September 1, 2014

Explanation: The manufacture of HMT watches were started in 1961 in technical collaboration with Japan’s Citizen Watch Company. In 2000, HMT Watch Business group was restructured as HMT Watches Ltd. However, with changing times HMT Watches started accumulating losses from 2000. Company’s net loss rose to Rs 242.47 crore in 2012-13 from Rs 224.04 crore in 2011-12. At the end of March 2012, it also had government loan, including budgetary support for salary and statutory dues, amounting to Rs 694.52 crore.

Explanation: The move to offer ESOS is aimed at motivating employees to perform better as also to attract and retain talent. Competition to attract experienced bankers has intensified with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) granting “in-principle” approval in April to IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services to set up banks in the private sector. Therefore, SBI is now considering an ESOS, which will give an employee the right to purchase or subscribe to the securities offered by the bank at a future date, and at a predetermined price.

Explanation: Under the ‘Cardless Cash Withdrawal’ service, the recipient can withdraw money round the clock without using a debit card from over 10,000 ATMs of ICICI Bank across the country. One can do this even without having a bank account of any bank. However, the sender needs to be an ICICI Bank savings account holder. The facility can be initiated by any ICICI Bank savings account customer (sender) by logging into internet banking of ICICI Bank website.

Explantion: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 10 September approved the disinvestment department’s proposal to offload 10% stake in CIL through Offer For Sale (OFS) route. A planned stake sale in CIL in 2013-14 had to be deferred after stiff opposition from trade unions. At that time CIL had to make up for that by paying about Rs. 19,000 crore as dividend to the exchequer. The CCEA also approved the stake sale in ONGC and NHPC. 5% stake sale in ONGC is expected to fetch over Rs. 18,000 crore while 11.36% in NHPC is expected to fetch around Rs. 2,800 crore. Thus the govt. could raise over Rs. 43,000 crore in 2014-15 and held bridge the fiscal deficit.

Explanation: Saeed Ajmal is the leading off-spinner of Pakistan and his suspension came as a major blow for the country. According to the analysis of Ajmal’s bowling action, all his deliveries exceeded the 15 degrees level of tolerance permitted under the regulations. The analysis was performed on 25 August 2014 by the ICC’s accredited team of Human Movement Specialists using the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane (Australia). Saeed, who was reported after the first Test match against Sri Lanka in Galle last month, can apply a re-assessment after he has modified his bowling action.

Explanation: This information was revealed in the UNICEF report titled “Improving Children’s Lives, Transforming the Future – 25 years of child rights in South Asia”. According to the report, highest rate of child marriage is in Bangladesh (where two out of every three girls marry before age 18), followed by India, Nepal and Afghanistan. In India, 43% of women aged 20-24 were first married by the age of 18 between 2005 and 2013. At 71 million, India had the largest number of children under the age of five whose births were not registered between 2000 and 2012.

Explanation: Apotex Corporation is the largest producer of generic drugs in Canada, with sales exceeding $1 billion a year. It has a plant in Bangalore that produces and exports generic drugs to North America. In its latest report USFDA observed that Apotex employees at Bangalore facility did not report undesirable test results and doctored bacterial growth test records. The furore over sub-standard drugs making their way into the Canadian market comes in the wake of multiple import bans issued by the FDA against Indian generics firms, the most notable case among which was that of Ranbaxy.

Explanation: BISAG is a State level agency of the government of Gujarat to facilitate services and solutions in implementing map-based GeoSpatial Information Systems. It implements geo-spatial technologies for the planning and developmental activities pertaining to agriculture, land and water resource management, wasteland/watershed development, forestry, disaster management, infrastructure and education. BISAG’s integration with BSF will provide BSF with a dedicated and encrypted channel to be used for its varied applications and requirements.

Explanation: Assembly elections in 288 seats in Maharashtra and 90 seats in Haryana will be held on 15 October and counting will take place on 19 October 2014. Apart from these States, by-elections will be conducted on the same day for five Assembly seats in five States – Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. By-elections for two Parliamentary constituencies in Maharashtra’s Beed and Odisha’s Kandhamal will also be held on 15 October and counting for all the seats will take place on 19 October.

Explanation: The two Italian marines are accused of shooting two fishermen off the Kerala coast in February 2012 while they were assigned to protect an Italian-flagged oil tanker from pirates.

Explanation: ASCI is a non-profit self-regulatory voluntary organization of the advertising industry which was founded in 1985. Its primary objective is to maintain and enhance the public’s confidence in advertising..

Explanation: Under the Android One programme Google partners with local phone makers to create and sell affordable yet feature-packed Android phones. Sundar Pichai, the Google executive, who heads Chrome and Android divisions at the company, is in India for the Android One launch event on 15 September. The phone devices based on Android One are meant to give Google a tighter control over the system, so that users get a better Android experience. Google gives its mobile operating system, Android, for free to manufacturers, which can customise it for the sake of differentiation. But, this has made the Android ecosystem highly fragmented. The Android One program guarantees that the phones that come out of it will run on the most recent Android release, as Google will push updates to those phones similar to the way it handles GPE devices. The phones based on Google One are made available in the Indian market from 15 September.

Explanation: The report had emerged that such entities were being used as conduits for money laundering. The matter of misuse of UCBs, over which there is dual control by central and state governments, was discussed during a recent meeting of the Economic Intelligence Council (EIC) headed by Finance Minister. UCBs are inspected annually or once in two years depending on their ratings or classification. About 70% of these urban cooperative banks are subjected to inspection every year. RBI has aggressively pursued the issue.

Explanation: Alibaba runs Internet-based e-commerce businesses including B2B (business-to-business) online web portals. It was the company’s first online commerce platform, launched in 1999 and was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma. Sellers on Alibaba.com are typically manufacturers and distributors based in China and other manufacturing countries such as India, Pakistan, the United States and Thailand. Its IPO is the most anticipated IPO of recent times and is expected to open on 18 September 2014. Alibaba stock will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol BABA. With most big IPOs seeing a decent pop on debut, investors are keen on getting some shares of Alibaba even if at higher end of price band ($66/share). Indian investors can invest in this IPO via overseas trading accounts and some brokerages offer the facility to invest in various stocks that are traded on US exchanges.

Explanation: David Haines became the third western citizen to be beheaded by IS after two American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff. The IS group has also put out videos showing the beheading of Kurdish and Lebanese soldiers and the mass shooting of dozens of captured Syrian soldiers. On 12 September, Haines’ family had issued a public plea urging his captors to contact them.

Explanation: TCG is led by Indian entrepreneur Purnendu Chatterjee who founded the group in 1986. TCG has diversified interests in areas such as investment banking, real estate, petrochemicals and life sciences. Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd. is the second largest petrochemical company in India. Apart from TCG, other stake-holders in HPL are the West Bengal government, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and the Tata Group. HPL’s huge petrochemical complex is situated at Haldia in West Bengal which is around 120 km from capital Kolkata. The complex has been shut for more than two months with authorities citing reasons of a technical snag. The company had long been facing fund crunch and was operating the plant at sub-optimal capacity owing to non-availability of naphtha in desired amount. As per the terms of agreement, the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) would transfer its block of around 40% of its stake in HPL to TCG at Rs. 25.10 per share.

Explanation: 22-year old Prannoy won the title after defeating local favourite Firman Abdul Kholik (Indonesia) in the finals by 21-11, 22-20. Prannoy is upcoming young badminton player from Kerala and had earlier won a silver medal in Boys’ singles at Summer Youth Olympics of 2010.

Explanation: SBI’s total number of mobile banking users stood at 1.15 crore. ICICI Bank stood second with 19.5 lakh users and was followed by Axis Bank (13.6 lakh), Yes Bank (4.3 lakh) and HDFC Bank (3.5 lakh). The number of SBI’s mobile banking users is larger than the mobile banking customer base of large banks in the West. Only a couple of Chinese banks have more mobile banking customers. SBI’s emergence as country’s largest mobile banking operator came as a surprise as traditionally new generation private banks and foreign banks have been the early adopters of alternative platforms like mobile banking.

Explanation: The inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) of 3.74% recorded during August 2014 was the lowest since October 2009, when it stood at 1.8%. India has always been comfortable when WPI-based inflation is at 4% or less. This low level of WPI-based inflation is partly attributed to a statistical base effect and below-$100 global crude oil prices. During July 2014 this rate stood at 5.19%.

Explanation: The proposed Mission will address the gaps in health services through supporting the efforts of State and Union Territory Governments for providing AYUSH health services/education in the country, particularly in vulnerable and far-flung areas. The term AYUSH has been used for clubbing various traditional and ancient medicine systems like Ayurved, Siddha, Unani, Naturopathy and Homeopathy. NAM aims to improve AYUSH-based education, better access to AYUSH services through increase in the number of AYUSH hospitals and dispensaries, sustained availability of quality raw material for AYUSH systems of medicine and improving the quality of AYUSH-based drugs.

Explanation: India had made it to the World Group last time in 2011, but ironically it lost to Serbia in the very first round that year. On 15 September India’s Yuki Bhambri lost easily to Serbia’s Filip Karjinovic by 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. The deciding rubber was needed as India made a strong comeback by winning two continuous matches after losing the first two matches in the tie.

Explanation: AlSA is the left-backed combine which won all the 4 positions at stake including the President’s post, for the second consecutive year. President’s post was won by AISA’s Ashutosh Kumar, Anant Prakash won Vice Presidential post. AISA’s Chintu Kumari claimed the post of General Secretary while Shafqat Hussain Butt was elected as the Joint Secretary.

Explanation: According to the announcement made by Films Division, there will be two permanent venues for the MIFF. Every year MIFF will be organised at four venues and two among these will be permanent venues. Aizawl will be one such permanent venue. Films Division, which comes under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, is organising the week-long MIFF 2014 at Aizawl which was inaugurated on 15 September.

Explanation: Gilead Sciences is a U.S. biotechnology company. The company has licensed its Hepatitis C drug Sovaldi to seven India-based drugmakers that will sell the drug at far cheaper price than in the United States. Sovaldi, chemically known as sofosbuvir, is a far more effective and better-tolerated treatment of Hepatitis C than older injection regimens, but Gilead has come under fire over its U.S. price tag, with cost presenting a huge barrier in poor countries. Cipla, Ranbaxy, Cadila Healthcare, Sequent Scientific, Strides Arcolab, Hetero Drugs and Mylan Laboratories will now be able to make and sell the generic version of Sovaldi in India.

Explanation: Out of this Rs. 85,247 crore was invested through the equity route while Rs. 1,12,469 was invested through the debt route. It is worth mentioning that this figure is far above the next best year of FII investment – 2010, in which total aggregate investment stood at Rs. 1,79,674.6 crore for the full year.

Explanation: MIT successfully retained its number one position in the list for third time in a row. The highest placed Indian university in this list was IIT Mumbai (222^nd place), followed by IIT Delhi (235^th), IIT Kanpur (300^th), IIT Madras (322^nd) and IIT Kharagpur (324^th).

Explanation: The BJP won just 3 seats out of a total 11 seats in the important state of Uttar Pradesh. The results for the same were declared on 16 September. The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) won remaining 8 seats signalling a major comeback after its virtual rout in the Lok Sabha elections. Major reversal was witnessed in Rajasthan where Congress won 3 out of 4 seats giving the BJP just 1 seat. In Gujarat too party conceded seats to the Congress. BJP won 6 out of 9 seats in Gujarat and Congress won the remaining 3 seats. BJP was able to retain the Vadodara seat, which fell vacant after Prime Minister Narendra Modi vacated it in favour of Varanasi. This loss has been seen as major loss of face for the BJP just 4 months after its stunning win in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014.

Explanation: BJP’s Shamik Bhattacharya won the Basirhat (South) assembly seat while the Chowringhee seat was won by the ruling TMC. The last time the BJP won an assembly seat in West Bengal was in 1999 when its candidate Badal Bhattacharya won the bypoll from Ashoknagar in North 24 Parganas.

Explanation: 26-year old Tej Pratap Singh Yadav of SP won the Lok Sabha by-election from the prestigious seat of Mainpuri in Uttar Pradesh. The seat was held by SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav. He thus became 6^th member of the SP in Lok Sabha, who all belong to the Yadav family.

Explanation: However, Hu Jintao’s 2012 visit to India was to attend the BRICS Summit Meet during March 2012. Before him Chinese premier Wen Jiabao came to a state visit of India during 2010. Xi Jinping’s state visit is aimed at ramping up trade and investments. It will also be the occasion to have discussions on important issues including the contentious border dispute between the two countries.

Explanation: The last time credit growth had dipped to similar levels was during November-December 2009, after the 2008 financial crisis. Over the last two years, the credit growth of banks has slipped substantially. In 2012-13 and 2013-14, the credit growth slowed down to 13-14%, after growing at 22% annually since 2004-05.  Banking credit growth rate is one of the most powerful indicators of the country’s economic activity. It is a function of growth in the gross domestic product (GDP). Over the last ten years, credit growth has been 2.5 to 3 times the real GDP growth in the economy. Thus, with the economic growth hitting a low of 4.7% in 2013-14, the loan growth also slowed down to 14%.

Explanation: The portal has been developed to create benchmarks for property values by collecting data directly from buyers and validating the information using standard scientific practices. It will have the facility to take information from the persons who have bought or sold properties in recent years about what they paid or received after providing some basic details about the property. A market value report summarising information across all respondents that will be shared with the public seeks to alleviate a key source of consumer anxiety. Policymakers can utilise this data to study the effects of registration charges and stamp duty rates on disclosed property prices and the impact of the parallel economy in this sector.

Explanation: Barua’s Guwahati residence was searched by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 28 August 2014 in connection with the multicrore Saradha chit-fund scam. He reportedly shot himself at his residence. Barua headed the Assam Police as the DGP from July 2009 to January 2012.

Explanation: The report titled ‘Levels and Trends in Child Mortality 2014’ revealed that in 2013, globally, 6.3 million children under five years of age died from mostly preventable causes. The neonatal period (0-27 days) is the most vulnerable period for a newborn. It was therefore not surprising that in 2013, 2.8 million babies across the world died during this period. The 2.8 million neonatal deaths account for 44% of all under-five deaths in children.

Explanation: According to the report, of the three million neonatal deaths globally in 2012, 779,000 took place in India. Over 300,000 newborn deaths in India were on the very first day of birth. Thus, India accounts for about one-third of all babies dying globally on the first day of birth.