September 1, 2014

Explanation: Bayalu is situated around 40 km from Bangalore. The camera which took these photographs was switched on a few hours after India’s Mars mission made history on 24 September 2014 by entering the planet’s orbit. The camera is among the 5 instruments on board the spacecraft. The other instruments will become operational one by one in the next few days.

Explanation: ISRO’s first and historic mission to Mars, the red planet, was launched on 5 November 2013 from India’s spaceport of Sriharikota (in Andhra Pradesh) along the eastern coast some 100 kilometres north of Chennai. The ambitious mission to Mars was first publicly announced by former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh from the Red Fort on 15 August 2012 on the occasion of his Independence Day address. The success of India’s Mars mission is undisputedly a shining moment in the space exploration history of a country otherwise beset with developmental challenges. Over half a century, the Indian space programme has managed many feats, but none as dramatic as this successful mission to the red planet.

Explanation: NASA’s Mariner 4 was the first successful mission to Mars when it had the closest approach of Mars on 15 July 1965. It was launched during November 1964. Mars 2 (1971) was the first partially successful Russian mission to Mars. Mars Express (2003) was the first successful Mars mission of the European Space Agency (ESA)

Explanation: Edward Snowden is known for his disclosures of top secret surveillance programs conducted by the United States. He will share the honorary portion of the prize with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. Asma Jahangir is a noted human rights activist of Pakistan. Basil Fernando is associated with the Asian Human Rights Commission. Bill McKibben is a noted American environmentalist. The 1.5 million kronor ($210,000) cash award will be shared by the winners and the award will be given on 1 December 2014 at Stockholm (Sweden).

Explanation: A share split of 1:10 means one equity share of SBI will now be split into 10 shares. This stands for reducing the face value of equity shares of the bank from Rs. 10 per share to Rs. 1 per share and to increase the number of issued shares in proportion thereof. The stock split is expected to increase investor participation in the stock. Earlier during September 2014, Punjab National Bank and ICICI Bank had also announced share split. Both the banks have approved sub-division of one equity share into five.

Explanation: The four functional coal blocks exempted from cancellation include two ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) under Sasan Power Limited in Madhya Pradesh and two other operated by NTPC and another by SAIL. Acting on the Central government’s assurance that it is fully prepared to face the cancellation of the coal block allocations and will not have any difficulty to take the coal industry forward, a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha passed the order. On the Centre’s request to save 40 functional coal blocks and six ready-to-function ones, the court said 42 of them would continue to function for the next 6 months, till 31 March 2015, to give the government breathing space to manage the emerging situation.

Explanation: In its order delivered on 25 September 2014, a Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court said that Parliament could not take away the powers of the judiciary and rest them in a tribunal which is not a court in its characteristic. A tribunal was set up in 2005 under the National Tax Tribunal Act. This tribunal was set up to decide tax-related cases by taking away jurisdiction of high courts in such matters. However, the 2005 law was stuck in litigation in high courts. All cases were transferred to the Supreme Court for a final decision. The Act allowed the executive extensive control with regard to appointments of members and procedure of the tribunal. The tribunal was envisaged to function like National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the taxation field.

Explanation: The Clean India Mission would be implemented from 2 October 2014 for 4,041 towns of the country. The mission will include elimination of open defecation, conversion of insanitary toilets to pour flush toilets, eradication of manual scavenging, municipal solid waste management, bringing about a behavioural change in people regarding healthy sanitation practices, generating awareness among citizens about sanitation and its linkages with public health beside others. It will cover 1.04 crore households, provide 2.5 lakh seats of community toilets, 2.6 lakh seats of public toilets and solid waste management facility for all towns.

Explanation: Apart from being a former Union Home Secretary, Pillai also took some other highly responsible government jobs such as Union Commerce Secretary and Secretary of the Department of Justice in the Ministry of Law and Justice. As Special Secretary in the Commerce Ministry, he was India’s Chief negotiator at the WTO. He succeeds B Muthuraman, who retires from the Tata group.

Explanation: The plant was re-opened after a tripartite agreement between the management, workers’ unions and the State Labour Department. Dunlop India Limited, the legendary maker of iconic Dunlop brand of tyres is going through rough weather for many years now. The company is owned by the Ruia Group. The Sahaganj plant was the first tyre manufacturing plant of Asia and was set-up in 1936. The operations in the plant were closed in October 2011 after the management had declared suspension of work citing law and order problems.

Explanation: S&P stated that improved political setting offers a conducive environment for reforms, which could boost growth prospects and improve fiscal management. At the same time, it affirmed the ‘BBB-‘ long-term and ‘A-3′ short-term unsolicited sovereign credit ratings on India.

Explanation: Khurshed Beknazarov was tested positive with methylhexanamine after a match against Singapore on 14 September 2014, five days before the opening ceremony. He was subsequently banned on 24 September 2014.

Explanation: Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was Prime Minister from 1998 to 2004, was the first to speak in Hindi at the UN General Assembly. This first Hindi address was delivered in a session in 1977. Vajpayee was then the Foreign Minister in the Janata Party cabinet. Hindi is not among the official languages of the UN. Narendra Modi in his address to the General Assembly, avoided a direct retort to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s harsh language at the UNGA a day earlier on 26 September, choosing instead to call on Pakistan to understand its own duty in creating an atmosphere for talks.

Explanation: The verdict was delivered at Gandhi Bhavan, in front of Bangalore Central Prison at Parappana Agrahara, where the court has been temporarily shifted for pronouncing the verdict in view of Z+ security available to Jayalalithaa. The other three accused in the case, V.K. Sasikala, V.N. Sudhakaran, and J. Ilavarasi, who were also convicted, were sentenced to four years in jail and a fine of 10 crore.

Explanation: Dr Subramanian Swamy, then a leader of Janata Party, files a case against Jayalalithaa alleging that during her tenure as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, she amassed properties worth Rs 66.65 crore disproportionate to her known sources of income.

Explanation: The free Wi-Fi Internet facility was inaugurated by the Union Railway Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda. The facility was started as a pilot project at Chennai Central by RailTel, a public sector telecom infrastructure provider. Under it, Internet browsing facility is free for the first half-an-hour, and after that, a nominal amount will be charged. Free Wi-Fi facility at railway stations was announced by the Railway Minister in the Rail Budget 2014-15.

Explanation: The negative outlook for Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and Syndicate Bank means a possible weakening in these banks’ asset quality and capitalisation. The 11 banks whose rating outlooks were revised from negative to stable are – ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of India, IDBI Bank Ltd, Indian Bank, Union Bank of India, IDFC and Kotak Mahindra Prime.

Explanation: This fact was revealed in the 5^th edition of the Savills Live/Work Index that was released on 26 September 2014. The Index measured the total costs per employee of renting living and working space on a US dollar basis in 12 world cities. London was placed at the top place in the index with annual cost per employee at $1,20,568. Hong Kong slipped from top spot to second place with $1,15,717 annual cost per employee. The two cities were followed by New York, Paris and Tokyo among the top 5 places. Mumbai retained its position as the cheapest world city, at $30,000 per person per year, down 21% in US dollar terms since 2008.

Explanation: Mt. Ontake, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures around 200 km of Tokyo, started erupting on the morning of 27 September. The thick grey smoke from the volcano affected flying routes of numerous flights and the planes were diverted on alternative routes.

Explanation: In this communiqué, the WHO asked stakeholders to take action against the overuse of salt by implementing its sodium reduction recommendations. The WHO cautioned that consuming too much salt could lead to, or contribute to, hypertension, or high blood pressure, and greatly increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. The WHO wanted the governments to implement the ‘global action plan to reduce non-communicable diseases that set nine targets, one being to reduce salt intake by a relative 30% across the globe by 2025.

Explanation: Kartar Singh had won the gold medal in the 10^th Asian Games at Seoul in 1986. Dutt, the 2012 Olympic bronze-medallist, was trailing all through in his semifinal bout before coming good in the last few seconds to enter the final. But in final he defeated Tajikistan’s Yusupov by 3-0 to claim a historic gold medal.

Explanation: Khushbir Kaur became the first Indian woman to win a medal in race walking event in the Asian Games as she clinched silver in 20km event. The 21-year-old from Amritsar clocked 1:33:07 to finish behind Lu Xiuzhi of China, who won the gold in 1:31:06. Khushbir also set a new national record in the process by bettering her previous personal best of 1:33:37.

Explanation: 63-year old Justice H.L. Dattu (Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu) was administered the oath of office by President Pranab Mukherjee at the Durbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhawan. He replaced Justice RM Lodha, who retired a day earlier on 27 September 2014. Justice Dattu has been heading the Supreme Court bench that is monitoring investigations into the 2G spectrum scam. He will have a tenure of 14 months and will retire on 2 December 2015.

Explanation: Jayalalithaa has been lodged in the Bangalore central jail after her conviction in disproportionate assets case. It was due to his loyalty factor that Panneerselvam was picked up by Jayalalithaa then in 2001 and now under almost similar circumstances he was picked up for the second time.

Explanation: The study claimed that because of these savings, about 10,836 MW of electricity generation was avoided in India in these 11 years. In terms of electricity, 95.3 billion units were saved. India’s annual consumption of electricity is about 700 billion units. If this entire saved electricity had to be produced from coal-based thermal power plants, India would have burnt another 98 million tonnes of coal. The study also elaborated that a bulk of these savings have come after 2006, once the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), that was created in 2002, started pushing various energy efficiency schemes.

Explanation: Spain’s constitutional court on 29 September suspended the planned referendum in Catalonia, thus halting all campaigning and preparations for the vote on independence. The Catalan leader Artur Mas had given a formal call on 27 September for holding a referendum for region’s independence from Spain. The court in its order also suspended the law that allowed the regional government to hold such voting for up to five months. The region of Catalonia has been pressing for its independence from Spain for quite some time now, with which it has been since the 15^th century.

Explanation:  The total distance between Sydney (Australia) and Dallas/ Fort Worth (U.S.) is 8,578 miles (13,804km). It is now the longest regular passenger flight in the world being serviced by Qantas. It is followed by Delta’s Johannesburg to Atlanta flight at 8,439 miles (13,582km) and Emirates Dubai – Los Angeles flight at 8,390 miles (13,420km).

Explanation: A century of the famous Komagata Maru episode was completed on 27 September. Exactly 100 years ago on 27 September 1914 a bunch of Indians reached Calcutta on a Japanese steamship named Komagata Maru. These passengers had been forcibly turned away from the shores of Vancouver by the Canadian government after a long, bitter stand-off. At Calcutta’s Budge Budge port they were fired at by the police killing 18 passengers. This was the bloody climax of one of the most fascinating episodes in country’s independence movement. This episode became a symbol of the worst in racist colonial oppression and of the indomitable spirit of resistance possessed by poor Indian migrants.

Explanation: Seema won the gold medal with a throw of 61.03m, which was the only effort of over 60m in the finals. China’s Lu Xiaoxin took the silver with 59.35m. This was Seema’s second major medal of the season, having won the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games earlier in the year.

Explanation: Adani Townships & Real Estate Company Ltd had proposed an IT/ITeS zone in Gujarat. The formal approval for the same was given in June 2007, which expired in June 2010. Essar Jamnagar SEZ Ltd, which had proposed to set up a multi-product zone in Gujarat, got formal approval in August 2006. It was expired in August 2009. The developer did not make any request for further extension of approval. Similarly Hindalco Industries had proposed to set up an aluminium product SEZ in Orissa. The formal approval to the developer was granted in July 2007. The developer was granted extension from time to time and the last extension granted expired in Dec 2013.

Explanation: In the previous session, the government had introduced the Repealing and Amending Bill, 2014, to repeal 36 obsolete laws. The Bill is currently pending. The Govt. is also acting on a report submitted by the Law Commission of India (LCI) on 12 September 2014 in which it has identified 72 antiquated statutes, which have to be immediately axed. These 72 laws are part of 261 statutes, the oldest one of them dating back to 1836.