Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2019

Notes:
The Bank of Baroda (BoB) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Army under which the bank would offer customised services along with a host of facilities to account holders. The MoU offers handsome free personal accident insurance cover, free air accident insurance cover of Rs 15 lakh to Rs 50 lakh and an overdraft facility up to 3 times of monthly net salary. The features are also applicable for pensioners of Indian Army up to the age of 70 years.

Notes:
As per 4th bi – monthly Monetary Policy Statement for 2019-20, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cut  its key lending rate — repo rate – by 25 basis points to 5.15% in an effort to boost a sluggish economy as inflation remains in a comfortable zone.  This is the 5th consecutive rate cut by the apex bank this year.

Notes:
The 2019 edition of World Space Week (WSW) is celebrating the 50th anniversary of humankind’s first step on the Moon on 20th July 1969 with theme “The Moon: Gateway to the Stars” from 4th to 10th October. The theme is devoted to our nearest space neighbor to celebrate the incredible achievement of landing on the Moon and to spark consideration of the value of the Moon in humankind’s future space endeavors.

Notes:
Axis Bank has launched a short-term online fixed deposit product ‘Express FD’ that allows a customer to open a FD account in 3 minutes through the digital mode without opening a savings account with the bank. The new product offers a host of features like attractive interest rates, zero issuance fees and no penalty on pre-mature withdrawal (up to 25% of the amount). A customer can now open an Express FD account by investing a minimum Rs 5,000 up to Rs90,000, for a tenure of 6 to 12 months.

Notes:
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has recently launched a new governance initiative ‘Mo Sarkar’ on the occasion of 150th Gandhi Jayanti. The objective of the ‘Mo Sarkar’ is to provide service with dignity to people who are coming to government offices for different purposes. The phone numbers of people who are coming to government offices will be collected randomly with the purpose to improve the governance system by collecting feedback on behaviour and professionalism of government officers. The employees will be ranked as good or bad on the basis of the feedback and those with good rank will get out-of-turn promotion and action will be taken against employees with bad rank.

Notes:
The Union government has launched a Prakash portal – ‘Power Rail Koyla Availability through Supply Harmony’ – for better coordination among the Ministries of Power, Coal and Indian Railways for coal supply to power plants. The portal, which is developed by NTPC, is designed to help in mapping and monitoring entire coal supply chain for power plants, viz – – coal stock at supply end (mines), coal quantities/ rakes planned, coal quantity in transit and coal availability at power generating station

Notes:
Indian Army has started its  first-of -its kind biggest ever mountain combat exercise titled ‘Him Vijay’ in Arunachal Pradesh. It is the first-ever such drill that the military is holding in the northeastern state i.e., 100 km away from the Line of Actual Control (LAC).  The exercise is to test mobility, communication and coordination of such huge body of fast-moving troops in difficult terrain. The exercise is to be conducted in two phases. The first phase will be held between 7th to 10th October 2019  and the other phase will be from 20th- 24th October 2019.

Notes:
The Union Health Ministry has recently released data on  the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), which is the tertiary care arm of Ayushman Bharat. According to report, Tamil Nadu (with 40,056 cases) tops the state where the most cancer patients availed treatment under PMJAY, followed by Kerala (22,000), Madhya Pradesh (19,455), Chhattisgarh (15,997) and Gujarat (14,380). The report revealed that there are 11.57 lakh new cancer patients and 7.84 lakh cancer deaths every year in India. At any given point of time, there are 22.5 lakh Indians living with cancer. 

Notes:
Bahrain sprinter  Salwa Eid Naser has become the first woman athlete from Asia to win the 400m gold in the ongoing IAAF World Athletics Championships (WAC) Doha 2019.  She clocked 48.14 seconds i.e., the third-fastest lap in history and the fastest in 34 years.

Notes:
Rohit Sharma from India has become the first-ever batsman to score hundreds in each innings of his maiden Test as an opener in Visakhapatnam against South Africa.  He also broke the record for most sixes in a Test with 13 hits over the fence & surpassed Pakistan’s Wasim Akram who smashed 12 in a game against Zimbabwe in 1996. Beside this, Rohit  also became the first Indian batsman to be stumped in both innings of a Test.