Banking Awareness PYQs

The correct answer is 5 Lakhs.

Key Points

• The Reserve Bank of India has increased the limit of IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) transactions to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh earlier for the convenience of the consumers.
• Immediate Payment Service is an instant payment inter-bank electronic funds transfer system in India.
• The RBI had also made the National Automated Clearing House (NACH) available on all days effective August 1, 2021.

Additional Information

• RBI announces Second Tranche of purchase under G-SAP 1.0.
• RBI to conduct first Special Long Term Repo Operation (SLTRO) for small finance banks.
• RBI forms Academic Advisory Council for Supervisory College.

• The RBI stated that all branches of public sector lenders Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank will function as branches of Bank of Baroda (BoB) from April 1, 2019.
• The proposed merger Bank of Baroda with Dena and Vijaya Bank came into effect from April 1, 2019.
• As per the proposed merger plan, the shareholders of Vijaya Bank will get 402 equity shares of BoB for every 1,000 shares held, while those of Dena Bank will receive 110 equity shares of BoB for every 1,000 equity shares held.

The correct answer is 30%.

Key Points

• Jio Payments Bank is an Indian payments bank that started operating in 2018.
• Payment banks in India are a special category of the bank that can accept deposits and make payments but cannot issue loans or other forms of credit including credit cards.
• Jio Payments Bank Limited is a joint venture between the Reliance Industries and the State Bank of India with the stake of 70:30.

Additional Information

• Jio Payments Bank Limited:
• Industry Financial services
• Founded on 3^rd April 2018
• Founder: Mukesh Ambani
• Headquarters: Navi Mumbai, India
• ​Vivek Bhandari (Chairman)
• Srikrishnan H (MD & CEO)

The correct answer is Damon Galgut.

Key Points

• South African author Damon Galgut has won the 2021 Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Promise.
• He won the award in his third appearance on the shortlist after making the cut in 2003 and 2010.
• He follows in the footsteps of other South African winners Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee, and is the first winner from the country since 1999.

Important Points

• ​Galgut took the prize on his third time as a finalist, for a book the judges called a “tour de force.”
• He was previously shortlisted for “The Good Doctor” in 2003 and “In a Strange Room” in 2010 but lost both times.

Additional Information

• Booker Prize:
• The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
• The winner of the Booker Prize receives international publicity which usually leads to a sales boost.
• It was first awarded in 1969.
• Indian Winners:

1. V.S. Naipaul in 1971.
2. Salman Rushdie in 1981.
3. Arundhati Roy in 1997.
4. Kiran Desai in 2006.
5. Aravind Adiga in 2008.

The correct answer is Balkrishna Doshi.

Key Points

• Balkrishna Doshi will receive the Royal Gold Medal 2022 by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the world’s highest honor for architecture.
• The award will be presented at a ceremony in 2022.
• Many of his iconic buildings include the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and Aranya Low-Cost Housing (1989), Indore, which won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 1995.

Important Points

• The Royal Gold Medal is “approved personally by Her Majesty The Queen and is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence on the advancement of architecture”.
• His buildings combine pioneering modernism with vernacular.
• His projects include administrative and cultural facilities, housing developments and residential buildings.
• Doshi’s key projects include:
• Shreyas Comprehensive School Campus (1958-63), Ahmedabad.
• Atira Guest House (1958), Ahmedabad, low-cost housing.
• The Institute of Indology (1962), Ahmedabad, a building to house rare documents.
• Ahmedabad School of Architecture (1966, with additions until 2012) - renamed CEPT University in 2002 - which focused on creating spaces that promoted collaborative learning.
• Tagore Hall and Memorial Theatre (1967), a 700-seat Brutalist auditorium in Ahmedabad etc.

The correct answer is Future.

In news

Key Points

• PM MITRA Yojana was launched by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2021.
• MITRA stands for Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel Park.
• The scheme would be a PPP (Public-Private Partnership).
• PM's vision: 5F's (Farm to Fibre to Factory to Fashion to Foreign).
• The primary objective of the scheme is to reduce logistical costs and strengthen the value chain to make the product globally competitive.
• The scheme also aims to increase Job Creation and Foreign Direct Investment.
• The development capital support for Greenfield Park is Rs. 500 crore and for Brownfield Park is Rs. 200 crore.​

Additional Information

• Two types of parks have been mentioned in the scheme: Greenfield Parks and Brownfield Parks.
• Greenfield Parks refers to a completely new project and Brownfields Parks refers to those parks that are already operating.

• Samudrayaan project has been undertaken by the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
• It is a part of the Ministry of Earth Sciences' pilot project for deep ocean mining for rare minerals.
• The project proposes to send a submersible vehicle to a depth of about 6000 metres to carry out deep underwater studies.
• It is a  ₹200 crore project that proposes to carry three persons in a submersible vehicle under sea for various studies.
• It will help India to join the league of developed nations in exploration of minerals from oceans.
• Union Minister of Earth Sciences and Science & Technology-Dr. Harsh Vardhan

The correct answer is 70^th.

Key Points

• India's Harnaaz Sandhu, hailing from Chandigarh, has been crowned Miss Universe 2021, two decades after Lara Dutta won the title in 2000.
• She beat contestants from Paraguay and South Africa.
• She was crowned at the contest held in Eilat, Israel on 13 December 2021.
• India had earlier won the coveted crown twice with Sushmita Sen bagging the title in 1994 and Lara Dutta in 2000.

Important Points

• This was the 70^th edition of the Miss Universe event.
• Sandhu was presented this year's crown by the former Miss Universe 2020 from Mexico, Andrea Meza.
• Sandhu recently won the title of Miss Diva Universe India 2021.

The correct answer is The PCA Framework will be only applicable to Deposit-Taking NBFCs.

Key Points

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 14^th December introduced a prompt corrective action (PCA) framework for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs).
• The PCA Framework brings NBFCs almost on a par with banks in terms of supervision and regulatory reach.
• The PCA framework for NBFCs comes into effect on October 1, 2022, on the basis of their financial position on or after March 31, 2022.
• The PCA Framework will be applicable to:

1. All Deposit-Taking NBFCs (NBFCs-D)
2. All Non-Deposit-Taking NBFCs (NBFCs-ND)

• The government companies under the NBFCs-D category will be excluded from the purview of PCA.
• The RBI will track three indicators:

1. Capital to risk-weighted assets ratio (CRAR)
2. Tier I ratio and net non-performing assets (NNPAs)
3. Non-performing investments (NPIs)

• Based on the risk threshold, the RBI may prescribe mandatory corrective actions such as:

1. restriction on dividend distribution/remittance of profits
2. requiring promoters/shareholders to infuse equity and reduce leverage
3. restriction on the issue of guarantees or taking on other contingent liabilities on behalf of group companies (only for CICs).

Additional Information

• The RBI introduced PCA Framework for banks in the year 2002.
• RBI was established in 1935 under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.
• The Governor of RBI is Shaktianta Das.

The correct answer is 4.35%.

Key Points

• Retail inflation declined to 4.35 percent in September 2021, mainly due to lower food prices, according to government data.
• The Consumer Price Index-based (CPI) inflation was at 5.30 percent in August and at 7.27 percent in September 2020.
• As per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), the inflation in the food basket eased to 0.68 percent in September 2021.

Additional Information

• About NSO:
• The National Statistics Office (NSO) is responsible for the collection, compilation, analysis and publication of a wide range of statistical information and related matters.
• This does not prevent other government departments or institutions from collecting their own statistical data for internal purposes.
• Information provided to the NSO is used solely in the compilation of statistical reports.
• The NSO and its activities are governed by the Malta Statistics Authority Act, 2000.

The correct answer is Haiderpur Wetland.

Key Points

• The Haiderpur Wetland, about 10 km from Bijnor in western Uttar Pradesh, has been recognized under the 1971 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
• On World Wetlands Day, two new Ramsar sites were announced - Khijadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat and Bakhira Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh. (Feb 2022)
• In July 2022, India adds 5 more wetland areas, Now India has 54 Ramsar sites.
• It was formed in 1984 on a floodplain of the River Ganga on the Madhya Ganga Barrage.
• It homes more than 30 species of plants and over 300 species of birds.

Important Points

• It is home to more than 15 globally threatened species such as the critically endangered gharial, endangered hog deer, black-bellied tern, steppe eagle, Indian skimmer, and gold mahseer.
• The Haiderpur wetland is not only home to more than 25,000 waterbirds, but it serves as a breeding site for the near-threatened Indian grassbird.
• It provides refuge to the northern subspecies population of the vulnerable swamp deer during its seasonal flood-driven migration.
• The site also regularly supports more than 1% of the population of greylag goose and bar-headed goose.

Additional Information

• According to the Ramsar Convention, wetlands are land areas saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally.
• Inland wetlands include marshes, ponds, lakes, rivers, floodplains, and swamps.
• The coastal wetlands include saltwater marshes, estuaries, mangroves, lagoons, and coral reefs.
• And, human-made wetlands include fishponds, rice paddies, and saltpans.
• Ramsar Convention on Wetlands:
• The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands is an international treaty that aims at the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands.
• It is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran and the convention was signed in 1971.
• The Ramsar Convention works closely with six other organizations known as international organization partners (IOPs):
• BirdLife International.
• International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
• International Water Management Institute (IWMI),.
• Wetlands International.
• WWF International.
• Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT).
• In August 2021, four more wetlands from India were recognized as Ramsar sites – Thol and Wadhwana from Gujarat and Sultanpur and Bhindawas from Haryana.
• In October 2021, Union Environment Minister, Bhupender Yadav had launched the ‘Wetlands of India’ portal that provides single-point access to all information relating to wetlands.

The correct answer is Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States.

• **In News:**​
• Recently, the US has announced a new trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific, between Australia, the UK and the US (AUKUS).
• The major highlight of this arrangement is the sharing of US nuclear submarine technology to Australia.

Key Points

• Focusing on Indo-Pacific:
• The security grouping AUKUS will focus on advancing strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Though the US has explicitly denied that the grouping is targeted against China, its Indo-pacific orientation makes it an alliance against China’s assertive actions in the South China Sea.
• The three countries alongside Canada and New Zealand already share extensive intelligence through the Five Eyes alliance.
• Transferring Nuclear Submarines to Australia: As part of this initiative, Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines with help from the UK and the US.
• This step is significant because the US has only shared nuclear submarine technology once before, and it started in 1958 with Great Britain.
• Nuclear submarines are quieter than their conventional counterparts but also more capable of being deployed for longer periods and needing to surface less frequently.
• Alongside India’s stated intent to acquire more nuclear-powered submarines, it will amount to a step-change increase in the Quad’s undersea and anti-submarine warfare capabilities.
• Quad is a grouping of India, the USA, Australia and Japan.

Key Points

• The wholesale inflation for November also rose 14.23% from 12.54% in October.
• November 2021 was the eighth consecutive month in which wholesale inflation stayed at a double-digit level.
• Food prices, which contribute to nearly half of CPI, rose 1.87% in November from 0.85% in October.
• In the December bi-monthly meeting, RBI retained the retail inflation forecast for the fiscal year at 5.3%.
• Wholesale price inflation (WPI) jumped to 12-year high of 14.23 per cent in the month of November.

In News

• Union Minister for MSME inaugurated 50 artisan-based SFURTI clusters, spread over 18 States.

Key Points

• In the 50 clusters inaugurated, over 42,000 artisans have been supported in the traditional segments of muslin, khadi, coir, handicraft, handlooms, woodcraft, leather, pottery, carpet weaving, bamboo, agro-processing, tea, etc**.**
• The Ministry of MSME has funded an amount of around Rs.85 crore for the development of these 50 clusters.
• The Ministry of MSME is implementing a Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) with a view to organizing traditional industries and artisans into clusters to make them competitive and increase their income.
• SFURTI clusters are of two types i.e.,
• Regular Cluster (500 artisans) with Government assistance of up to Rs.2.5 crore and
• Major Cluster (more than 500 artisans) with Government assistance up to Rs.5 crore.
• The artisans are organized into SPVs which can be
• a Society registered under Societies (Registration) Act, 1860,
• a Co-operative Society under an appropriate statute,
• a Producer Company under Section 465 (1) of Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013),
• a Section 8 Company under the Companies Act, 2013 (18 of 2013) or (v) a Trust.

The correct answer is ​70.

Key Points

• On November 29^th, 2021, World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified the new COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529 as Omicron.
• Omicron is the 15^th letter of the Greek alphabet.
• In the system of Greek numerals, omicron has a value of 70.
• New COVID-19 variant B.1.1.529 was first reported to WHO from South Africa on 24 November 2021.
• The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has approved a kit that will be used to detect Omicron.
• The kit is manufactured by Tata Medical and Diagnostics and is named OmiSure.
• WHO Established: 7 April 1948;
• WHO Director General: Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus;
• WHO Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.

Important Points

• Currently designated variants of concern:
• | WHO Label | GISAID Clade | Earliest documented samples | Date of Designated | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Alpha | GRY | The United Kingdom, Sep-2020 | 18-Dec-2020 | | Beta | GH/501Y.V2 | South Africa, May-2020 | 18-Dec-2020 | | Gamma | GR/501Y.1V3 | Brazil, Nov-2020 | 11-Jan-2020 | | Delta | G/478K.V1 | India Oct-2020 | VOI: 4-Apr-2021 VOC: 11-May-2021 |

Greek Alphabet

The correct answer is ​Elon Musk.

Key Points

• Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has been named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" for 2021.
• Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX and leads brain-chip startup Neuralink and infrastructure firm The Boring Company.
• Tesla's market value soared to more than $1 trillion in 2021, making it more valuable than Ford Motor and General Motors combined.

Important Points

• According to the magazine, "The Person of the Year" signifies somebody "who affected the news or our lives the most, for better, or worse."
• Time magazine named the teenage pop singer Olivia Rodrigo as its "Entertainer of the Year", American gymnast Simone Biles "Athlete of the Year" and vaccine scientists were named "Heroes of the Year".
• In 2020, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were jointly given the "Person of the Year" title.
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have also received the title in the past.
• Bezos was named the “Person of the Year” in 1999 and Time awarded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg the title in 2010$.

The correct answer is 1 only**.**

• In News:
• ​Anniversary event- Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) was launched on 25^th June 2015.

Key Points

• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban): 
• Launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA) in Mission mode. Hence, statement 1 is correct.
• It aims to transform slum areas by building homes for slum dwellers in collaboration with private developers.
• One of the world’s most ambitious and biggest housing schemes, ‘Housing For All by 2022’ announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, has accomplished a crossed a big milestone.
• The Mission seeks to address the housing requirement of urban poor including slum dwellers through the following programme verticals: 
• Slum rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers with participation of private developers using land as a resource.
• Promotion of Affordable Housing for weaker sections through credit-linked subsidy.
• Affordable Housing in Partnership with Public & Private sectors.
• Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction /enhancement.
• Credit linked subsidy component will be implemented as a Central Sector Scheme while the other three components will be implemented as Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS).

The correct answer is Magnus Carlsen.

Key Points 

• Magnus Carlsen of Norway won the FIDE World Championship in December 2021 in Dubai.
• He beat Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia by 7.5-3.5.
• This was Carlsen's fifth world championship title.
• The contest came to life in game 6, won by Carlsen with the white pieces after seven hours 45 minutes, and 136 moves – the longest game in world championship history.

Additional Information

• Raja Rithvik of Telangana has become the 70^th Grand master from India.
• Nagpur-based teenager Sankalp Gupta becomes the 71^st Grandmaster of India.
• ​Kolkata-based player Mitrabha Guha has become India's 72^nd chess Grand Master in November 2021.
• What is FIDE?
• The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is the governing body of the sport of chess, and it regulates all international chess competitions.
• Constituted as a non-governmental institution, it was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a Global Sporting Organization in 1999.
• FIDE currently has its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The correct answer is Amazon, Tata Tea and Asian Paints.

• According to Kantar’s BrandZ India 2021 report, Amazon, Tata Tea and Asian Paints emerged as the most purposeful brands in India across technology, FMCG, and non-FMCG categories respectively.
• In technology ranking Amazonleads the index followed by Zomato, YouTube, and Google, and Swiggy jointly in 4^th plac
• While Asian Paints topped the non-FMCG rankings, Samsung and Jio ranked jointly in the 2^nd position, followed by MRF. The FMCG category rankings saw Tata Tea topping the chart, Surf Excel in 2^nd position.
• India’s Top 5 Most Purposeful Brands:

The correct answer is Division of Powers.

Key Points

• The Seventh schedule of the Indian Constitution deals with the division of powers between the union and the states in terms of the list.
• The Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India defines and specifies the allocation of powers and functions between Union & States.
• It contains three lists:

1. Union List,
2. State List and
3. Concurrent List

• 7^th Schedule of Indian Constitution – Union List had 97 subjects. Now, it has 100 subjects.
• 88^th Amendment added a new subject in the Union List called ‘taxes on services.’
• The state list has 61 subjects. Earlier, it had 66 items.
• The 69^th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1991 made special provisions in relation to National Capital. Laws cannot be made by the Delhi government on three subjects under State List named as – Public Order, Police & Land.
• The concurrent list has 52 subjects enumerated under it.