Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2018

Notes:
On November 1, former Indian cricket captain Rahul Dravid has officially been inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame for his stupendous achievements in international cricket. In a ceremony held ahead of the fifth and final ODI between India and West Indies in Thiruvananthapuram, Dravid was presented with the HoF cap by Sunil Gavaskar. With this, Dravid became only the fifth player from India to be named in the elite list. The other four Indians are former skippers Bishan Singh Bedi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Anil Kumble. Dravid, also popularly known as ‘the Wall’ had been a long-standing rock of Indian cricket for over 15 years. In all, he aggregated 13,288 runs in 164 Tests with 36 centuries and 10,889 runs in 344 ODIs with 12 centuries. He was also a brilliant slip fielder and finished his Test career in 2012 with 210 catches, which is a world record. He is currently the head coach of India A and India U-19 sides.

Notes:
India has been ranked 77th in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index 2018 . With this, India has jumped 23 places from 2017 in which it was ranked at 100th. In its annual ‘Doing Business’ 2019 report, World Bank stated that India improved its rank on six out of the 10 parameters relating to starting and doing business in a country.The report also recognises India as one of the top 10 improvers in this year’s assessment, for the 2nd successive time. The Index ranks 190 countries across 10 indicators ranged across the lifecycle of a business from ‘starting a business’ to ‘resolving insolvency’. These parameters include ease of starting a business, construction permits, getting electricity, getting credit, paying taxes, trade across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. New Zealand tops the list, followed by Singapore, Denmark, and Hong Kong.

Notes:
India has officially signed a $950 million contract with Russia for the purchase of two upgraded Krivak III-class stealth frigates for the Indian Navy. The two frigates of the Project 11356 class will be bought directly from Russia and a contract to build two more at an Indian yard is likely to be signed at a later stage. The frigates are built by Yantar Shipyard of Russia and will be powered by Ukrainian gas turbine engines. They will be equipped with Indian-built radar, sonar, communication suites and anti-ship BrahMos missile systems. The ships are expected to be delivered by the end of 2022. The procurement of the frigates will involve a rupee-rouble transaction instead of using U.S. dollars to avoid American sanctions on Russian defense companies under CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act). The Project 11356 is a derivative of the Talwar-class frigates that Russia has built for the Indian Navy.

Notes:
According to India’s first-ever ‘Ease of Moving Index 2018’ – India Report 2018, Kolkata has topped the index in terms of cleanliness and affordability of public transport, followed by New Delhi and Chennai. The index offers insights on mobility preferences & aspirations of Indian commuters across 20 cities with a population of over 92 million. It was released by Ola Mobility Institute (OMI), the research and outreach arm of Ola ride-hailing platform. The 2018 report, which was released by the Union Minister for Surface Transport Nitin Gadkari, seeks to offer a comprehensive action plan for cities to further strengthen their public transportation systems and improve the overall state of mobility. Over 43,000 respondents from 20 cities across the country were surveyed. Cities were selected on five parameters — scale, character, culture, economy and geography. The report also assessed the accessibility, efficiency and safety of current transportation facilities. More than 95% of denizens prefer sustainable mobility and 80% observed transport ecosystem has improved over the last five years with 60% reporting using public modes of commute.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has initiated steps to set up a wide-based digital Public Credit Registry (PCR) to capture details of all borrowers, including wilful defaulters and also the pending legal suits in order to check financial delinquencies. The PCR will also include data from entities like market regulator SEBI, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) to enable the banks and financial institutions to get 360 degree profile of existing and prospective borrowers on a real-time basis. The central bank has invited expression of interest for developing the registry from companies with a turnover of over 100 crore rupees in the last three years. The PCR would be the single point of mandatory reporting for all material events for each loan, notwithstanding any threshold in the loan amount or type of borrower. Currently, there are multiple granular credit information repositories in India, with each having somewhat distinct objectives and coverage.

Notes:
V. Rathinam (99), the veteran freedom fighter and member of Indian National Army (INA) led by Nethaji Subash Chandra Bose, has passed away in South Kodikulam, Tamil Nadu on November 4, 2018. Born on 16th August 1919, Rathinam had moved to Burma when he was a bachelor and joined the INA during the Second World War in the early 1940s. After completing the training programme, he was inducted into the INA and fought against the British. Later, he was imprisoned by the British along with others and served jail terms in different prisons before he was set free from a prison in Kolkata.

Notes:
HSBC Holdings Plc has executed India’s first trade financial transaction using blockchain for a deal involving an export by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to US-based Tricon Energy. The blockchain-enabled letter of credit (LC) reduces transaction timeline from 7-10 days to less than a day. The Letter of Credit (LC) was issued by ING Bank for Tricon Energy USA (importer) with HSBC India as the advisory and negotiation bank for RIL. The blockchain platform was integrated with the electronic bill of lading (eBL) platform to issue and manage an electronic bill of lading. This allows a digital transfer of the title of goods from the seller to the buyer in the underlying trade. It is claimed that the blockchain solution is a major improvement for any organisation involved in buying and selling goods internationally, as it brings together all parties onto one platform. It is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of ordered records called blocks and is deemed to be very transparent as all the stakeholders can view progress real time.

Notes:
Gaddam Dharmendra, a 1990-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, has been appointed India’s new Ambassador to Iran. He will succeed Saurabh Kumar, who was appointed India’s ambassador to Myanmar. Dharmendra’s appointment comes at a time when the global focus is on oil imports from Iran as the US has recently imposed “the toughest ever” sanctions aimed at altering the Iranian regime’s “behaviour”.

Notes:
On November 6, Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has renamed the newly-constructed Ekana International Cricket Stadium after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The stadium will now be known as ‘Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee International Cricket Stadium’ . It has a seating capacity of around 50,000 and will host its first international match on November 6, when the 2nd Twenty-20 match between India and the West Indies will be played in the stadium in Lucknow . Hence, Lucknow will host the first international match after 24 years. The stadium was named after Vajpayee, as the former prime minister was a Member of Parliament from Lucknow for five consecutive times between 1991 and 2009 .

Notes:
In Boston, veteran actor Anupam Kher has recently been honoured with ‘Distinguished Fellow Award’ by IndiaGlobal – a leading think-tank that works on issues concerning non-resident Indians. He was given a fellowship at the 3rd IndiaGlobal Summit 2018. The event was held at the prestigious MIT Sloan School of Management in Boston, and was facilitated by MIT Sloan India Business Club.