's Central Business District and Tokyo's Inner Central. Delhi dropped to 11^th place in the CBRE rankings, which tracks occupancy costs for prime office space in 176 cities worldwide.

Harrods, the iconic London store, was sold by Egyptian-born businessman Mohammed AI-Fayed to Qatar Holding (an investment fund owned by Qatar's royal family) for pound 1.5 billion in May 2010. AI-Fayed, 77, had bought Harrods in 1985 for pound 615 million. Harrods is famous for luxury and premium products, and is the favourite shopping destination for the rich and affluent in the British society.

England won the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 championship defeating Australia 7 wickets in the final played at Bridgetown on May 16, 2010. Kevin Pietersen was adjudged Player of the series. Mahela Jayawardene (302 runs) of Lanka scored the most runs while Dirk Nannes (14 wickets) was the highest wicket-taker of the tournament.

Justice Sarosh Homi Kapadia, the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court, was sworn in as the 38^th Chief Justice of India on May 12, 2010.
Justice Kapadia, first CJI born after Independence, will have a tenure of two years and four months till September 28, 2012.
Justice Kapadia was initially appointed additional judge of the Bombay High Court in October 1991 and made permanent judge in March 1993.
Justice Kapadia came into prominence when he as appointed to head the probe into the stock market scam of 1999 involving broker Ketan Parekh. He was appointed judge of the special court established under the Trial of Offences Relating to Transaction in Securities Act in 1999. He played an important role in the proceedings of the Joint Parliamentary Committee constituted to investigate the stock scam.
On August 5, 2003, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court and in December 2003, he was elevated to the Supreme Court, thus serving only a very short tenure as chief justice of a high court.

The Union government on May 11, 2010 decided to appoint Shantha Sinha as chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) for the second term. Sinha, a renowned child rights activist, was appointed as the chairperson of the child rights panel in 2007. An academic with the Central University Hyderabad, Sinha is the winner of prestigious Magsaysay Award for 2003. She was presented the Padma Shree Award in 1999 for her work on child rights.

Rajiv has been appointed Director General of National Disaster Response Force & Civil Defence (NDRF & CD) on May 12, 2010. He is an IPS officer of the 1975 batch and belongs to UP Cadre.

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) will buy out its French partner Renault's 49 per cent stake in the five-year-old joint venture - Mahindra Renault Pvt Ltd - for an undisclosed amount. The joint venture manufactures the Logan, an entry level sedan at Nashik. In the process, Mahindra Renault will now become a wholly-owned arm of M & M.

Eminent historian & former vice-chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, Professor Mushirul Hasan was appointed Director General of National Archives of India on May 14, 2010.

Chakor Doshi, chairman of Walchandnagar Industries Ltd, was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Indian Nuclear Society (INS) on May 15, 2010. The Board of Trustees comprises other eminent personalities such as Dr Anil Kakodkar former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission of India, Dr S Banerjee, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission & Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy and Dr V K lya former, group director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. INS is an apex body engaged in promoting the advancement of Nuclear Science, engineering and technology.

'Tireless Voice - Relentless Journey', a collection of speeches by BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu, was released on May 9, 2010.

The Union government on January 9, 2010 constituted a high-level committee, headed by Sam Pitroda and Deepak Parekh as member, to look into the deteriorating financial health and competitiveness of state-run telecom firm BSNL and suggest remedial action.

Raja Menon, Rajiv Kumar authored 'Long View from Delhi' released: 'Long View from Delhi', a book authored by former Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Raja Menon & Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations Director Rajiv Kumar was released in June 2010.

Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Human Resource Development has been conferred the Stephen P. Duggan Award for Mutual Understanding by the New York based Institute of International Education (IIE). The award will be presented in September 2010 in New York City.

<strong style="color:" rgb(51,="" 51,="" 51);="" font-family:="" arial,="" helvetica,="" sans-serif;="" line-height:="" 17px;="">The distinguished Indian physicist and environmentalist, Dr Vandana Shiva, has been announced as the recipient of the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize<strong style="color:" rgb(51,="" 51,="" 51);="" font-family:="" arial,="" helvetica,="" sans-serif;="" line-height:="" 17px;="">.The 57-year-old philosopher, environmentalist, women’s activist and author has won the award for her work on empowerment of women in developing countries, advocacy of the human rights of small farming communities, and scientific analysis of environmental sustainability, a Sydney University release said.

The Union Cabinet on May 13, 2010 accorded �in-principle� approval for setting up of Indian National Defence University (INDU) as a fully autonomous institution to be constituted under an Act of Parliament at an estimated cost of Rs. 295 crore (at current price level). It also accorded the approval for acquisition of 200 acres of land at Binola in District Gurgaon, Haryana for the proposed site of INDU at an estimated cost of Rs.100 crore (at current rates).
INDU will undertake long term defence and strategic studies and create synergy between the academic community and Government functionaries.
The university that had been recommended by the Kargil Review Committee will run courses for officers of the security establishment and will also be the academic hub for all defence training institutes, including the NDA and IMA.

As many as 12 Indian institutions, including seven IITs and five universities figure, in the list of the 200 best Asian universities of the QS Asian University Rankings released on May 14, 2010.
The University of Hong Kong is ranked first followed by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the National University of Singapore in second and third positions respectively.
Indian institutions in the list include, IIT Bombay (36th), IIT Kanpur (37th), IIT Delhi (39th), IIT Madras (53rd), IIT Kharagpur (57th), IIT Guwahati (66th), University of Delhi (67th), IIT Roorkee (75th), The University of Hyderabad (81st), University of Mumbai (96th), University of Calcutta (99th) and University of Pune (109th)
In total, 11 countries are represented in the top 200, with Japanese universities occupying 57 of the top 200 and five of the top 10 places in this year's table.

Jamsheed Marker is a veteran Pakistani diplomat listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having been ambassador to more countries than any other person. He was Pakistan's top envoy to the United States and more than a dozen other countries for more than three decades and earned the distinction as the world's longest-serving ambassador.

The environmental clearance for the Rs.15000 crore Vedanta University project promoted by the Anil Agarwal Foundation has been put on hold by the Central government to re-examine allegations of illegal activities by the promoters. On April 16, the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests had issued an environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance to the University, proposed to be built on 6,000 acres along the Orissa coast between Puri and Konark.

The Maharashtra government on May 10, 2010 said all students up to Class VII would be given promotion to the next class even if they did not perform well in examinations. This would come into effect from the current academic year

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa took over the chairmanship of the Group of 15 countries (G-15) from his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the summit in Tehran on May 17, 2010.
The grouping accounts for one-third of the global population and consists of some of the biggest economies of the world. Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, India, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe are members of the group.

Laura Chinchilla elected President of Costa Rica: Laura Chinchilla Miranda was sworn in as the first woman president of Costa Rica on May 8, 2010. She was one of the two Vice-Presidents and Minister of Justice of the outgoing President Oscar Arias Sanchez's cabinet.