Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
The Union Cabinet of India recently approved amendments to the Banking Regulation Act, which will bring multi-state cooperative banks under the regulation of the Reserve Bank of India.
This amendment in regulation is expected to prevent malpractices in the co-operative banks and ensure better regulation. The administrative role of the banks will be managed by the cooperative registrars. This decision is taken at the backdrop of the collapse of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank last year. The banks would also be audited according to the norms stipulated by RBI.

Notes:
Veteran Indian actor Waheeda Rehman was recently conferred with the prestigious Kishore Kumar Samman Award for the year 2018. The award was instituted by the Madhya Pradesh government.
Famous director Priyadarshan was conferred with the Kishore Kumar Samman for the year 2019, on the death anniversary of the legendary actor Kishore Kumar, October 13, 2019. As Waheeda Rehman could not receive the award during the ceremony, she was presented the award now, by the Madhya Pradesh culture minister Dr Vijaylaxmi Sadho.

Notes:
Bhutan is the correct answer. The country follows a ‘high value, low volume’ tourism policy and charges a Sustainable Development Fee from visitors to help finance environmental protection, cultural preservation, and infrastructure development. The current standard SDF is US$100 per person per night for most foreign visitors, while Indian nationals pay a preferential rate of Nu./INR 1,200 per person per night. This fee is a key part of Bhutan’s tourism model.

Notes:
Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has recently organised its first awareness programme in Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
APEDA, which comes under the aegis of Union Ministry of Commerce and Industries, organised the programme in association with the Directorate of Industries of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, in the capital city of the islands, Port Blair. The campaign was aimed at examining methods to promote exports of agri products and implementation of the Agri Export Policy in the Islands. The draft state Agri Export action plan, developed by APEDA was also finalized.

Notes:
The US Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Centre (GIPC) recently released the latest edition of International intellectual property index. In the list, India is ranked 40, with a score of 38.46%, higher than the last year’s score.
India was placed at 36th rank in the last year’s list, which ranked 50 countries across the world. This year the Centre included 53 economies. The United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France and Germany retained their positions and were placed at the top five spots in the intellectual property index list.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet has granted approval to Alliance Air to fly between India and Sri Lanka, by waiving the rule that an airline needs to own minimum 20 aircrafts to operate internationally.
Alliance Air, which is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Air India, has five years of experience but does not have 20 aircrafts. A special exemption is allowed for the interim period, until the airline deploys the higher among- a minimum of 20 aircraft or 20 per cent of total capacity. There was no commercial operation scheduled from Palaly and Batticaloa airports of Sri Lanka, before this approval.

Notes:
The United States recently launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance, which is aimed at protecting and preserving religious freedom across the world.
The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the formal launch of the alliance. As many as 27 countries have joined the alliance and the prominent countries among them are Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Greece. He also announced that the next ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom will be hosted by Poland in Warsaw, in July 2020.

Notes:
Veteran Hollywood actor Kirk Douglas has recently passed away at the age of 103. The legendary actor was born in Amsterdam and his original name was Issur Danielovitch Demsky.
He made his Hollywood debut in 1946 with the film “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” and Kirk Douglas became a leading box-office icon of Hollywood during 1950-60. One of his most popular movies was ‘Spartacus’, which made a universal box-office record. He was the recipient of the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award given to a US civilian.

Notes:
Top media agency of India, GroupM recently revealed that India would become the 8th-largest global advertising market in 2020. This is two places higher than the previous year’s rank.
It also estimates the overall size of India’s advertising market to be 13.2 billion (Rs 94,000 crore), which is 10.7 per cent growth from the last year, when the overall size was 11.9 billion (Rs 84,917 crore). The first place was bagged by the United States with a huge lead from the rest of the countries, followed by China and Japan.

Notes:
As per the Supreme Court ruling on November 9, 2019, a trust had to be set up for the construction of the Ram Temple within three months of the court order. Hence the Indian Government constituted the trust, which is named as ‘the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra’.
Former Attorney General of India, Advocate K Parasaran has been named as the head of the trust, which will function at his residence in Delhi. The advocate had earlier represented the litigant ‘Ram Lalla’ in the dispute and earned the verdict in its favour. An independent 15-member team has been named as the members of the trust, which will always have a trustee from the Dalit community, as per the Union Home Ministry.