Current Affairs August

Ashoke Sen, a professor at Allahabad based Harish Chandra Research Institute has been announced as one of the winners of the first Fundamental Physics Prize started by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner with Prize value of USD 3 Million. He was chosen for this award along with 8 other scientists for his work on String theory.

Coal India Board has finally approved supply of a minimum 80% of the contracted quantity of Coal to the power firms in order to enable them meeting the rising power demand across the country.

Pakistan Supreme Court has rejected the new contempt law which was proposed to exempt top government officials from contempt of court charges.

US based Private equity giant Bain Capital Partners has announced to acquire 30% stake in India’s biggest business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Genpactfor USD 1 billion

 Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, known as the fastest man in the world with the world record holder in the 100 m sprint category, won the men’s Olympic 100m title with new record of 9.63 seconds.

UK’s Andy Murray defeated Swiss Tennis champion Roger Federer to win the Olympic Gold in the Men’s singles category.

Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi has been appointed as an Election Commissioner to fill the vacancy after elevation of V S Sampath as Chief Election Commissioner following retirement of former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi.

 Raghuram Rajan has been formally appointed as the chief economic advisor in the finance ministry.

India at Olympics

Gagan Narang brags bronze  in 10 m air rifle

Vijay kumar wins silver in 25 m rapid fire pistol

Saina Nehwal wins Bronze in Badminton

Mary Kom wins Bronze in Womens Boxing

Yogeshwar Dutt wins Bronze in 60 Kg wrestling

Sushil Kumar wins silver in 66 kg wrestling

The Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences and former Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Vilasrao Deshmukh passed away

South Africa replaced England as the world’s number 1 Test Cricket team following their second victory over England in the current ongoing series

Global tech giant Apple’s market capitalization jumped to USD 623.5 billion which is the record high market cap for any company in the world. 

Olympic medalists Vijay Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt have been awarded with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award for the year 2012.

India’s iconic stylish batsman V.V.S. Laxman has announced his retirement from International Cricket with immediate effect. With this his glorious 16 years of cricketing career came to an end. He scored 8781 runs in 134 tests at an average of 45.97 and scored 2338 runs in 86 One Day matches at an average of 30.76. He scored 17 test centuries and 6 ODI centuries.

 Congress member P J Kurien has been unanimously elected as the deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha

Poonam Kishore Saxena has been appointed as the new chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) 

Russia has become the 156^th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after nearly 20 years of negotiation. 

 Fortune magazine has published the list of 100 most influential women in the world. German Chancellor Angela Merkel secured the No 1 rank in the list followed by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton at No 2 and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff at No 3.

 Congress party president Sonia Gandhi has been ranked as the 6^th most powerful woman in the world by the Fortune magazine.

 India’s Supreme Court has extended the ban on tourism activities in the core area of the country’s tiger reserves in order to protect the wild animal.

Domestic Credit rating agency ICRA has lowered India’s 2012-13 GDP growth to 5.7% compared to its earlier GDP growth forecast of 6.2-6.4% due to lower investment sentiment.

India’s largest IT services Company Tata Consultancy Services has overtaken RIL as the country’s most valuable company in terms of market capitalization as its share price touched 52-week high.

India’s largest passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki has resumed its operation partially on 21^st August at its Maneshar plant after nearly a month of violent labor protest.

US astronaut Neil Armstrong, who became the first person to walk on the moon, has dies.He was 82. He was the mission commander of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 and walked on the lunar surface.

 Congress leader Vayalar Ravi has been appointed as the new Union Minister for Science and Technology 

 Veteran Bollywood actor AK Hangal passed away at the age of 98.

India’s Under-19 Cricket team won the World cup today for the third time after defeating Australia in the final match.

The Supreme Court has asked Indian government to complete the fresh auction of 2G spectrum by 11^th January 2013 

HPAS Pre 2012 Analysis and Expected Cutoffs

HPAS exam was held on 10 Aug 2012.The exam was a bit difficult as compared to last year.GA section covered all the aspects ranging from History to Chemistry.GK questions based on Himachal were also not easy.Any one who has attempted above 70 with 90% accuracy should make it into the next round.

Now coming on to the aptitude section.The quant section was somewhat similar to the last year paper and it was the scoring section.But the VA and Intelligence part were tough.Below are the links where you can find ans to the intelligence questions

http://brainmass.com/psychology/other/23613
http://wps.ablongman.com/ab_interpersonalcomm_studysite_1/55/14190/3632654.cw/content/index.html
http://www.indiabix.com/verbal-reasoning/cause-and-effect/
http://www.psychwww.com/selfquiz/ch06mcq.htm

All these links contain maximum of the questions that were asked in intelligence.
Anything above 70 will be a good score in this paper.
Overall  cutoff will hover around 240-250.

PS:-Comments are welcome.

G.K,Current Affairs for HAS (Himachal Administrative Services) and IAS

State Profile
Himachal Pradesh 2011 Census

Area	55673 km2
Total Population	68,56,509
Males	34,73,892
Females	33,82,617
Population Density	123
Sex Ratio	974
Rural Population	61,67,805
Urban Population	6,88,704
Scheduled Caste Population	1,502,171
Scheduled Tribe Population	244,587
Literacy Rate	83.78%
Male Literacy	90.83%
Female Literacy	76.60%
Districts	12
Sub-Division	52
Tehsils	75
Sub-Tehsils	34
Developmental Block	75
Towns	59
Panchayats	3,243
Panchayat Smities	75
Zila Parishad	12
Urban Local Bodies	53
Nagar Nigam	1
Nagar Parishad	20
Nagar Panchayats	32
Census Villages	20,690
Inhabited Villages	17,495
Health Institutions	3,835
Educational Institutions	17,000
Motorable Roads	30,000 km
National Highways	8
Identified Hydroelectric Potential	20,787 MW in five rivers basins i.e. (Yamuna, Satluj, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Himurja)
Potential harnessed	6353.12MW
Food grain production	16.69 lakh tonnes
Vegetable production	9 lakh tonnes
Fruit Production	6.95 lakh tonnes
Per Capita Income	. 36,783 (2006–2007) Expected
Social security Pension	237,250 Persons, Annual Expenditure: Over . 60 Crore
Investment in Industrial Area	. 27,380/- crore, Employment Opportunities: Over 337,391

Current Affairs July 2012 Part 2 for IBPS PO and Civil Services

 South Africa’s wicketkeeper Mark Boucher had to retire unexpectedly due to a serious eye injury. Boucher has played 146 test matches and 295 ODIs and was behind 990 dismissals in both Test and ODI crickets as a wicketkeeper. 

US futures broker Peregrine Financial Group has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy which opens the path for its liquidation.

MCX-SX trading allowed by SBI .

Jagadish Shettar is the  new chiefminister of Karnataka

Nasir Ali as the new joint MD for state run Air India

 Famous Wrestler and Actor Dara Singh passed away today in Mumbai. He was 84 years old. 

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has given Prime Minister Raja Parvez Ashraf time till July 25 timeline to comply with its earlier order to ask Swiss authorities to reopen graft cases against President Asif Ali Zardari. 

 Global credit rating agency Moody’s has downgraded Italy’s government bond rating by two notches to Baa2 and warned it could cut it further. 

 Australian pacer Brett Lee  has announced his retirement from all forms of International cricket but he will continue to play in IPL and other leagues.

India has successfully test fired its surface-to-surface single stage Agni-I ballistic missile again for further research and improvement. It is capable of carrying nuclear warhead of up to 1000 kg with strike range of 700 km. It has already been inducted into the armed forces.

BJP leader Mr Jaswant Singh has been chosen by the NDA as its unanimous candidate for the upcoming Vice-Presidential election

 India’s wrestler Sushil Kumar will be India’s flag-bearer at London Olympics

 Indian golfer Jeev Milkha Singh won the the Scottish Open after beating Francesco Molinari in a playoff.

The International Monetary Fund has cut India’s economic growth forecast for the current financial year to 6.5% compared to its earlier projection of 7.2%

British football club Manchester United has retained its title as the world’s most valuable sports team, as per the latest list published by the Forbes. The club was valued at USD 2.23 billion to retain the first place followed by 2^nd rank holder Spanish club Real Madrid

Global tech giant Microsoft has launched Office 2013, its latest Office version to have more collaboration with Social Networking and Cloud Computing. 

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has been elected head of the African Union Commission.

Veteran Rajesh Khanna, known as Bollywood’s first superstar passed away today in Mumbai. 

 Government has cleared a proposal to appoint Arun Mishra as head of aviation regulator DGCA

 The US House of Representative has voted unanimously to cut the US aid to Pakistan by USD 650 million.

Pranab Mukherjee has been elected as the 13th President of India after getting nearly 69.3% votes in the recent Presidential election.

 HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh has been appointed as the new chairman of the High Level Committee on Financing Infrastructure after getting necessary approval from the Prime

Maruti Suzuki has declared a lockout at its Manesar plant after riot and violence hit the same plant last week. Minister

Freedom Fighter, member of Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army and social activist Captain Lakshmi Sehgal passed away.


The Supreme Court has reduced the government’s discretionary quota seats for Haj pilgrims to 300 from earlier 5,050 seats 


 Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso defeated Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and McLaren’s Jenson Button to win the German Grand Prix


UK’s Bradley Wiggins won the Tour de France Cycling race


 Uttar Pradesh government has restored the old names of eight districts in the state, after scrapping the new names given by the former BSP government after the Dalit and OBC icons


Ghana’s President John Atta Mills dies.


Team Anna has launched their indefinite fast in New Delhi  in order to put more pressure on the Government to bring a strong Lokpal Bill.


 Pranab Mukherjee was sworn in as India’s 13th President 


 “Hisham Kandil” has been elected as the new Prime Minister of Egypt by President Mohamed Morsi




The Chief Executive Officer of Japan’s Nomura Holdings, Kenichi Watanabe has resigned following his alleged involvement in an insider-trading scandal and he will step down on 31^st July. 


 Indian Social Activist “Kulandei Francis” has been awarded with the Prestigious Magsaysay award for 2012 with other 5 winners. 


“K.N. Srivastava” has been appointed as the new Civil Aviation Secretary and he will succeed the present Civil Aviation Secretary, S.N.A. Zaidi. At the same time“Arun Misra” has been appointed as the permanent Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) which he is handling on temporary basis.


 Private sector lender HDFC Bank has overtaken SBI today as India’s most valued bank with a total market valuation of about  Rs1,37,500 crore

Current Affairs June 2012

Deutsche Bank Chief Josef Ackermann has officially stepped down as the head of Germany’s biggest bank and succeeded by Swiss-born Ackermann and Indian born Anshu Jain.

Tata Group owned Jaguar brand has been named as the “Numero Uno” brand in the UK in terms of customer satisfaction by the ’2012 UK Vehicle Ownership Satisfaction Study (VOSS).

Dinesh Kumar Mehrotra has been appointed as the Chairman of Life Insurance Corporation of India.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been sentenced to life in prison for his role in protest killings last year.

The Asian Hockey Federations council has confirmed Malaysia to host the 2013 Asia Cup hockey for the second consecutive time.

Indian men’s hockey team has defeated England to win bronze medal in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup today.

Bihar has become the fastest growing state for the second consecutive year with yearly growth rate at 13.1% in 2011-12. In terms of GDP growth.

 New Zealand defeated Argentina by 1-0 to win Sultan Azlan Shah Cup hockey tournament.

Vice Admiral Devendra Kumar Joshi has been chosen as the next Chief of the Indian Navy. He will succeed Admiral Nirmal Verma after his retirement on August 31.

Justice Madan Bhimarao Lokur took the oath as the new Supreme Court judge . Before that he served as the chief justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. With this the total number of the apex court judge will be 26.Election Commissioner V S Sampath has been appointed as the new Chief Election Commissioner.

India has successfully test-fired its indigenously developed surface-to-air ‘Akash’ missile of Air Force version from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur. It is having strike range of 25 km and it is capable of carrying warhead of 60 kg.

South Korean mobile phone maker and electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co has named Kwon Oh-hyun as its new Chief Executive Officer.

The Bank of England (BoE) has kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 0.5% and announced no expansion to its quantitative easing (QE) programme.

Nasdaq OMX Group will offer funds of USD 40 million to compensate clients who suffered losses due to some technical problems during Facebook IPO launch day.

The government has reappointed K C Chakrabarty as deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India for next three months.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd announced its merger with Suzuki Powertrain India Ltd in order to prepare and meet the increasing demand for diesel vehicles.

Indian badminton player Saina Nehwal won her third Indonesia Open Super Series title after defeating China’s Xuerui.

China has pledged USD 43 billion to the IMF to boost its reserves which will be used to help debt ridden countries in euro zone and help them from fallout.

Global tech giant Microsoft has unveiled its first tablet named “Surface” which comes with a keyboard and other tablet features.

Indian Hockey Goalkeeper Adrin D’Souza has been suspended yesterday for 1 year for his anti- doping rule violation.

Greece’s New Democracy Party leader “Antonis Samara” sworn in as the Prime Minister of Greece

Shekhar Basu has been appointed as the new Director of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

India has been ranked the 5th most attractive destination for retail investment among 30 emerging markets.

Indian FMCG giant ITC has received the “2012 World Business and Development Award” at the ongoing Rio 20 United Nations Summit in Brazil.

 Porus Kaka has been appointed as the new President of the International Fiscal Association (IFA).

Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi has won the historic presidential polls in Egypt after securing 51.73% votes.

Raja Parvez Ashraf has been appointed as the 17th Prime Minister of Pakistan

Spanish formula one driver Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) won a European Grand Prix

Cyprus has become the fifth euro zone nation to ask a bailout from the European Union and IMF

New Zealand’s Alan Isaac has taken over as the 8th President of International Cricket Council (ICC) for next two year.

Global internet giant Google has unveiled a new version of Android operating system called “Jelly Bean”

IBPS 17 June 2012 Evening Shift GK Paper

1 Supreme court has issued an verdict towards-vodafone
2 Last resort to banks….RBI
3 Central banks help countries in monetary policy..
4  Name the first state to issue e stamp paper -Delhi
5  Best film which won oscar award ?   The Artist
6 How can you differntiate between two bank baranches...IFSC code
7 Question related to accrued interest…
8  What are credit cards-can use even if there is no balance in the account
9 Sachin  scored his  100th century against   Bangladesh
1012th financial plan ends in March 2017..
11.India-Eu Summit held in Delhi…
12  Bcp-Business continuity plan
13 When a customer can contact bank obdusman? When there is no proper response from the bank within #5 days
14 Who was chief guest 26th jan ? yingluk shinawatra(thailand PM)
15 India euro meeting was held where? Delhi
16 Award received by Homi k Bhabha-padma bhushan
17 FD minimum tenure 15 days
18 For wat reason india is investing in Pakistan?  To gain MFN status
19 Swift and money tranfer…
20 EFTPOS
21..G 20 summit France
22.Food and agri org….UN support
23 Name the policy which guarantees employment for 100 days ? MGNREGA
24 Dubai open women’s champ….Radwanska
25 Reverse repo rate..
26.Govt Scheme for Irrigation-watershed development
27Interst is invested again & on maturity is recieved with principal, wat is this called? -compound interest
28. What is dhruv in defence? helicopter
29 Damodran committe for banking services
30 Idbi public sector bank
31 Book written by kr naryanan
32 Credit  cards you can take credit even if there is no balance in your account
33 How much pension is given under pension scheme? rs 75? rs 100? 150 ?
34 US & China used  veto power- iran
35 Kudankulam nuclear plant LWR full form? light water reactors
36 Policy developed for customers is developed by which organization ? RBI
37Iindia under 20 hockey championship was held where ?
38 Rate at which banks park short term surplus to rbi?
39 Credit deposit ration.

Current Affairs July

Current Affairs July



Mohommed Moorsi took Oath at Egypt on 30 June 2012. Mohommed Moorsi is the first Islamist President of Egypt. He is the Fifth head of Egypt. He had defeated Ahmed Shafiq by 3.4% of votes.

Spain is the UEFA EURO Champion. Defeated Italy 4-0 in the finals.

Iniesta of Spain declared Man of the Tournament.

CII in Partnership with the Government of India and Afghanistan held Delhi Investment Summit

HDFC bank to cut lending rate by 0.2%

Under-19 Asia Cup Finals between India and Pakistan Ends in a tie.

West indies wins the T-20 series against New Zealand ,held at US.

India’s Exports slipped by 4.16 Per Cent to 25.68 Billion Dollar in May 2012

Delhi Government announced subsidy of 1 Rupee per unit on electricity for domestic consumers on 1 July 2012

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the science and cultural body of UN, inscribed India's 1600-km long Western Ghats mountain chain on the list of its world heritage sites.

Physicists at European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) have claimed to find a new sub-atomic particle consistent with the elusive Higgs boson.

UK Football club Manchester United has filed for an IPO in USA to raise nearly USD 100 million from stock market

Indian government has put a new policy of USD 5.4 billion to provide free medicine to its citizen in order to improve their health condition.

Italy’s government has agreed to cut spending by 26 billion euros during next 3 years in order to reduce fiscal deficit .

Global PC and laptop maker Dell has announced its acquisition of enterprise management software maker Quest Software for USD 2.4 billion in an all cash deal

India has been placed as the 3rd most preferred Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) destination by the World Investment Report 2012 prepared by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. China held the first position and US held the second position in the list


Serena Williams won the Wimbledon Grand Slam for the fifth time after defeating Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska by 6-1, 5-7, 6-2

Serena Williams and Venus Williams won their fifth Wimbledon women’s doubles title after defeating Czech’s Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka by 7-5 6-4.

Mark Webber won the British Grand Prix which is his ninth win in his entire career.

Prestigious TIME magazine has termed India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as “Underachiever” on its recent Asia edition.

UK has banned Indian Mujahideen (IM) as a terrorist entity for their involvement in some recent terrorist activities.

 Swiss Tennis player Roger Federer has defeated British Player Andy Murray by 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4 to win the Wimbledon Open Championship men’s Singles Final yesterday. With this he won the Wimbledon crown for the record 7th time.

Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina lost in the Wimbledon Final and secured the runners up place in the Wimbledon mixed doubles 2012. They were defeated by Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond from US by 3-6, 7-5, 4-6.

Euro zone leaders and finance ministers have agreed to provide Spain bailout money of USD 37 billion (30 billion euros) to help its financially troubled banks.

International donors have agreed to provide nearly USD 16 billion to Afghanistan as development aid until 2015.

The Director General of Civil Aviation, Mr E K Bharat Bhushan has been removed. The joint secretary in Ministry of Civil Aviation Mr Sukul will take overfrom him with immediate effect.

Indian Railways has introduced new Tatkal booking schemes from today onwards to stop misusing the tatkal facilities by different travel agencies. The tatkal booking starting time has been revised as 10 AM from earlier 8 AM onwards and also the booking agent are barred from booking tatkal tickets from 10 AM to 12 Noon either from booking counter or on the internet.

Founder MD and CEO of On-Mobile, Arvind Rao has resigned from the company after taking full responsibility for corporate governance related issues