Monthly Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2017

Notes:
Japanese lawmakers have reelected Shinzo Abe as the country’s 95th Prime Minister on November 1, 2017 after his party won a landslide victory in last month’s general election. Abe was reelected by both Houses of the Diet. The prime minister will now form his cabinet. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has reappointed all of his Cabinet Ministers, following his reelection by the Diet as country’s leader, to ensure continuity of his policies.

Notes:
Suresh Chukkapalli, Chairman of Phoenix Group of Hyderabad, has been appointed as Honorary Consul General in Hyderabad by the Republic of Korea, with consular jurisdiction over the state of Telangana. He was given charge/invested formally at a ceremony in New Delhi.

Notes:
The Samaspur Sanctuary is located near Salon in Rae Bareli district of Uttar Pradesh, which is established in 1987, and covers an area of about 780 hectares of land. The best time to visit the place is between November to March. More than 250 varieties of birds can be seen here such as Greylag Goose, Pintail, Common Teal, Eurasian Wigeon, Northern Shoveler and Ruddy Shelduck (Surkhab).

Notes:
The International Conference on “Ramayan Circuit and Mithila-Awadh Relations” has started at Janakpur in Nepal on November 3, 2017. Eminent experts from India and Nepal are participating in 2 day event. It must be noted that during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Nepal Visit in 2014, an agreement was signed between India and Nepal to develop Ayodhya and Janakpur as twin cities.

Notes:
Dharmendra Pradhan, the Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, has led the Indian delegation at the IEF  7th Asia Ministerial Energy Roundtable (AMER7), which took place in Bangkok, Thailand from 1-3 November 2017. India is the current chair of International Energy Forum (IEF) which is promoting the AMER – a biennial event bringing together Energy Ministers and experts from Asian countries.

Notes:
The Pan India scholarship program for school children “Deen Dayal SPARSH Yojana” has launched by Union Minister of Communications Manoj Sinha to increase the reach of Philately. Under the scheme of SPARSH, the annual scholarships will be awarded to children of Standard VI to IX having good academic record and also pursuing Philately as a hobby through a competitive selection process in all postal circles. Every Postal Circle will select a maximum of 40 scholarships representing 10 students each from Standard VI, VII, VIII & IX. The amount of Scholarship will be Rs. 6000/- per annum @ Rs. 500/- per month. The acronym ‘SPARSH’ stands for “Scholarship for Promotion of Aptitude & Research in Stamps as a Hobby”.

Notes:
Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has been designated as the new Finance Secretary of India. Adhia is a 1981 batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre. The post was vacant after former Finance and Expenditure Secretary Ashok Lavasa retired on October 31, 2017. As per the convention, the senior most Secretary in the Finance Ministry is designated as the Finance Secretary. Adhia’s appointment comes ahead of the 10 November GST Council meeting in Guwahati that is likely to see a revision in the tax rates for some common use items and easier GST returns filing norms for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Notes:
The 2-day conference of Ministers for Power and New and Renewable Energy of States and Union Territories will be held at Rajgir in Bihar from November 10, 2017. The conference will be inaugurated by Union Minister of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy Raj Kumar Singh. The objective of the conference is to review the implementation of various ongoing schemes and deliberate upon a host of issues pertaining to Power and Renewable Energy sectors. Ministers and Secretaries of States and senior officials will participate in the conference.

Notes:
The Union Government has reconstituted Multi-Agency Group (MAG) to probe into cases of Paradise Papers, which is also probing the Panama Papers leak. The reconstituted MAG headed by the Sushil Chandra, the Chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), will have representatives from ED, RBI and Financial Intelligence Unit. The Paradise Papers revealed that India ranks 19 out of the 180 countries represented in the data of offshore entities. In all, 714 Indian entities and individuals figure in the list. The Paradise Papers include nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork over nearly 50 years from inside Appleby, a prestigious offshore law firm with offices in Bermuda and other places. Indians who figure in Paradise Papers include Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, defaulter businessman Vijay Mallya, corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, film star Sanjay Dutt’s wife Manyata, Union minister Jayant Sinha and Rajya Sabha MP R K Sinha.

Notes:
India has signed $119 million of financial agreement with the World Bank (WB) for Odisha Higher Education Programme for Excellence and Equity (OHEPEE) project. The purpose of the project is to improve the quality of ‘students’ equitable access to selected institutions and enhance governance of the higher education system in Odisha. The closing date for the project is 30th November, 2022.