Banking Awareness PYQs

Defending champions Indian Women's Hockey Team lost to hosts South Korea 0-1 in the final match of the Women's Asian Champions Trophy 2018. The win for South Korea saw them lift the title for the third time after having won in the 2010 and 2011 editions of the tournaments. India's Vandana Katariya was declared the player of the tournament.

Union Cabinet has approved corpus of Rs. 5,000 crore for setting up of a dedicated “Micro Irrigation Fund” with NABARD under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana. The fund seeks to provide states financial assistance on concessional rate of interest to promote micro-irrigation. The lending rate under MIF has been proposed at 3% lower than the cost of raising the fund by NABARD.

Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Rathore will inaugurate the ASEAN India Film Festival in New Delhi on May 25, 2018. It will be a platform for people of the film industry of member countries to explore areas of cooperation in domain of cinema & cultural cooperation. The tagline of the Festival is proposed to be ‘Friendship through Films’.

United Nations Development Programme will soon set up a skill development centre at 'Bharosa,' in Hyderabad. 'Bharosa,' an initiative of Hyderabad City Police, is a state-of-the-art centre to support women and children who are victims of violence. The centre will empower vulnerable & marginalised women by imparting skills training.

• Ajay Thakur is a star player and raider of Indian International Kabaddi Team.
• On 30 June 2018, under his captaincy India has won 2018 Dubai Kabaddi Masters.
• In the 6^th season of Pro Kabaddi league 2018 he will serve as the captain of ‘Tamil Thalaivas’.

• The headquarters of International Organization for Migration (IOM) is in Geneva, Switzerland.
• IOM is an inter-governmental organisation that works in the field of migration including migrant workers, refugees and forced migration.
• Initially it was set up in 1951 as the Inter-governmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) to resettle people displaced by World War II.
• In 2016, IOM became a related organisation of the United Nations (UN).

• The headquarters of AIIB is in Beijing, China.
• The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) provides finance for infrastructure development in Asia-Pacific region.
• The bank was proposed in China in 2013, and is seen as Asia’s response to World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

• Digital gold is an initiative of Paytm to store, sell and buy gold online.
• In ‘Digital Gold’ initiative user can buy 24 Karat gold from MMTC-PAMP (India’s only Internationally Accredited Refinery) on Paytm and store it at no additional charge.
• Paytm allows user to buy and sell gold for as little as Rs.1.

• COMCASA is a bilateral pact between India and USA for the transfer of communication security equipment to India.
• These communication equipments will be installed on military platforms to secure data links.
• It was earlier called as Communication and Information on Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) and later was renamed to COMCASA, to reflect its India-specific nature.

• The secretariat office of SAARC Development Fund (SDF) is in Thimphu, Bhutan.
• The SDF Secretariat was established in April 2010 during the sixteenth SAARC summit in Bhutan.
• SDF works as an umbrella financial institute for all SAARC developmental projects and programmes.
• It funds the projects in the South Asia region by its three windows namely Social, Economic and Infrastructure Window.

Note:

SAARC HQ is in Kathmandu,Nepal

• SAARC member states comprise Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin held their first informal summit in the city of Sochi, Russia.
• The leaders decided to intensify consultation and coordination with each other.
• The two leaders agreed to institute a Strategic Economic Dialogue between NITI Aayog of India and the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation.

• National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is an umbrella organisation for all retail payments in India
• It governs various payments methods like National Financial Switch (NFS), Immediate Payment System (IMPS), Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), Unified Payments Interface (UPI), BHIM etc.

• The theme of World Environment Day 2018 was ‘Beat plastic pollution’
• World Environment Day is celebrated on 5^th June every year to spread awareness for the protection of our environment.
• India globally hosted World Environment Day 2018.

• Sanskrit was the least spoken language of 8^th schedule of Indian Constitution, according to census 2011.
• Only 24,821 persons listed Sanskrit as their mother tongue.
• Hindi was listed as the most spoken language in India with 44% people followed by Bengali.

• The United States, Canada,and Mexico will organise 23^rd FIFA World Cup in 2026.
• FIFA World Cup is an international football competition contested after every 4 years.
• Uruguay hosted and won 1^st FIFA World Cup organised in 1930.
• Qatar will organisethe 22^nd FIFA World Cup in 2022 from 21 November to 18 December.
• Brazil is the most successful team in FIFA World Cup with 5 titles.

• Bhumi Pednekar won best actress award at the DadasahebPhalke Film Foundation Awards 2018for her movie “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha”.
• Akshay Kumar won the best actor award for his performance in Padman.

• Pilibhit Tiger Reserve is located in 3 districts namely Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri and Bahraich districts of Uttar Pradesh.
• Uttar Pradesh has 3 tiger reserves, the other two are Dudhwa Tiger Reserve and Amangarh Tiger Reserve.

• The two day ‘Kabir Mahotsav’ was organized by the Ministry of Culture.
• The festival was organised to commemorate the 500^th year of death anniversary of Saint Kabir.
• Kabir was a 15^th century mystic poet and saint. His verses were incorporated into Adi Granth (a religious scripture of Sikhism).

• Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has charted a plan to promote micro-enterprises in 115 aspirational districts of India.
• According to Government of India, micro-enterprises are the business on a very small scale with a total investment between 25 lakh to 10 crores in the manufacturing sector and 10 lakhs to 5 crores in the service sector.
• SIDBI decided these 115 aspirational districts and made District Magistrates as ‘prabhari’ officers to implement the program.

• National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved the merger of Telenor India with Bharti Airtel.
• Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunication company runs operations in seven telecom circles in India.
• National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is a quasi-judicial body that makes decisionin issues relating to Indian companies.