2015

Career Anna GK 2015 Program

- May Fact Sheet

Career Anna

Indian Government and Politics

1.

The Lok Sabha passed the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill,2014
which will permit juveniles between the ages of 16 and 18 years to be tried as adults for
heinous offences.

2.

The long-pending GST bill was approved by Lok Sabha after a walkout by Congress even
as government promised to compensate states for any revenue loss and assured that the
new uniform indirect tax rate will be much less than 27% recommended by an expert
panel.

3.

Achal Kumar Jyoti, a former Chief Secretary during the tenure of Narendra Modi as
Gujarat Chief Minister, was appointed as the Election Commissioner.

4.

Expelled JD(U) leader and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi launched a new
political party named as Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM)

5.

The Karnataka High Court acquitted AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa in the 19-year-old
disproportionate assets case. While acquitting, the Court concluded that the percentage
of assets amassed by her in relation to her known sources of income was merely 8.12% in
excess and not as claimed by the prosecution.

6.

President Pranab Mukheejee has appointed new four governors for four states
Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh while he has shifted two
Governors for two states.

7.

The government has approved Rs. 20,000 crore budget for "Namami Gange" programme,
which will integrate the efforts to clean and protect the River Ganga in a comprehensive
manner.

8.

The government has agreed to form a select committee of the Rajya Sabha on the Goods
and Services Tax, GST bill. The panel comprise of 21 - member and will be headed by BJP
member Bhupendra Yadav.

9.

Draupadi Murmu was sworn in as the first woman Governor of Jharkhand (ninth
governor). She succeeds Syed Ahmed, who was transferred as Manipur Governor.

10.

AIADMK Chief Jayalalithaa sworn in for the fifth time as Tamil Nadu chief minister by
Governor K Rosaiah. With this she came back as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, nearly
eight months after she was forced to quit over corruption charges.

11.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched Kisan TV' only for the farmers at a function
held in Vigyan Bhawan.

12.

Tripura government has decided to withdraw the Armed Forces Special Powers Act
(AFSPA), 1958 from the remaining areas of the state.

Sports
13.

Indian Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) won the 5th National women hockey
championship title after defeating Jharkhand team

14.

The Indian Army team won the 19th Federation Cup national senior athletic
championships. They scored 123.5 points at the end of the four-day event held at
Mangaluru, Karnataka

15.

Famous marksman Jitu Rai was declared the Sportsperson of the Year' at theTimes of
India Sports Awardsin a ceremony that was graced by the legendary Carl Lewis.

16.

Geeta Phogat won a bronze medal in the Women's Freestyle 58kg category in the Senior
Asian Wrestling championship held in Doha. She defeated Vietnam's Thi Loan Nyguen in
the bronze medal play-off.

17.

American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. has defeated Manny Pacquiao from Philippines to
win the unified World Welterweight title of World Boxing Council, World Boxing
Organisation and World Boxing Association.

18.

England batsman Jonathan Trott has announced his retirement from international cricket
with immediate effect after a disappointing tour of the West Indies.

19.

Gagan Narang won the bronze medal in the 50m Rifle Prone Event of the ISSF World Cup
at Fort Benning in USA. With this win, he earned himself a quota place for the 2016 Rio
Olympics.

20.

Mercedes driver Germany's Nico Rosberg won the Spanish Grand Prix Formula 1 World
Championship held at Barcelona in Spain.

21.

British Andy Murray defeated Spanish Rafael Nadal by 6-3 6-2 in the final to win the
Madrid Masters Men's Singles Title.

22.

India's Rohan Bopanna and his Romanian partner Florin Mergea defeated Poland's
Marcin Matkowski and Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic pair by 6-2, 6-7, (5-7) in the final match
to win the Madrid Open Men's doubles Title 2015.

23.

Australia wicketkeeper Brad Haddin has announced his retirement from ODI cricket just a
day before leaving for Test tours of the West Indies and England.

24.

Indian batsman Ajinkya Rahane was awarded with the CEAT Indian Cricketer of the Year
award and the Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakara bagged the International Cricketer of
the Year award in the 19th edition of CEAT Awards.

25.

Beijing Olympic medal winner Abhinav Bindra qualified for the Rio Olympics 2016
through one of the Olympic quotas.

26.

Mumbai Indians defeated Chennai Super Kings by 41 runs in the final to win the Indian
Premier League 2015.

27.

Mercedes formula 1 driver Germany's Nico Rosberg won the Monaco Grand Prix Formula
1 World Championship title held in Monaco.

28.

Sepp Blatter was re-elected as the President of FIFA for the fifth term amid the ongoing
corruption scandal affecting football's governing body.

Business and Economy

29.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has announced that an extremely simplified income tax
return form will soon replace the existing 14-page ITR that sought information like all
bank accounts and foreign trip details.

30.

Indian government has announced to provide e-tourist visa to 31 more countries,

including France and Canada.

31.

The Department of Telecom has extended the deadline to fully implement the mobile
number portability across the country by another two months till 3rd July 2015. The
earlier deadline to implement the full MNP was 2nd May 2015.

32.

A surface-to-air missile named as 'Akash', indigenously developed by the Defence

Research Development Laboratory (DRDL), under Integrated Guided Missile
Development Programme (IGMDP), was inducted into Indian Army.

33.

Future Retail has announced that it would merge its retail operations with Bharti Retail
Ltd to create one of India's biggest retail chain with more than 570 stores across the
country.

34.

56 Indian companies are figured in the Forbes list of world's 2000 powerful companies
published. Reliance Industries is the topmost India Company which is ranked at 142nd
position

35.

Indian rupee hit a 20 month low and closed at 64.34 per USD as foreign investors
continued to sell in the equity markets. Indian rupee hit the intra-day low value of 64.28
during intraday trading.

36.

Famous investor and portfolio advisor who used behavioral finance and value investing
as a strategy for his investment passed away in a car accident in Omaha, USA on Sunday.

37.

PM Narendra Modi has signed MoUs worth Rs 24,000 crore at Dantewada to boost
infrastructure development in Chhattisgarh. He also launched three social security
schemes pertaining to insurance and pension in Kolkata.

38.

A high level committee was formed by the Central Government on the controversial
issue of payment of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) by foreign institutional investors. The
committee will be headed by Justice A P Shah,

39.

The central government has launched a dedicated e-commerce Centre in New Delhi to
cater the e-commerce business enterprises which was inaugurated by Communication
and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

40.

ICICI Bank's non-executive chairman KV Kamath has been appointed as the first President
of the New Development Bank of BRICS nations.

41.

K Satish Reddy, Chairman of Dr Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, has been appointed as the new
chairman of the National Safety Council (NSC). He replaced Venu Srinivasan.

42.

Seychelles became the 161st member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) after a
long wait of 20 years. With this, it has become one of the smallest nations among the
WTO members.

43.

Global Tech giantMicrosoft, has announced Edge as its next Web Browser's name at the
Build Developer Conference held at San Francisco in California, USA.

44.

Indian-born Nikesh Arora was appointed as the President of Japan's multinational

telecommunications and internet company SoftBank Corp.

45.

India's retail inflation, measured by the Consumer price index, eased to a four-month low
of 4.87% in April compared to 5.25% in previous month of March due to slower annual
increases in food costs.

46.

The Union Cabinet cleared 5% disinvestment in National Thermal Power Corporation

Limited and 10% divestment in Indian Oil as a part of Government's divestment strategy.
It may fetch the government over 13,000 crore rupees at current market price.

47.

Global brokerage HSBC has downgraded India to 'underweight' from 'overweight' due to
weak monsoon forecast and possibility of no further rate cut.

48.

India's overall inflation, measured by Wholesale price index dropped to a new low of (-)
2.65% in April due to drop in prices of fuel and manufactured items. India's overall
inflation has been in negative zone since November 2014. It was 5.55% in April last year.

49.

The Central Government was able to restrict the fiscal deficit to 4% during financial year
2014-15, which is much lower than the revised estimate announced in the budget.

50.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced to grant of e-visa (electronic visa also called
visa on arrival) India and China also signed 24 deals worth of more than USD 10 billion,
including MOUs in the area of skill development, railways, establishing sister relations
between cities of the two countries among others.

51.

Arun Shrivastava has been appointed as the new Managing Director and CEO of
Syndicate Bank. He assumed charge of the bank. Earlier he was Executive Director of
Bank of India, looking after Corporate Finance, Strategy & Planning, Publicity and Public
Relations portfolios of the bank.

52.

Cisco Systems Inc CEO John Chambers, who has served as CEO since January 1995 and
has grown the networking company's revenue from USD 1.2 billion to USD 48 billion at
present, will leave the CEO role.

53.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has notified that higher service tax of 14% which was
proposed in the budget speech this year will be effective from 1st June this year which
will be inclusive of an education cess.

54.

Sixth edition of National Conference on Nuclear Energy was held in New Delhi with the
theme of 'Nuclear Energy: a Clean Energy option.

55.

Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Jagat Prakash Nadda, will join as President of the
68th Session of the World Health Assembly (WHA) at Geneva

56.

The economy of the euro zone grew by 0.4% in the first quarter of the year as per the
official figure which was also the fastest quarterly growth rate in last two years.

57.

SS Ahluwalia has been appointed as the chairman of Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC)
on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Rehabilitation
and Resettlement (LARR) (Amendment) Bill, 2015.

58.

The finance ministry has constituted a panel, headed by chairman of the Law Commission
of India A P Shah, to look into the applicability of Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) on
foreign institutional investors (FIIs) before April 2015.

59.

The Climate Group announced that Infosys, India's leading Information Technology
Company, has become the first Indian company to join RE100, a global platform for
major companies committed to 100% renewable power.

60.

India has been ranked at the 6th place in the top rankings of space-faring nations as per a
report published by a Chinese research institution.

61.

India was ranked at the 24th position out of 70 countries in the first Environmental
Democracy Index 2015 published by Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI)
and the Access Initiative. Lithuania topped the list followed by Latvia and Russia.

62.

Private Sector Company Tata Power will move out of the stock market benchmark index
Sensex and will be replaced by drug maker Lupin. Also Adani Power will be dropped from
the S&P BSE 100 index.

63.

Social media giant Facebook has gathered 8 lakh users in India for its Internet.org
initiative. Facebook had partnered telecom company Reliance Communications to offer
free access to over 30 websites without data charges to users in India.

64.

India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 7.5% in the last quarter of the financial
year 2014-15. The GDP growth for the entire financial year FY 2014-15 now provisionally
stands at 7.3%. Indian's economic growth in FY 2014-15

65.

Brazil's economy contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter of the year due to severe
droughts.

66.

The US economy contracted by 0.7% in the first tquarter of 2015, compared to the same
period last year.

67.

India topped the list of World Hunger list with the highest number of hungry people in
the world, at 194 million, as per a United Nations annual hunger report titled 'The State
of Food Insecurity in the World 2015'.

68.

Famous Scientist S Christopher has been appointed as the new DRDO chief and will be in
charge of the day-to-day functioning of DRDO, technology development and coordination with the ministry.

Entertainment
69.

Bollywood actor Shashi Kapoor was awarded with the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke
Award 2014 by Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley at a special
function held in Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai.

70.

Indian-American student, Karan Menon, aged 14, has won the prestigious National
Geographic Bee competition in the US.

71.

Senior journalist and Editor-in-Chief of News 24 Channel, Anurradha Prasad has been
awarded with Pt. Haridutt Sharma Award for her contribution in the field of Journalism,
Writing and Social Services.

72.

David Cameron has been re-elected as the Prime Minister of UK after winning election.
With this he will return as PM for the second consecutive time.

73.

Indian filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan's, 'Masaan' has bagged the international federation of
film critics (Fipresci) award at the 68th Cannes International film festival.

International News and Global Awards

74.

Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) in New Delhi was ranked as the world's best
airport for the year 2014, under the category of handling 25 to 40 million passengers per
annum, as per Airports Council International (ACI) report.

75.

Two Indians have been awarded with the prestigious Whitley Awards for their
contribution to wildlife conservation. Dr Ananda Kumar was awarded the prize in
recognition of his work using innovative communication systems to enable humanelephant coexistence in southern India.

76.

The Whitley Award, also known as Green Oscar, was established in 1994 by Edward
Whitley and given by the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN). The award recognises and
celebrates effective national and regional conservation leaders across the globe.

77.

Famous scientist and Bharat Ratna awardee Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao was
conferred with Japan's highest civilian award the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver
Star.

78.

Syrian journalist and rights activist Mazen Darwish was awarded with the UNESCOGuillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2015.

79.

An Egyptian court has sentenced Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsy to death
along with 20 others.

Miscellaneous
80.

The Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has appointed, actor and producer
Mukesh Khanna as the Chairperson of the Children's Film Society of India (CFSI). He
replaced Amole Gupte.

81.

IPS officer, Surender Singh took over as the new chief of Central Industrial Security Force
(CISF). He succeeds Arvind Ranjan who retired as the Director General of the CISF.

82.

A strategically important new Naval base 'INS Sardar Patel' was commissioned in
Porbandar by Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel.

83.

National Technology Day is observed (11th May) across the nation. It has been observed
on the same fday every year since 1999.

84.

Justice Cyriac Joseph was appointed as the interim Chairperson of the National Human
Rights Commission (NHRC) by the President Pranab Mukherjee.

85.

World Asthma Day is observed toady (5th May) across the world by the Global Initiative
for Asthma, GINA. The theme for 2015 is You Can Control Your Asthma'.

86.

World Press Freedom Day was observed on 3rd May across the world to raise awareness
about freedom of the press and freedom of expression are fundamental human
rights. The theme of World Press Freedom day of year 2015 is 'Let Journalism Thrive!
Towards better reporting, gender equality and media safety in the digital age'.

87.

Indian author Neel Mukherjee was awarded with the 2014 Encore Award for his novel
The Lives of Others. The Lives of Others was also shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker
Prize.

88.

China overtook the United States to become the world's top importer of crude oil for the
first time in April.

89.

World Health Organization (WHO) had declared Libera Ebola free after appreciating
Liberia's Ebola eradication efforts to tackle with the deadly disease.

90.

John Forbes Nash Jr., who won Nobel Prize for his famous Game theory, passed away
along with his wife in a car crash. He was 86. His taxi crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike
in Monroe Township when the driver lost control.

91.

As per the officials of AIIB, China will be the largest shareholder with a 30.85% in the
newly initiative Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), followed by India and Russia.
India will have 10.4% stake.

92.

An Indian American professor at Yale University, Akhil Reed Amar was nominated by
President Barack Obama to the National Council on the Humanities, a key administration
post.

93.

Retired Lt. General Nirbhay Sharma was sworn in as the Eighth Governor of Mizoram last
week.

94.

Manabi Bandopadhyay has been appointed the first transgender principal at a college in
West Bengal, which is the first in India.