Current Affairs [Monthly]

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David Robert Jones (69), an English singer, songwriter and actor, has recently passed away in New York City, United States. He was posthumously honoured with five Grammy Awards in various categories viz. Best Alternative Rock Album, Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical), and Best Recording Package for Blackstar, and Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song for the album’s title track at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards-2017.

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The Atria Convergence Technologies (ACT) Fibrenet has recently launched 1 Gigabit per second wired broadband internet service in Hyderabad. With this launch, Hyderabad has become the India’s first ‘Giga-enabled’. ACT Fibrenet uses fiber optic technology and its 1 Gbps offering is 400 times faster than the average internet speed of 2.5 megabits per second in India. Giga speeds will allow downloads from the internet faster than transferring data from a USB drive and will be available for Rs 5,999 per month.

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Ganeshan Neelakanta Iyer has become the first Indian to be nominated as a member of the ITTF Umpires and Referees Committee (URC). His term will be for two years and is extendable. Iyer is the only assigned competition manager of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) in India. Beside this, Ganeshan has also been recommended as the Technical Commissioner from the Asian Continent to ITTF and his term will be for a period of four years. He is also the chairman of the South Asian Federation technical committee and a member of the Technical Committee of the Commonwealth Table Tennis Federation (CTTF).

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The 5th North East Connectivity Summit- 2018 will be held in Arunachal Pradesh. This was informed by Ranjit Barthakur, the Chairman of North East Advisory Council (NEAC) of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The summit organised by the FICCI is one of the most important forums for action oriented deliberations on sub-regional economic integration and connectivity between North East India and South East Asia. The 4th North East Connectivity Summit will be held in Nagaland in the month of September 2017.

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N. Dharam Singh (80), the former Karnataka Chief Minister and veteran Congress leader, has recently passed away in Bengaluru 80. He was the 17th Chief Minister of Karnataka and was continuously elected as MLA for 7 times from the Jevargi constituency. Mr Singh was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Bidar constituency in 2009 general election.

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The Union Government has sanctioned Rs. 75 crore for setting up a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) bottling plant in Meghalaya. Meghalaya is the only state in the region which has no bottling plant. The new bottling plant will be constructed at an existing site located in Shillong. A memorandum of understanding was inked between the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and the state government in the presence of Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma in Shillong on December 09, 2017.

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The Uttar Pradesh has launched massive door to door campaign DASTAK in association with UNICEF to eradicate deadly Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) and Japanise Encephalitis (JE) disease in the state. The war cry of DASTAK is Darwaja khatkhatao, AES aur JE ko bhagao. In DASTAK campaign, the whole state machinery with the help of UNICEF will now literally go door to door in 38 JES and AE affected districts which mostly fall in the Tarai region of the state which contributes to about 60% of the total AES cases all over the country. In this massive campaign, many departments of the state especially health, rural development, primary education will work together to spread awareness about the diseases through mass media communication, provide clean drinking water, initiate sanitation drive, ensure vaccination and early treatment so that disease should be nipped in the bud. Children of 600 schools in the affected areas will also be part of this campaign.

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Russia has successfully launched a Glonass- M positioning satellite by using a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from the Plesetsk space center on June 17, 2018. The Glonass network provides real-time positioning data for surface, sea and airborne objects around the globe, at an accuracy reportedly at par with the U.S. Global Positioning System.

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Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has been conferred with the ‘Chief Minister of the Year’ award for her remarkable work in e-governance. The award was given at the 52nd Skoch Summit 2018 held in New Delhi.

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First option is the correct answer
Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) launched the “Sachet” portal to curb illegal collection of money by companies. This website will enable public to obtain information regarding entities that accept deposits, lodge complaints and also share information regarding illegal acceptance of deposits.