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737 Current Affairs for All Examinations

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1.1.1. Baldev Sharma, editor Panchajanya magazine appointed as Chairman, National Book Trust. Baldev Sharma replaces Sethumadhavan.

2.2.2. Three major steel PSUs — SAIL, RINL and NMDC — have proposed a marginal 1.4 per cent cut in their capital expenditure at Rs. 12,889 crore in the next fiscal towards modernisation and expansion plans.

3.3.3. Boris Nemtsov, a charismatic former deputy prime minister-turned-Russian Opposition leader, was shot and killed in Moscow on Saturday, officials said. Nemtsov’s death comes just a day before a planned protest against President Vladimir Putin’s rule. The Kremlin said that Putin would personally oversee the investigation.

4.4.4. Globally, Christy , who inherited a stake in retailer Wal-Mart, retained the title of world’s richest woman at $41.7 billion, followed by Liliane Bettencourt, the principal heiress to the L’Oreal cosmetics fortune in the second place with $40.7 billion. The third richest woman is ($39.4 billion), daughter of Wal-Mart founder and sister-in-law to Ms. Christy Walton.

5.5.5. The Reserve Bank of (RBI) on Monday said loans to sanitation, health care and drinking water facilities and renewable energy would come under the priority sector ambit, as would incremental loans made to exports, with certain ceilings. It suggested foreign banks with 20 and above branches may be given time up to March, 2018, in terms of extant guidelines and submit their revised action plans. Other foreign banks, that is, with less than 20 branches, may be given time up to March, 2020, to comply with the revised targets as per action plans submitted by them and approved by the RBI.

6.6.6. Dalmia elected as President of BCCI (board for control of cricket in India). He will hold the office till 2017. He was earlier President of the BCCI during 2001-04.

7.7.7. Dilip Shanghvi’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and global pharmaceutical major GSK, on Tuesday, announced an agreement, whereby Sun will acquire GSK’s opiates business in . According to the agreement, the current GSK opiates business, including related manufacturing sites in Latrobe (in the State of Tasmania) and Port Fairy (in the State of Victoria) and its portfolio of opiates products along with inventory, will transfer to a subsidiary of Sun Pharma. GSK’s product portfolio consists of poppy- derived opiate raw materials, used primarily in the making of analgesics to treat moderate to severe pain.

8.8.8. Babu Ram Bhattarai, Nepal’s former PM’s visit has given rise to speculation that Nepali opposition leaders are reaching out to India after efforts to formulate the new constitution collapsed last month. The Maoist party and the rest of the 30-member

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opposition coalition walked out of the talks over the government’s decision to go for a vote over disputed issues in the constituent assembly rather than consensus, as the opposition demanded.

9.9.9. A top Indian-American physician has been selected for the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Chair to India. The Ahmedabad-based HL Trivedi Institute of Transplantation Sciences will host Dr. Rahul Jindal for the duration of the chair. Dr. Jindal is Professor of Surgery and Global Health at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Awards in the Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program are viewed as among the most prestigious appointments in the Fulbright Scholar Program.

10. The ‘Mercer 2015 Quality of Living rankings’ evaluated local living conditions in more than 440 cities around the world for the assessment that placed Vienna on top. “Hyderabad (138) and (145) rank higher for quality of living than (152) and (154). “Considerable population increases in Mumbai and New Delhi in recent decades have increased existing problems, including access to clean water, air pollution and traffic congestion,” the report said.

11. The much awaited spectrum auction, wherein 8 companies are bidding to acquire airwaves in four bands, started on Wednesday. The auction is the biggest ever sale of 2G and 3G airwaves which may fetch the government over Rs. 82,000 crores. A total of 380.75 MHz of spectrum in three bands — the premium 900 MHz band, 1,800 MHz and 800 MHz — is put on sale besides 5 MHz in the 2,100 MHz band across 17 out of 22 telecom areas in the country.

12. Misao Okawa, declared oldest person alives, celebrates her 117th birthday. Quips that 117 years did not seem long enough.

13. scraps reservations in education and jobs for Muslims. The earlier State govt.announced 5% quota for Muslims in the State.

14. The number of women law makers (parliamentarians) across the world has doubled in the last 20 years, according to International Parliamentary Union – IPU’s head Martin Chungong.

15. Prime Minister is the second most followed on internet. First is US President Barak Obama, according to Time magazine survey.

16. ‘Mudra’ bank – Micro Units Development Refinance Agency to be set up by . Mudra bank’s objective to refinance micro finance institutions – MFIs.

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17. One-rupee notes are all set to come back into circulation as the government has decided to restart printing the currency after more than two decades. The RBI said the notes to be issued would be legal tender as provided in The Coinage Act 2011.

18. Saina Nehwal was defeated in the All England Open Badminton championships 2015 by ’s Carolina Marin, at Birmingham, UK.

19. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) chief Fadi Chehade visits India. ICANN is a non-profit organisation, a global body that oversees operation and administration of the internet domain names system.

20. Delhi, Kerala, Tamil Nadu tops in girls’ education. MP, UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkand, Meghalaya, Nagaland lag behind. As per a report by Ministry of HRD, Govt of India and UNICEF.

21. PM Narendra Modi launches the first indigenous rotavirus vaccine at New Delhi. Rotavirus causes diarrohea in infants, with high fatality. Bharat Biotech international, a Hyderabad based company produces the rotavirus vaccine.

22. Ministry of corporate affairs – MCA, govt. of India announces top 10 corporates having assets ranging from 89,000 crore of rupees to 368,000 crore of rupees. Reliance Industries Ltd. tops the list followed by Coal India and HDFC.

23. Solar Impulse-2, the world’s first solar flight circumventing the globe without a drop of fuel landed at Ahmedabad. The Swiss aircraft is piloted by Bertrand Picard and Andre Boschberg. The flight will cover 25 flight days over five months completing 35,000 kilometers.

24. Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Wednesday ordered the release of 86 Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan custody as a goodwill gesture ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the island.

25. Narendra Modi the first Indian PM in 34 years to visit Seychelles.

26. LIC to invest Rs. 1.5 lakh crore over a period of five years in Indian Railways. A MoU was signed to this effect between LIC and Railways.

27. Parliament passes Insurance Bill that allows FDI in the insurance sector upto 49%. Earlier the limit was upto 26%.

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28. Karnataka retains Ranji Trophy by defeating Tamil Nadu.

29. Narendra Modi first Indian PM to visit Sri Lanka after gap of 28 years. Scheduled to tour 2 days in SL. The last visit by Indian PM was in 1987 by was Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv was attacked by an SL navy man during courtesy guard of honour.

30. Indian Railways launch toll-free helpline number 132.

31. The North Atlantic island of Iceland has withdrawn its bid to join the European Union, with the government saying that its interests are best served outside the 28-nation EU.

32. Mahatma Gandhi’s statue unveiled in Britain’s Parliament Square by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

33. Olympic medal winning boxer MC Mary Kom is being appointed as the brand ambassador of the Northeast to showcase the potential of the region which offers Rs. 2.4 trillion business opportunities across various sectors. An official announcement in this regard would be made soon, Minister of State in the Ministry of Development of North East Region (DoNER) Jitendra Singh said.

34. New Zealand makes it up with Maori Tribals, the indigenous inhabitants of the island. NZ government ends 150 year discrimination, settles with 128 million US dollars’ worth money.

35. Kidambi Srikanth, Hyderabadi, wins Swiss Grand Prix Gold Badminton Championship by defeating Viktor Alexson of .

36. Services won the 69th edition of Santosh Trophy of Football and defeated hosts Punjab. With this, Services won the Santosh trophy for the fourth time. Earlier it had won the trophy in 2013, 2012 and 1961.

37. Pioneer of Israeli Cinema Lia van Leer died. She was the founder of Israel Film Archive, Jerusalem Cinematheque, Haifa Cinematheque and the Jerusalem Film Festival.

38. PHD Research Bureau released a Survey on working women in Delhi. The survey focused on the problems faced by working women which adversely affect their performance and career growth. The results of the analysis have been divided into three categories: Work Life Balance, Health Concerns and Workplace Health provisions.

39. Veteran Gandhian Narayanbhai Desai died. He was the son of Mahatma Gandhi's diarist Mahadev Desai who also was the personal secretary of Mahatma Gandhi.

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40. Powerful Cyclone Pam hit south Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. The cyclone Pam, a category five tropical storm, brought destructive 270 kilometre-per-hour winds and torrential rain along with it.

41. 16th March : World Consumer Rights Day 2015 observed with the theme “Helping consumers choose healthy diets.” The theme for WCRD 2015 is Helping consumers choose healthy diets and it was taken up by the Consumers International (CI) to focus on unhealthy diets that involve four of the ten biggest causes of death worldwide

42. Facebook acquired shopping search engine The Find. Both Facebook and The Find cast the acquisition as a way to lift the digital advertising business of Facebook

43. Kidambi Srikanth won the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold title of Badminton. World Number 4 Srikanth defeated World Number 6 Viktor Alexson of Denmark 21-15, 12- 21, 21-14 to win the men’s single title of the men’s championship.

44. Supreme Court quashed the Union Government’s decision to include Jats in the Central OBC list. As per the Mandal Commission’s recommendation though Caste is a prominent factor it cannot be the sole factor of determining the backwardness of a class.

45. SIPRI released Trends in International Arms Transfers 2014 report. According to it, India is the world's largest importer of weapons and military equipment, accounting for 15 percent of global imports, with being its majority supplier.

46. Union government launched new body NCCF to develop national forest certification system. NCCF will develop national forest certification system and standards till 2016. National forest certification system would also help in combating climate change.

47. Union Ministry of DoNER announced to appoint Mary Kom as brand ambassador of NE region. She as the brand ambassador of the Northeast will showcase the potential of the region which offers 2.4 trillion rupees business opportunities across various sectors.

48. Wipro appointed Abid Ali Neemuchwala as COO and Group president to streamline processes and allow dealing with strategic priorities at the company.

49. Mirach decided to file 400 million US dollar defamation suit against Sahara Group. Mirach Capital alleged that the failed financing deal with the Sahara Group has caused irreparable harm and shaken investor confidence.

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50. Ashu Suyash appointed as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of CRISIL. She will succeed Roopa Kudva and will take charge from June 2015. Rupa Kudva was the MD and CEO of CRISIL from 2007 to September 2014. She had joined CRISIL in 1992.

51. Haryana Assembly passed Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Bill, 2015. It prohibits the slaughter of cow and its progeny and imposes punishment of up to 10 years with a fine ranging from 30000 rupees to one lakh rupees for any violation.

52. HDFC Bank launched mobile app Chillr to instantly transfer money to any person in India. Chillr is a first-of-its kind application that is linked directly to customers’ bank accounts and is exclusively for customers of HDFC Bank

53. India to host seventh Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2016. This will be the first AMCDRR to be hosted by India in the post-2015 framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, though India had hosted the Second AMCDRR in 2007.

54. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Mauritius. Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit joined the National Day celebrations in Mauritius as the guest of honour and also visited the Ganga Talao in Mauritius.

55. Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, . The conference was hosted by the Government of Japan in cooperation with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), as secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.

56. Tripura Biodiversity Board launched a project to link conservation to economic concerns. The project aims to strengthen the implementation of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and Biological Diversity Rules, 2004.

57. Union Government appointed VK Mathur, Girija Shankar as Chairmen of , Chennai bench of DRAT. VK Mathur was appointed as the Chairman of Allahabad bench of DRAT while Girija Shankar was appointed as Chairman of Chennai bench of DRAT.

58. -backed AIIB to be joined by , , . France, Germany and Italy have followed the UK in joining the China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

59. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Seychelles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Plaque and Operationalisation of Radar for the CSRS India-Seychelles Cooperation Project in Seychelles.

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60. Anil Kakodkar resigned from the post of Chairman of Board of Governors of IIT Bombay. Prior to his appointment as the Chairman of the IIT Bombay’s Board of Governor in 2006, he served as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 2000 – 2009. From 1996 – 2000 he served as the Director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay.

61. Tropical grass Darbha identified as an eco-friendly food preservative by SASTRA University. The finding evolved from the study conducted on the grass Darbha which was jointly undertaken by the Centre for Nanotechnology and Advanced Biomaterials (CeNTAB) and the Centre for Advanced Research in Indian System of Medicine (CARISM) of the SASTRA University under the supervision of Dr. P Meera and Dr. P Brindha respectively.

62. Lewis Hamilton of Britain won Australian Grand Prix of Formula One. This was the 34th overall Grand Prix win for Hamilton and first Australian Grand Prix win for since 2008.

63. BJP MLA Kavinder Gupta elected as Speaker of 12th Legislative Assembly of J&Gupta is a BJP MLA from Gandhinagar constituency of Jammu region and he replaces the Pro- tem Speaker Muhammad Shafi of the regional National Conference.

64. Rajya Sabha passed Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2015 by voice vote. The bill is seeking to increase foreign investment limit in local insurers to 49 percent from 26 percent and will replace the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2014.

65. Union Cabinet approved the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill, 2015. Concealment of income and assets and evasion of tax in relation to foreign assets will be prosecutable with punishment of rigorous imprisonment up to 10 years. Also, such offences have been made non-compoundable.

66. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sri Lanka. This was the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Sri Lanka since 1987. He also became the first Indian Prime Minister to make journey to Jaffna and Talaimannar region of Sri Lanka.

67. Maharashtra Government announced to rename Girgaum Chowpatty as Swaraj Bhoomi. Girgaum Chowpatty is the oldest and most famous beach of Mumbai, Maharashtra. It remains one of the best spots from which to see the sunset in Mumbai.

68. Air Marshal Sohail Aman appointed as Chief of Pakistan Air Force. His appointment was approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz sharif and he will take the charge immediately from incumbent Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt.

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69. Air-to-Air missile Astra successfully test fired from ITR Chandipur in Odisha. Indigenously developed Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missile, Astra, was successfully test fired from a Sukhoi-30 fighter aircraft on 18 MARCH2015.

70. Lok Sabha passed the Warehousing Corporations (Amendment) Bill, 2015. The Bill seeks to amend the Warehousing Corporations Act, 1962, which established central and state warehousing corporations for the purpose of warehousing agricultural produce and other commodities.

71. Lok Sabha passed the Repealing and Amending Bill, 2014 with a voice vote on 18 MARCH2015 which repeals 35 outdated laws either partially or completely.

72. Lupin to acquire additional 40 percent stake in S Aftrica's Pharma Dynamics. With this acquisition, Lupin has 100 per cent stake in the company. Pharma Dynamics will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lupin.

73. Haryana Government decided to issue UIDAI-like numbers for cows. The scheme will establish identity of cows, their security and provide them benefits of health schemes.

74. Cher Wang Co-founder of HTC Corporation takes over as CEO. Peter Chou will remain at HTC and will start a new role as the head of the HTC Future Development Lab, a new division of the company responsible for coming up with new products.

75. Indian Parliamentary DiplomacyDiplomacy---- Speaker’s Perspective written by Meira Kumar released. The book contains number of lessons from the observations of former Speaker Meira Kumar.

76. CII signed agreement with NUS to improve India’s rating on ease of doing business. The MoU aimed to enhance the ease of doing business and bring the rating of India amongst the top 50 countries from the present 142nd slot as per World Bank Report.

77. Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser died. He was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1975 to 1983

78. Mahendra Singh Dhoni became first Indian Captain to register 100 ODI wins. Dhoni achieved 100 wins in 178th ODI and joined the Australian pair of Ricky Ponting (165 wins) and Allan Border (107 wins).

79. Snapdeal acquired logistics firm GoJavas to strengthen its delivery operations. Snapdeal has been scouting for acquisitions in mobile technology and supply chain space.

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Snapdeal counts global eCommerce giant eBay, Temasek, Myriad, Tybourne, Blackrock Inc and Premji Invest among its investors.

80. Ramachandran appointed as vice-chair of International Relations Commission of ANOC. Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president N Ramachandran was appointed vice-chair of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) international relations commission.

81. Hyderabad International Airport handled record 10 million passengers in 2014-15. The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in Hyderabad clocked 10 million passengers in the financial year 2014-15. It also registered highest growth in passenger traffic and cargo volume among all the international airports in the country.

82. Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan named as President of Britain’s Royal Society. Ramakrishnan shared the 2009 chemistry Nobel Prize for discovering the precise structure of ribosomes - the molecular machines that manufacture proteins inside all living cells - with Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath.

83. Indian Railways roped in Ratan Tata to lead Kaya Kalp council. Innovation council Kaya Kalp is formed to suggest innovative ways to transform the Indian Railways.

84. The first international conference on counter-terrorism was held in Jaipur for three days from MARCH19 2015 to MARCH21 2015 to discuss emerging policy and technological issues related to counter-terrorism activities. The central theme of the Conference is Integrated Approach to Counter-Terrorism.

85. won the Laadli Voice of the Century award. Legendary Singer Lata Mangeshkar dedicated the award to the women in the country, and said she would like to be called Lata Laadli, just as she is called Lata didi.

86. Delhi High Court restrained Glenmark from manufacturing its anti-diabetes drugs Zita and Zita-Met. A bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Najmi Waziri said company has prima facie infringed the patent of the US drug major Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD).

87. Martin Guptill scored the highest-ever score of 237 in Cricket World Cup history. Martin Guptill scored second double century of the World Cup. The first World Cup double century was scored by Chris Gayle, which is also the fastest ODI double century in history of ODI cricket.

88. Marathi Folk legend Shahir died. Shahir Sable was an accomplished singer, writer, playwright, performer, Loknatya (Folk Theater) producer-director.

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89. March 21 ::International Day of Forests observed with the theme Forests and Climate Change. The theme for the 2015 International Forestry Day is Forests and Climate Change which highlights forest-based solutions to address climate change mitigation and adaptation, and more broadly forests and sustainable development.

90. Pakistani cricketers Misbah-ul-Haq, Shaid Afridi retired from ODI cricket. They retired after the World Cup quarter-final match against Australia played at Adelaide, Australia. In the quarter-final, they lost to Australia by six-wickets.

91. Union Cabinet approved Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) to impart skill training to youth. The Union Cabinet approved the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) on 19 MARCH2015 with an objective to provide skill training to youth.

92. Union Cabinet approved 33% women reservation in police forces of all Union Territories. The reservation would apply to all existing vacancies in police forces of the UTs and any vacancy arising later and also covers reserved categories like SCs, STs and OBCs.

93. roped in as Brand Ambassador for Campaign against Hepatitis B. The campaign against Hepatitis B is a part of the Union Government’s ambitious child immunization programme named Mission Indradhanush, against seven vaccine- preventable diseases.

94. March 20 World Sparrow Day observed with the theme I Love Sparrows. The day is observed to raise awareness of the house sparrow and other common birds to urban environments, and of threats to their populations.

95. Renault Nissan Automotive India appointed Colin Macdonald as Managing Director. He will be responsible for the operations of the Renault-Nissan Alliance factory at Oragadam, near Chennai.

96. Conference on Counter-Terrorism deliberated on CBRN Terrorism. The conference discussed policy and technological strategies to curb CBRN(Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) Terrorism

97. National Action Plan for Skill Training of Persons with Disabilities was launched in New Delhi on 21 MARCH2015 to enable persons with disabilities to get employment, access markets for their products and learn cutting-edge skills.

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98. Former Army Chief Sarath Fonseka became first Field Marshal of Sri Lanka. Under his leadership, the 26-year Sri Lankan Civil War came to an end in 2009 in which the rebels Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated by the Sri Lankan army.

99. SEBI Board approved SEBI (International Financial Services Centres) Guidelines, 2015. The guidelines for IFSCs aim to provide an enabling environment for setting up of capital market infrastructure like stock exchanges, clearing houses, depository services, etc., in such centres

100. and won the women doubles title of BNP Paribas Open. Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis, the Indo-Swiss women pair of Tennis defeated the Russian pair of and 6-3, 6-4 in the final played at Indian Wells, USA.

101. March 23: World Meteorological Day 2015 observed with the theme Climate Knowledge for Climate Action. The theme of the WMD highlights the growing necessity to disseminate knowledge related to Climate Change and actions to be taken to contain it.

102. March 2222:::: World Water Day 2015 observed with the theme Water and Sustainable Development. The theme for the World Water Day (WWD) 2015 talks about how water links to all areas we need to consider creating the future we want.

103. SEBI Board approved SEBI (Issue and Listing of Debt Securities by Municipality) Regulations, 2015. The regulations will enable the resources starved municipalities across the country to mobilise financial resources from capital market.

104. Rajendra Singh, the Water Man of India, named as the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Patron of the Stockholm Water Prize, will present the prize to Rajendra Singh at a Royal Award Ceremony during World Water Week in Stockholm in August 2015.

105. Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of died. Lee was respected as the architect of Singapore’s prosperity who stepped down as Prime Minister of Singapore in 1990 by handing over the power to Goh Chok Ting.

106. won Indian Wells Open Tennis Men's Singles title. In Men’s Singles title, Serbian Novak Djokovic defeated the Swiss player 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-2. While, of defeated former Jelena Jankovic of 2-6, 7- 5, 6-4 to win the Women’s Singles title.

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107. Indian Railways launched RuPay pre-paid debit cards. The RuPay pre-paid card was launched by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the Railways' tourism and catering arm, in collaboration with the Union Bank of India.

108. Madhav Gadgil and Dr. Jane Lubchenco won Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement 2015. They were named for the award for their leadership and engagement in the development of conservation and sustainability policies in the United States, India and internationally.

109. March 24: World Tuberculosis Day 2015 observed globally. The World TB Day is annually celebrated on 24 MARCH to commemorate the day on which Dr. Robert Koch discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus in 1882.

110. Supreme Court declared Section 66A of Information Technology Act, 2000 as unconstitutional. The Supreme Court stated in it’s order that the section is in contravention to the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression provided under the Article 19(1) of the constitution.

111. President’s award for Sanskrit, Pali/Prakrit, Arabic and Persian language conferred. The scheme for award of Certificates of Honour was introduced in the year 1958 to honour the scholars of Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian Languages. The scheme was extended to cover Pali/ Prakrit in 1996.

112. PM announced to set up Shaheed Bhagat Singh PG Institute for Horticulture Research & Education. Hussainiwala is a village in Firozpur district in Punjab, India, where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru were cremated on 23 MARCH1931 and it is at this place National Martyrs Memorial stands.

113. Indian-American Renu Khator elected as Chairperson of Board of Director of ACE. She was elected as the Chairperson of the ACE’s Board during the ACE's 97th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. She succeeded James H. Mullen Jr and she will serve for a period of one year.

114. Shashi Kapoor selected for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2014. He also appeared in notable British and American films like The Householder, Shakespeare Wallah, Bombay Talkie, Heat and Dust, Siddhartha and Muhafiz.

115. Vikramjit Singh Oberoi appointed as Managing Director of EIH Limited. Currently, Vikram Oberoi is a Joint MD and Chief Operating Officer (COO). He joined EIH’s board first as a non-executive director in December 1993 and became an Executive Director in July 2004.

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116. Google Inc appointed Ruth Porat as Chief Financial Officer. She succeeded Patrick Pichette who announced his retirement on 10 MARCH2015. Currently, she is working as Chief Financial Officer at Morgan Stanley.

117. Dolly Shivani Cherukuri became the youngest Archer to enter India Book of Records. Dolly Shivani Cherukuri became the youngest Indian to score 388 points over five and seven-metre distances in the recurve segment.

118. Indian-American author Akhil Sharma won The Folio Prize 2015 for novel Family Life. He was presented with the winner trophy by Jean-Marc Rathe of The Folio Society and a cheque of 40000 pound at the awards ceremony held in .

119. Artist Bharti Kher conferred with the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France. She was awarded for her contribution in contemporary art landscape. Kher's artworks span several mediums like painting, sculpture and installation.

120. Amitav Ghosh among the 10 finalists shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker International Prize. born, Ghosh is the only Indian who was shortlisted in the final list of this prestigious award. In 2008, he narrowly missed out the Prize, when he was shortlisted for his work Sea of Poppies.

121. Gujarat Philatelic Exhibition Gujpex-2015 inaugurated in Ahmedabad. The exhibition is organized by the Gujarat postal circle to show case collection of stamps on various themes and to promote the hobby of philately.

122. Benjamin Nethanyahu of Likud Party won the Israel Elections 2015. In the elections the incumbent Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's party secured 29 seats. It was followed by center-left Zionist Union party of Isaac Herzog which secured 24 seats and Joint Arab List or Hadash party came at third place

123. Twitter Samvad launched for direct communication between Government and Citizens. Through Twitter Samwad, the government bodies can have a direct communication with citizens on a daily basis via Tweets and SMS on their mobile devices.

124. 62nd National Film Awards announced. The film Haider starring Shaheed Kapoor won five awards and the film Queen won two awards which included Best Actress Award for .

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125. Delhi HC became the first court in India to set up commercial courts for speedy disposal of cases. Chief Justice of Delhi HC G Rohini designated four benches to act as commercial courts.

126. KM Mani appointed as chairman of the Empowered Committee of State FM’S on GST. The Union Finance Ministry approved his appointment on 24 MARCH2015. The post is vacant since former Jammu and Kashmir finance minister quit the position in December 2014.

127. Novel titled Family Life written by Akhil Sharma won the Folio Prize 2015. The book tells the story of Ajay Mishra who moves from Delhi to the United States as a child in the late 1970s.

128. Renowned Hindi poet Gopaldas Neeraj won the Rashtriya Kavi Pradeep Samman for the year 2012-13. 90-year-old poet Neeraj won the award for his immense contribution in the field of literature.

129. India’s first Polar Remotely Operated Vehicle operationalised in North Antarctica. PROVe has been deployed in Priyadarshini Lake located on the Schirmacher Oasis, which is a major source of water for Maitri, India’s second base in the Antarctica.

130. Vice president released book title Faces and Places written by Prof. Deepak Nayyar. The book brings together a selection of the author’s photographs that have been taken over the past four decades.

131. Cipla launched generic of drug Sofosbuvir under the brand name Hepcvir for treating Hepatitis C. The drug will be available in Indian market till the end of MARCH2015.

132. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched PRAGATI platform for redressal of grievances. PRAGATI is a multi-purpose and multi-modal platform aimed at addressing grievances of common man. It aims at simultaneously monitor and review Union Government programmes and projects as well as projects flagged by State Governments.

133. India and Qatar inked six agreements to increase commercial and economic exchanges. India and Qatar signed an agreement on transfer of sentenced persons, allowing Indian convicts in Qatar to complete their remaining sentence in India and Qatar convicts in India to complete remaining sentence in Qatar.

134. Fortune released the list of 2015 roster of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. The list included Prime Minister of India at 5th rank and Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi at the 28th rank.

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135. President presented Bharat Ratna award to Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The award giving ceremony is usually held at Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi, but an exception was made keeping in mind the poor health of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

136. Delhi Government launched India’s first e-ration card Service. In this service, E-ration card will be linked with Aadhaar cards and it would enable the beneficiaries of Public Distribution System (PDS) to get the cards online from the government’s web portal without hassles.

137. ISRO won Gandhi Peace Prize 2014. The Indian space agency successfully launched Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) and at a very cost effective price of 450 crore rupees.

138. Nobel Laureate John Nash won Abel Prize 2015 for work on partial differential equations. He will share the Prize with Louis Nirenberg, Professor Emeritus at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. They both will share the prize money of 760000 US dollar.

139. March 2525: International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and Transatlantic Slave Trade observed. Women and slavery was chosen as the theme for the year 2015 in a tribute to the many women who suffered and died during the slave trade.

140. ADB sanctioned 300 million US dollars under SCRIP for road construction in NBNE region. The SASEC Road Connectivity Investment Program aims to achieve regional integration among the members of the SASEC group by improving regional connectivity within the North Bengal-North Eastern Region in India.

141. ADB released Asian Development Outlook 2015. Asian Development Outlook of ADB also projected that India's growth rate will surpass China in FY2015 and FY2016. In FY2015 India is expected to grow at the rate of 7.8 percent and 8.2 percent in FY 2016.

142. RBI signed Currency Swap Agreement with Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The Reserve Bank of India on 25 MARCH2015 signed a 400 million US Dollars currency swap agreement with the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. The agreement is valid for a period of three years from the date of signing.

143. CNN IBN announced Indian of the Year Award 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the Indian of the Year Award 2014 while Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley won the award in Politics category and N Chandrasekaran, CEO, Tata Consultancy Services, won the award in Businness category.

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144. Book titled Food for All written by Uma Lele. The book surveys the food and agricultural development assistance delivered by five major international organizations since their establishment to gauges their relevance, effectiveness, and impacts in a dramatically changed world.

145. Vikas Swarup appointed as MEA spokesman. Swarup will replace incumbent Syed Akbaruddin and will take the charge on 18 April 2015, a day after the return of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his tour to France, Germany and .

146. Katsushi Inoue appointed as President and CEO of Honda Cars India. Currently, he is working as General Manager in Marketing Planning office in Japan. He has been associated with Honda Motor Co for over 29 years.

147. Balbir Singh Senior conferred with Major Dhyan Chand Lifetime Achievement Award of Hockey India. Balbir Singh Senior was a member of three Olympic gold medal winning Indian team, viz., London Olympics (1948), Helsinki Olympics (1952) and Melbourne Olympics (1956).

148. Japan organised World’s first Otaku Expo. The Expo was organized as a part of a special comic book fair held every five years, which attracts about half a million visitors.

149. ISRO successfully launched IRNSS 1-D Navigational Satellite. The satellite is the fourth of the seven satellites constituting the Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS). The satellite will provide navigation, tracking and mapping services.

150. March 30 ::Earth Hour 2015 observed globally from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm local time. The tagline for the Earth Hour 2015 is Change Climate Change and it was observed across 172 nations and territories and around 1400+ iconic landmarks of the world switched off the lights.

151. Madan Mohan Malaviya posthumously awarded Bharat Ratna. Pandit Malaviya was born on 25 December 1861 in Allahabad. He studied in Calcutta University and became a school teacher and later a lawyer and even a newspaper editor. He was the founder of (BHU) and Hindu Mahasabha.

152. Michael Clarke retired from ODI cricket. Clarke, nicknamed Pup, played his debut ODI match on 19 January 2003 against England at Adelaide; while, he played his debut ODI match on 6 October 2004 against India at .

153. won the fbb 2015 title. She was crowned Miss India 2015 in the 52nd edition of the beauty contest held in Mumbai.

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154. Australia defeated New Zealand to win ICC Cricket World Cup 2015. James Faulkner was declared as the man of the match, while, Mitchell Starc was declared as man of the series. Grant Elliott became only the fifth man to register a half-century in the semi- final and final of the same World Cup.

155. Saina, Srikant won India Open Super Series Badminton Women's & Men's Singles titles. In the title clash, Saina defeated Ratchanok Intanon of 21-16, 21-14. Srikanth defeated Viktor Axelsen of Denmark 18-21, 21-13, 21-12.

156. WJP (World Justice Project ) released Open Government Index 2015 Report. The Index used four dimensions to assess openness in government functioning. India is placed at the 37th position among 102 countries surveyed.

157. God’s Bankers authored by Gerald Posner released. Posner through this book has tried to present the secret side of the 200-year history of Vatican finances and the Vatican Bank, the Catholic Church's completely independent financial institution.

158. Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba took over charge as Commanding-in-Chief of Southern Naval Command from Vice Admiral SPS Cheema at the Naval base in Kochi.

159. Daniel Vettori retired from all forms of International Cricket. Daniel Vettori is the eighth player in Test history to take 300 wickets and score 3000 runs. He is the youngest player to represent New Zealand in Test cricket, having made his debut in 1996–97 at the age of 18.

160. Mustafa Kamal resigns from the post of President of International Cricket Council. The Bangladeshi cricket administrator had succeeded Alan Isaac as the 11th President of the ICC in June 2014 for a period of two years.

161. E-commerce marketplace Snapdeal has acquired a majority stake in digital financial distribution platform RupeePower for an undisclosed amount. Snapdeal’s entry into online financial services is a first for an e-commerce company in India. Following the deal, the SoftBank-backed Snapdeal will offer consumer loans through the RupeePower network. Founded in 2011, RupeePower has partnered 12 banks, including the State Bank of India, and other non-banking financial companies.

162. The merger deal between Kotak Mahindra Bank and ING Vysya Bank has received the Reserve Bank's approval. This merger would create the country's fourth largest private sector lender and all the tangible and intangible assets have been transferred to Kotak Mahindra Bank.

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163. Former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari has become Nigeria’s president elect after defeating Goodluck Jonathan in the first democratic change of power ever in the country. Nigeria is the most populated country of the African continent. Mr. Jonathan's defeat is the first time in Nigeria’s brief democracy that a sitting president has not won a second term or handed power to a nominated successor.

164. Subadhra Devi Rai, a senior lecturer at the School of Health Sciences (Nursing) at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), has been named winner of the 2015 International Achievement Award by the International Council of Nurses' Florence Nightingale International Foundation (FNIF). She was named for the award for her work in the healthcare sector of women and refugees and will receive the award on 21 June 2015 at a conference in . She also became the first Singaporean to get the prestigious biennial prize since its introduction in 1999.

165. In recently released 2015 FM Global Resilience Index, India has been ranked a low 119 out of 130 countries. In the risk quality factor, India is ranked 109 for its quality of natural hazard and fire risk management. Norway topped the list in terms of business resilience and Venezuela came at last out of the 130 countries and regions assessed.

166. Former Finance Commission chairman Vijay Kelkar has resigned from the Tata Chemical’s Board. He has also served as chairman of the National Stock Exchange and the 13th Finance Commission, besides being adviser to Finance Minister.

167. Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan received the honorary doctorate from the Egyptian Academy of Arts for his contribution to cinema. He took to micro-blogging site Twitter to share the news. This is the first time that the Academy of Arts has given a doctorate to an international actor.

168. Kiwi captain Brendon McCullum has been awarded Sir Richard Hadlee medal, the country’s highest cricketing honour, for his inspirational leadership and exemplary batting at a glittering ceremony, in Auckland. McCullum, 33, led the Kiwis to their first World Cup final where they did lose to Australia by seven wickets.

169. The Indian Chess grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand added another feather in his cap with a minor planet being named after him. The planet was discovered back in 1988 but had not been formally named until recently. The minor planet, now known as Vishyanand, was previously identified as planet 4538. Anand joins former world chess champions Alexander Alekhine and Anatoly Karpov who have had a similar honour bestowed on them.

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170. Bharti AXA General Insurance (GI) Company Ltd. has launched 'Smart Traveller' offering global coverage for students, individuals, families and frequent travellers.

171. Ace Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal bowed out of the Malaysia Open badminton championship following a semifinal defeat in a thrilling three-set game against tournament top seed Li Xuerui of China in Kuala Lumpur.

172. West Bengal and Bihar Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi took additional charge of Mizoram. He was sworn in as 16th Governor of Mizoram after Union Government had sacked then Governor Aziz Qureshi.

173. Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) has bagged the prestigious Golden Peacock National Quality Award for the year 2015. The award highlights the best in class quality process that the country has been building up at DIAL over the years, which have brought significant results and many awards and accolades. Golden Peacock Awards were founded by the Institute of Directors, India in 1991 and are globally regarded as a benchmark of corporate excellence.

174. India will host the fifth meeting of SAARC health ministers next week to deliberate on key issues including HIV/AIDS, prevention of communicable and non- communicable diseases and to strengthen collaborations amongst the nations. It will also deliberate on a road map for strengthening collaboration among SAARC countries on a number of issues and challenges faced by them. Discussion for adoption of the "Delhi Declaration" affirming their commitment to work together in identified areas and further strengthen health collaboration with agreed road map and timelines, in the meeting scheduled to take place on April 8.

175. After shutting down its mobile website last month, online fashion retailer Myntra is now moving to an app-only strategy by shutting down its desktop website. Myntra, which was acquired by last year for a sum of Rs 2,000 crores claims that around 85 percent of all users come to the site via the app anyway, and that around 63 percent of all purchases happen on the app.

176. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar launched the country's first indigenously-built Scorpene submarine at the Mazagaon Dockyard Ltd in Mumbai. The submarine is part of the ambitious ‘Project 75’ of 's submarine programme, which is undertaken with French collaboration, which will include six such vessels joining the fleet over the next few years. The submarine is expected to be commissioned by September 2016.

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177. A three party MoU has been signed between Union Ministry of Textiles, Maharashtra government and National Textile Corporation for transfer of land of Indu Mills for construction of the memorial for Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar memorial in Mumbai. The memorial will be constructed on the site where the last rites of architect of the Indian Constitution, Bharat Ratna Dr Ambedkar were performed after his death on December 6, 1956.

178. World No. 1 and Serbian ace tennis player Novak Djokovic has won the 2015 Men’s Singles Title defeating Britain’s . World No. 1 and American ace tennis player has won the Women’s singles Title defeating Spain’s Carla Suárez Navarro. American and pair has won the Men’s doubles Title and India’s Sania Mirza and ’s Martina Hingis pair has won Women’s doubles Title.

179. Dena Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India to provide insurance cover to all Aadhaar-linked savings account holders of the bank in the age group of 18 to 50 years. The insurance cover will be provided under the Prime Minister’s Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJBY) scheme. 180. World Health Day (WHD) 2015 was observed globally on 7 April 2015. The theme for the year is "From farm to plate, make food safe" to bring focus on growing global burden of food borne diseases and underscore the need for coordinated cross-border action across the entire food supply chain i.e. from farm to plate. The day is celebrated to mark the anniversary of the WHO formation in 1948.

181. Cricketer Yuvraj Singh is set to start his new innings as businessman with YouWeCan Ventures, aiming to support young entrepreneurs by investing in startups across sectors. Yuvraj will put about INR 50 crore - mostly his own money - over a period of 3-5 years in the fund, YouWeCan Ventures.

182. An Indian origin school boy Pratap Singh, 15, in the UK has been chosen for the Institute of Physics (IOP) Prize, which carries 500 pounds sterling and a trip to a national physics- related activity. Pratap Singh was given the award for carrying out a verifying experiment on the effect of Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity.

183. Chinese phone maker Xiaomi ended its exclusive partnership with Flipkart and joined hands with new online partners Amazon and Snapdeal to sell its products in the country. This means that customers can can now purchase Mi products from Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, The Mobile Stores and Airtel India stores.

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184. Indian Grandmaster Dronavalli Harika won the bronze medal along with Swedish Grandmaster Pia Cramling by virtue of making it to the semi-finals of World Women's chess championship. She lost to the eventual winner Mariya Muzychuk of in the semi-finals. She entered the semis by defeating top seeded Indian Grandmaster Koneru Humpy.

185. PM Narendra Modi launched the Rs 20,000 crores Micro Units Development Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank. The bank is set up with the aim to fund the unfunded small entrepreneurs and to strengthen savings habit in the country. MUDRA Bank will provide credit of up to Rs 10 lakh to small entrepreneurs and act as a regulator for ‘Micro-Finance Institutions’ (MFIs). The roles envisaged for MUDRA include laying down policy guidelines for micro enterprise financing business and registration of MFI entities as well as their accreditation and rating.

186. Online vendor Snapdeal has acquired India’s fastest growing mobile transaction platform FreeCharge. With this acquisition, Snapdeal has become India’s largest mobile commerce firm with 40 million users and the largest mobile transactions base for any company.

187. Mayilsamy Annadurai has been appointed as Director of ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bengaluru taking over from Dr SK Shivakumar who superannuated on 31 March 2015. As the Director of ISAC he will oversee development of satellite technology and implementation of satellite systems for scientific, technological and application missions.

188. IFCI Ltd has now become a state- owned firm with the government increasing its stake in the infrastructure financing firm to 51.04 per cent. Government has acquired IFCI's 6,00,00,000 Preference shares of Rs 10 each from certain scheduled commercial banks and has consequently increased its holding from 47.93 per cent to 51.04 per cent of the paid- up share capital.

189. The Indian Premier League (IPL) begins its eighth edition on 8th April 2015. The T20 tournament brings together the superstars of the game in an epic festival of club cricket at its best. Yuvraj Singh - bought by Delhi for Rs 16 crores - is the most expensive player in the tournament.

190. Global financial ratings agency Moody’s reaffirmed India’s rating at Baa3 but raised the rating outlook to ‘Positive’ from "Stable", a step closer to an upgrade of the credit rating, as it expects actions by policymakers to lift the country's economic growth. According to Moody's, the policymakers are establishing a framework that will allow

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the country's growth to continue to outperform that of its peers over the medium- term and improve India's macro-economic, infrastructure and institutional profile.

191. The Reserve Bank notified government's decision to raise foreign direct investment (FDI) limit in the insurance sector to 49% from the present 26%. FDI up to 26% will be under automatic route and beyond 26% and up to 49% will be allowed with the approval of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

192. President has appointed the senior-most Election Commissioner, Dr Nasim Zaidi, as the next Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) replacing the incumbent Harishankar Brahma.

193. Sumit Mazumder, CMD, TIL Limited, has been elected as the President of CII for the year 2015-16. He succeeds Mr. Ajay Shriram as the new President. TIL is the manufacturer of India’s largest range of material handling equipment in technical collaboration with world leaders – Manitowoc Crane Group, USA; Hyster (a part of NACCO Materials Handling Group, USA) etc.

194. Gursimran 'Sim' Bhullar became the first player of Indian descent to play in the high- profile National Basketball Association (NBA) league as he made his debut for Sacramento Kings. The 7-foot-5-inch Canada-born had signed a 10-day contract to join the Kings' roster.

195. Seoul city, the capital of South Korea was awarded the title of Global Earth hour Capital 2015 after it won the Earth Hour City Challenge (EHCC) of World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The challenge saw the participation of 163 cities from 16 countries. The award ceremony was held in Seoul, South Korea. The city of Balikpapan, Indonesia was recognized as the Most Loveable City for 2015 and Thane city was named as the National Earth Hour Capital 2015 of India.

196. NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) probe - the first mission ever devoted to understanding the Martian upper atmosphere - has completed 1,000 orbits around the Red Planet, four-and-a-half months into its one-year primary mission. Maven started its venture on November 18, 2013 and successfully entered the martian orbit on September 5, 2014. The prime objective of Maven is to observe the Mars atmosphere and give an insight into how the transition from moist and warm planet to dry and cold planet took place on Mars.

197. India successfully test-fired its nuclear-capable Dhanush ballistic missile with a strike range of 350 km from a naval ship off the Odisha coast. The surface-to-surface Dhanush, a naval variant of India's indigenously-developed Prithvi missile, was test

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fired from a ship in the Bay of Bengal off Odisha coast by the Strategic Force Command (SFC) of the defence force. It is one of the five missiles developed by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).

198. India has been designated to chair the 9th meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Council. The meeting is scheduled to be held in June in Abu Dhabi. IRENA is an intergovernmental organization that supports countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future.

199. CWG gold medal winning Indian shooter Apurvi Chandela qualified for next year's after notching up the 10m air rifle bronze in the ongoing ISSF World Cup (Rifle/Pistol) in Changwon, Korea.

200. India's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City in Gandhinagar district of Gujarat became operational today. The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley unveiled rules and regulations for this global financial hub which are aimed at creating a vibrant IFSC on the lines of those in Dubai and Singapore and check the flight of trading in rupee and Indian securities to such offshore financial hubs.

201. 1111 April, National Safe Motherhood day is being observed across India. The main objective is to create awareness on proper healthcare and maternity facilities to pregnant and lactating women. It also aims to create awareness about the institutional delivery, reducing anemia among women and better pre and post-natal health care are necessary for mothers.

202. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on 10 April 2015 imposed ban on all construction activities in the National Capital Region (NCR) that do not follow the guidelines provided by the then Union Ministry of Environment and forest in 2010. The directive is aimed to check growing menace of air pollution in the NCR. Justice Swatanter Kumar is the current NGT chairman.

203. Indian shooter Jitu Rai won a bronze medal in the 10m air pistol event at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Changwon, South Korea. Jitu Rai after winning won silver in the 50m Free Pistol event in 2014 at the World Championships in Granada, Spain had qualified for the 2016 Olympics.

204. India and France have signed 17 agreements in various fields during Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s visit to France. They were signed in presence of Indian PM and

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his counterpart French President Francois Hollande after they had held wide-ranging talks in .

205. Yuki Bhambri won the 15,000 US Dollar ITF Futures tournament title. In the final he recorded a straight-set win over Dzmitry Zhyrmont of Belarus played at Karshi, Uzbekistan. This win also has ensured Yuki’s entry into the French Open qualifying event which will be the Clay Court that will begin on the19 May 2015.

206. President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated first Songs and Dances of the North East, a cultural festival in New Delhi organized by Government of Meghalaya and sponsored by the North Eastern Council (NEC). The purpose of festival is to showcase the culture of India’s northeast region and highlight the immense contribution made by the people of the region in nation building.

207. Asteroid 316201 has been named as ‘316201 Malala’ after the youngest Nobel laureate and girls’ education campaigner Malala Yousafzai. The asteroid was named after her by Amy Mainzer, astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, United States under the International Astronomical Union rules. Asteroid 316201 Malala is located in the Main Belt between Mars and Jupiter. It orbits around the Sun every 5.5 years and is more- than 2 mile wide.

208. Arun Kumar Jha has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC). He will oversee the day-to-day functioning of the commission and report about its activities to the Union Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME). KVIC is a statutory body established by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act, 1956. Its primary objective is to create self- reliance amongst the poor and build strong rural community spirit by producing saleable articles and providing employment.

209. Mercedes Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton from Britain won Chinese Grand Prix of Formula One on the Shanghai International Circuit in China. This was his second win of the season and his fourth Chinese Grand Prix win. It was also Lewis Hamilton’s overall 35th Grand Prix win.

210. Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the Hanover Messe, the world’s largest industrial fair, alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel. India is the partner country of this year's trade fair, which brings together about 6,500 exhibitors from 70 nations. Germany is India’s largest trading partner in Europe wiht more than 1,600 Indo-German business collaborations and 600 Indo-German joint ventures in operation.

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211. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has announced signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with AREVA of France for co-operation to maximise localisation of the EPR nuclear power plant to be built at Jaitapur, Maharashtra. AREVA will transfer technology to utilise the forging capabilities of L&T Special Steels and Heavy Forgings (a joint venture with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd.).

212. Guenter Grass, the Nobel-winning German writer who gave voice to the generation that came of age during the horrors of the Nazi era has died at the age of 87. Grass was lauded by Germans for helping to revive their culture in the aftermath of World War II and helping to give voice and support to democratic discourse in the post war nation. Grass made his literary reputation with “The Tin Drum,” published in 1959. It was followed by “Cat and Mouse” and “Dog Years,” which made up what is called the Danzig Trilogy after the town of his birth, now the Polish city of Gdansk.

213. Sania Mirza has created history by becoming the first female tennis player from India to achieve the world number one rank in doubles. She achieved her title win at the WTA Family Circle Cup with partner Martina Hingis. The top-seeded Indo-Swiss pair defeated and Darija. Before Sania, only and Mahesh Bhupathi had achieved the top rank when they dominated men’s doubles circuit in the last 90s.

214. Following popular outrage against net neutrality violations to “internet apartheid”, Flipkart pulled out of the controversial Airtel Zero preferential access platform. Flipkart was one of the partners in the Airtel Zero platform which allowed subscribers to access select websites and services for “zero data charges”, as long as owners of these websites/services paid Airtel.

215. The World Bank has predicted a GDP growth rate of 8 per cent for India by 2017 along with a strong expansion in the country, coupled with favourable oil prices. In India, GDP growth is expected to accelerate to 7.5 per cent in fiscal year 2015/16.

216. The BJP government in Haryana has decided to give the status of cabinet minister to yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who was earlier made the state’s brand ambassador to promote yoga and Ayurveda. The government has announced to make yoga compulsory in all schools and equip all sports stadiums in every district with a yoga center.

217. North Korea’s top diplomat, Ri Su-yong, arrived in India on a rare visit to become the first North Korean foreign minister to visit India in at least 25 years.

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218. The government has formed an inter-ministerial committee headed by cabinet secretary to review the Official Secrets Act. This is done in context of demands to declassify files related to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's death or disappearance. RAW, IB, Union home ministry and PMO officials will be part of the panel. This comes after the PM met Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grandnephew, Surya Bose, in Berlin and promised to examine the request for declassification of all files related to events since his death or disappearance in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.

219. Renowned Assamese filmmaker and actor Bidyut Chakraborty dies in Guwahati after brief illness. His directorial film Rag-Birag is based on a novel written by -winner Mamoni Raisom Goswami.

220. Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has renamed Tourist Visa on Arrival- Electronic Travel Authorization scheme (TVoA-ETA) to e-Tourist Visa with effect from 15 April 2015. The aim is to remove the ambiguities faced by foreign tourists especially by scheme’s nomenclature VoA, presuming that they would be granted visa on arrival upon landing will be removed. e-Tourist Visa Scheme is a pre- authorization of Visa to foreigners that being given prior to travel. TVoA-ETA was launched in November 2014. It had enabled Electronic Travel Authorization to 44 countries at nine airports across India.

221. Online restaurant guide Zomato announced the acquisition of MaplePOS, a cloud- based point of sale product for restaurants developed by a group of techies from Delhi. Gurgaon based Zomato has already renamed the MaplePOS product to 'Zomato Base' which will help the company and its restaurant partners to manage business into online orders and payments. MaplePos, a sale product offers various features of restaurants such as inventory and menu management, and also has in- built payment solution to accept debit and credit card payments.

222. Meenakshi Madan Rai was sworn in as the first lady judge of the Sikkim High Court.

223. Union Government constituted a task force on interlinking of rivers in the country. The Task Force will be chaired by former Secretary of Ministry of Water Resources B N Navalawala and comprises experts and senior officials.

224. Canada and India have signed with a series of agreements and promises that will send Canadian uranium to the South Asian nation, liberalize visas for Canadian travellers, “soon” ratify a long-awaited foreign investment deal and lay a road map to complete stalled trade talks. Under an agreement signed between Modi had Harper, Cameco Corporation will supply 3,000 metric tonnes of uranium over five years to India for $254 million. Canada's PM Stephen Harper returns 900-year-old Khajuraho

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temple sculpture to PM Narendra Modi. The sculpture, known as 'Parrot Lady', was handed over by Harper to Modi yesterday in accordance with 1970 UNESCO Convention.

225. India has successfully test-fired nuclear weapons-capable Agni-III ballistic missile from the Wheeler Island off Odisha coast. The missile has a strike range of more than 3,000 k.m. Agni-III is one of the sophisticated and accurate missiles of its class and has already been inducted into armed forces. It is capable of carrying a payload weighing 1.5 tonnes.

226. Leaders of six Janata Parivar parties announced their decision to merge into one larger entity. Mulayam Singh Yadav will the head new party. The new party will have a strength of 15 members in the Lok Sabha and 30 in the Rajya Sabha.

227. Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), an engineering and manufacturing company announced that it has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Russian company named INTMA with an aim to set up a gas-based power project in as well as further boost its presence in the CIS countries. INTMA is one of the leading general Engineering Procurement and Construction contractors (EPC) in Russia and Kazakhstan.

228. Asia Cup 2016 will undergo a radical change and will be a Twenty20 competition instead of the 50-over game. It would be revamped to include more Associate nations and to give some practice prior to the T-20 World Cup. However, the tournament would then revert to a 50-over tournament in 2018 ahead of the 2019 World Cup in England and be played as a T20 competition again in 2020.

229. Sachin Tendulkar was inducted as one of the five new members into the prestigious Laureus Sports Academy in a glittering annual award ceremony at the Shanghai Grand theatre. Along with him, retired Chinese professional basketball player Yao Ming, Kenyan long-distance runner Tegla Loroupe, Chinese gymnast Li Xiaopeng and former Chinese short track speed skater Yang Yang were the other athletes to be inducted into the Laureus academy.

230. US President Barack Obama will honour Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella with the 'Champions of Change' award for bringing about change within his company to support working families. The 'Champions of Change' programme was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature individuals doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities.

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231. Reliance Industries has regained its status as the most profitable Indian company after posting an 8.5 per cent rise in consolidated net profit for the March quarter. The operator of the world's biggest refining complex reported a net profit Rs 6,381 crore for the three months to March, 2015. RIL had lost its crown as India's most profitable firm to outsourcing giant TCS in the December quarter.

232. United Nation (UN) peace envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar has resigned, after losing support from Gulf countries for his mission in the conflict-riven nation. His resignation comes after UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for the swift resumption of peace talks and an end to violence in Yemen. The adopted resolution adopted calls on the Huthis to withdraw from Sanaa and all other areas they have seized.

233. Senior diplomat Mohan Kumar, currently India's top envoy to Bahrain, has been appointed the next Ambassador to France to succeed Arun Kumar. He is 1981-batch IFS officer.

234. The East China Normal University (ECNU), one of the prestigious universities in China, announced the appointment of Dr. Vishal Sikka, Chief Executive Officer of Infosys, as Advisory Professor. East China Normal University, commonly referred to as ECNU, is a comprehensive research university in Shanghai, China. Established in 1951, it is the first national normal university of the People's Republic of China.

235. Two Indians are among 16 people named by Yale University as its 2015 World Fellows, the signature global leadership development initiative at the prestigious US institution. Zeena Johar, SughaVazhvu Healthcare Founder and journalist and author Rahul Pandita are the Indians who are named by the university.

236. World Heritage Day was observed across the world on 18 April 2013. The day is observed with an aim to create awareness among the people to conserve and protect the valuable assets and cultural heritage across the world. The first world Heritage Day was celebrated on 18 April 1982 by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in Tunisia and was approved in 1983 by UNESCO. The 2015 World Heritage Day also marked 50th anniversary of ICOMOS.

237. World Haemophilia Day was observed globally on 17 April 2015 with theme Building a family of support. The day provides an opportunity to talk to your extended family and friends, colleagues, and caregivers to raise awareness and increase support for those living with an inherited bleeding disorder. Hemophilia day was established in 1989 with the support of the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH). The date of 17

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April was chosen to honor Frank Schnabel the founder of WFH, whose birthday falls on the same date.

238. NRI industrialists Hinduja brothers – S P Hinduja and G P Hinduja – have won the Business Leader of the Year 2015 award at the prestigious 5th Asian Awards for their outstanding achievement in the field of business. The Asian Awards honouring Asian Excellence is founded by businessman Paul Sagoo.

239. Vankadarath Saritha, a 30-year-old driver became first woman bus driver to be inducted in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). Saritha hails from Nalgonda district in Telangana. Delhi government’s step will allay its concern regarding women’s security in the capital and also encourage women’s contribution to such sectors where they’re currently not participating.

240. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on 18 April 2015 between Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (RVNL) and Dighi Port Limited. The MoU will facilitate construction of 34 km of railway link between Roha and Dighi Port in Raigad district of Maharashtra. The project cost is estimated around Rs. 723 crore.

241. Andhra Pradesh Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the IISL Company to replace the existing streetlights in 13 municipalities with LED lights in the state. As per the agreement, IISL will maintain replace and maintain LED streetlights in the 13 municipalities for seven years. The state government aims to reduce the power consumption by 50 per cent by this step.

242. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has suspended the Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) for indefinite period. This move comes after PCI had provided shoddy treatment to athletes during the National Para-Athletics Championships held in Ghaziabad from March 20 to 22, 2015. With this suspension, Indian para-athletes will not be able to participate in any IPC-sanctioned competition, including 2016 Paralympic Games at . In this regard, Union Sports Ministry also has issued a show cause notice to PCI. PCI was founded in 1992 as the Physically Handicapped Sports Federation of India. It was recognized in November 2011, as National Sports Federation (NSF) for promotion of sports amongst the physically challenged sportspersons in the country. It is also responsible for selecting athletes to represent India at the Paralympic Games and other international athletic meets.

243. Supreme Court has appointed Priyadarshi to head an investigating team to further probe the Indian Premier League (IPL) season 6 spot-fixing and betting scandals. The bench took this decision on the recommendation of a three member

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panel headed by former Chief Justice of India (CJI) RM Lodha which was appointed in January 2015.

244. Vijender Gupta was appointed the leader of opposition (LoP) in the Delhi. Delhi Assembly Speaker has recognized him as LOP as per Section 2 of the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi (Salary and Allowances) Act, 2001. In February 2015 Assembly election, BJP had won three seats which is less than one-tenth of the total strength of 70 of the Delhi assembly. While, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had won 67 seats.

245. Rajya Sabha member Sitaram Yechury was elected the 5th General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). To ensure a smooth transition by averting a vote, Mr. Pillai’s candidature was withdrawn paving the way for the unanimous election of the 91- member CC, after which Mr. Karat proposed Mr. Yechury for general secretary which was unanimously accepted.

246. ICICI Bank in collaboration with Tech Mahindra launched a payment service ‘Tap-n- Pay’ based on the near-field communications (NFC) technology, enabling customers to make over-the-counter payments without using cash. For making payments, the user will have to bring the NFC tag or the mobile phone near a device at the merchant’s facility and the amount will automatically get debited from the prepaid account.

247. The Indian Navy launched ’Visakhapatnam’, the first of stealth destroyers under the P15- B project. The warship is 163 metres in length and has a displacement of 7,300 tonnes.

248. The Kerala government launched a major campaign "Subodham" to help people in the state overcome alcohol, drug and other substance abuse. The project was launched by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Art of Living Foundation founder Sri Sri Ravishankar in the presence of religious leaders, representatives of student organisations and NGOs working against drug abuse.

249. In a tragic on-field incident a promising Bengal batsman Ankit Keshri passed away owing to an injury sustained during a Cricket Association of Bengal's senior one-day knock-out match. The 20-year-old, a talented right-hander, had captained the Bengal U-19 team in Cooch Behar Trophy and was in the 30-member India U-19 probable’s list for the 2014 Colts World Cup in the .

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250. Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won the Bahrain Grand Prix for the second year in a row with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen back on the podium to deny Mercedes another one-two finish under the floodlights.

251. Former Governor of and three-time Chief Minister of Odisha Janaki Ballav Patnaik passed away in a private hospital at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. He was Chief Minister of Odisha from 1980 to 1989 and again from 1995 to 1999.

252. A Japanese magnetic levitation train has broken its own world speed record, hitting 603km/h (374mph) in a test run near Mount Fuji. The train beat the 590km/h speed it had set last week in another test. Japan is known for its shinkansen that run on steel rails, but has been investing in maglev technology which it is hoping to sell overseas. Central Japan Railway (JR Central), which owns the trains, wants to introduce the service between Tokyo and the central city of Nagoya by 2027.

253. With an aim of monitoring implementation of various ongoing projects including Rail Budget proposals, railways today launched E-Samiksha, an online monitoring mechanism. Designed by NIC, the software is currently being used by Cabinet Secretariat, PMO and other Ministries for monitoring progress implementation of various programmes and follow-up of meetings.

254. Bharatiya Mahila Bank Ltd has entered into MoUs with New India Assurance Company Ltd and Life Insurance Corporation of India to provide insurance cover to its accountholders. The insurance covers are being provided under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Suraksha Bima Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Jeevanjyoti Bima Yojana schemes respectively.

255. The BJP-led NDA government has dropped the names of former Prime Ministers and Rajiv Gandhi from two awards for propagating Hindi. The ‘Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Puraskar’ and ‘Rajiv Gandhi Rashtriya Gyan-Vigyan Maulik Pustak Lekhan Puraskar’, launched more than two decades ago, have given way for ‘Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar’ and ‘Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar’.

256. The six-member NJAC headed by the Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu will be constituted by the Centre. National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) is a body responsible for the appointment and transfer of judges to the higher judiciary in India. The Commission is established by amending the Constitution of India through the 99th constitution amendment vide the Constitution (Ninety-Ninth Amendment) Act, 2014 passed by the Lok Sabha on 13 August 2014 and by the Rajya Sabha on 14 August 2014.

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257. Metals and mining conglomerate Sesa Sterlite has changed its name to Vedanta Ltd. to better align with its international identity — Vedanta Resources. The company produces and processes oil and gas, zinc, lead, silver, copper, iron ore, aluminum and commercial power and is present in India, , Namibia, Ireland, Australia, Liberia and Sri Lanka.

258. International Mother Earth Day was observed globally on 22 April 2015 with the theme “It’s our turn to lead”. The theme highlights the need for change and seeks to inform the communities and leadership that action needs to be taken on climate by promoting a goal of environmental awareness through developing sustainable initiatives and galvanizing every human to pledge Acts of Green.

259. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has accorded final approval to two national parks i.e. Kudermukh National Park, Karnataka and Rajaji National Park, Uttarkhand for being declared as tiger reserves. In accordance to this approval, Rajaji National Park is declared as India's 48th Tiger Reserve. With this notification, Uttarakhand got its second tiger reserve after the Corbett Tiger Reserve. The Rajaji National Park that came into existence in 1983 is spread across three districts of Uttarakhand namely Haridwar, and Pauri Garhwal in an area over 820 square km.

260. Pakistan conferred the Nishan-e-Pakistan, its top civilian award, on Chinese President Xi Jinping, lauding his "outstanding contribution in the promotion of the relationship between the two countries".

261. Bollywood actor was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Film Foundation Award 2015 for his performance in the movie “Happy New Year”. Actor

262. Rajkummar Rao won the prestigious award for his performance in the critically acclaimed film “Citylights”, which was released in 2014. Actress Huma Qureshi bagged an award for her memorable performance in the movie “Dedh Ishiqya”.

263. Union Cabinet has approved lowering of age of juveniles from 18 to 16 years for heinous crimes. The cabinet also approved to introduce Amendment to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014. This amendment will propose and add special provisions to tackle heinous offences like murder and rape committed by juveniles in the age group of 16-18 years.

264. World Bank established Pollution Management and Environmental Health (PHEM) program. The program was officially launched on Global Citizen 2015 Earth Day in Washington, D.C. The 45 million US Dollar PMEH program will initially run from

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2015 to 2020 and focus primarily on air quality management in countries facing rapid urbanization and strong needs for pollution abatement measures, but also tackle water and land pollution. The program will focus in particular on air quality management in five major urban areas in India, China, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa.

265. The top-ranked Serb Novak Djokovic won the first big clay-court tournament of the season defeating Tomas Berdych in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters. Djokovic, became the first player in tennis history to win the first three Masters tournament of the year after completing the Indian Wells-Miami sweep this spring.

266. RBI has modulated PSL norms which stipulate that banks operating in India must offer 40% of all loans to farmers, small entrepreneurs and so-called weaker sections of society. The old norms had stipulated that 13.5% of agriculture loans should be given to the farmers directly as crop loans and the rest, 4.5%, could be indirect loans to the farm sector, to allied industries such as food processing and fertilizer. RBI has also abolished the distinction between direct and indirect loans.

267. Indian-American Vivek Murthy was sworn-in as the US Surgeon General by Vice President Joe Biden at a ceremony, becoming the youngest-ever in-charge of the country's public health and is now the highest ranking Indian-American in the US President Barack Obama Administration. The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. U.S. Surgeon General is nominated by the President of the United States and confirmed by a majority vote of the Senate. The Surgeon General serves a four-year term of office.

268. India is one of the unhappiest countries in the world. It ranks 117 out of the 158 countries surveyed for the World Happiness Report 2015. The top country in the list is Switzerland with a score of 7.587

269. The Rajya Sabha, unanimously handed a personal member’s bill to protect the rights of the group. The personal member bill supplies for the formulation and implementation of a complete national coverage to guarantee general improvement and welfare of transgender community by the State. A National Transgender Welfare Commission and a special transgender court will also be set up.

270. National Panchayati Raj Day was observed across India on 24 April 2015. The day is observed to mark the passing of the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act, 1992 that came into force with effect from 24 April 1993. The Amendment institutionalized

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Panchayati Raj through the Village, Intermediate and District levels Panchayats which registers a defining moment in the history of decentralization of political power to the grassroots level.

271. A massive 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck in Nepal, causing widespread damage to buildings in the capital Kathmandu and killing more than 100 people in the country. It was the worst quake in the Himalayan nation in over 80 years, the world’s strongest earthquakes since 1900.

272. India has delivered three military choppers “Cheetal” to Kabul weeks ahead of the first visit by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani to New Delhi since taking over charge. The choppers are suited for operations from high altitude regions as well as areas with difficult terrain and unprepared landing areas, for which Afghan pilots and technicians have been trained.

273. World Malaria Day (WMD) was observed on 25 April 2015. The theme for the 2013- 2015 campaign is ‘Invest in the Future. Defeat Malaria.’The day is observed to recognise the global efforts to control malaria. It is an occasion to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria control and elimination

274. FIFA confirmed that Japan will host the 2015 and 2016 editions of the FIFA Club World Cup, the tournament that has been held annually since 2005 among the champions of each member confederation.

275. World record holder Paula Radcliffe will receive the inaugural John Disley London Marathon Lifetime Achievement Award after she completes the 2015 London Marathon. The three-time winner will run what is expected to be her final competitive race at the 35th London Marathon.

276. Prime Minister Narendra Modi awarded the 50th Jnanpith Award to eminent Marathi litterateur Bhalchandra Nemade whose several books, including Kosala and Hindu, have influenced Indian writing. Nemade's contribution rests in initiating Deshivad, a theory of nativism that negated globalisation, asserting the value of a writer's native heritage, and language.

277. Bank of Baroda, a leading Indian public sector bank, has tied up with UAE Exchange to offer an instant cash transfer facility to NRI customers. UAE Exchange, a global remittance and foreign exchange company, serves over 7.9 million customers worldwide and currently has over 750 branches across 32 countries. Following the

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agreement, customers can send money to their desired bank accounts in Bank of Baroda in India, within minutes.

278. Government detected a whopping over Rs 7,800 crore of illegal monies within the country and abroad during 2013-14 as the elite Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) found all-time high cases of suspicious transactions in the country’s economic channels. CTR is fund movement of the value more than Rs. 10 lakh in one tranche or a series of transactions internally connected to each other in either Indian currency or foreign in the country’s banking or any other channel.

279. Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor conferred with prestigious Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Award 2015. He was presented the award by noted historian and writer Babasaheb Purandare. Apart from Anil Kapoor, veteran Marathi actor Dilip Prabhavalkar was also bestowed with the prestigious Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Award 2015. Dinanath Mangeshkar Award was instituted in 1999 in memory of Dinanath Mangeshkar, father of Lata Mangeshkar.

280. Iconic business leader Ratan Tata has acquired a stake in Chinese handset maker Xiaomi, the first investment by any Indian in the smartphone maker. In December last year, Xiaomi raised $1.1 billion, valuing the firm at $45 billion. Often touted as the ‘Apple of China’, the company has grown to become a major competition to global giants like Samsung and Apple.

281. Capgemini and iGATE have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Capgemini will acquire iGATE for a cash consideration of $48 per share. The transaction will amount to $4 billion and is expected to be immediately accretive to Capgemini’s normalized Earnings Per Share (EPS)1. iGATE is US-listed IT services company headquartered in New Jersey.

282. Chief Justice of India H L Dattu has refused to participate in a three-member panel for selecting two eminent persons in the six-member National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC). The five-judge constitution bench, headed by Justice J S Khehar, which is hearing the issue of constitutional validity of the new law on appointment of judges to higher judiciary, was told by Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that Dattu has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would not participate in the meeting of the panel till the matter is decided by the apex court.

283. Central Board of Direct Taxes will settle all minimum alternate tax (MAT) matters of FIIs coming under the ambit of Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements within a month of filing of claims. The move is aimed at quickly resolving the controversial tax issue facing foreign portfolio investors.

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284. Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB) has won The Asian Banker Achievement Award 2015. The award was presented to the BMB in the Technology Implementation category of Best Outsourcing Project (New Bank). Usha Ananthasubramanian is the Chairman and Managing Director of BMB, which is India’s first all-women public sector bank and was formally launched on November 19, 2013. Its objective is to focus on the banking needs of the women and promote economic empowerment.

285. The government has raised the limit of foreign direct investment in pension sector to 49% in line with the FDI cap in the insurance sector. In pursuance of the enactment of Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority Act, 2013, government has decided to permit FDI in the pension sector.

286. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has nominated Rohit Sharma for the Arjuna award for 2015. Since January 1, 2014, he has averaged 55.05 from 21 innings with 3 centuries and 5 fifties, with the epic 264 his highest score.

287. In a key stride in collaboration between the State and Israel, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai agreed to cooperate in building smart cities.Maharashtra has decided to create sustainable and friendly urban spaces that integrate the use of technology, social media, community participation and e-governance to build smart cities of Maharashtra like Nagpur, Mumbai, Amravati, and Nashik to a global standard.

288. Chennai-born Raja Rajeswari has been sworn-in as a criminal court judge in New York. She became the first India-born woman to be appointed a judge in New York City. Currenlty, there are two male judges of Indian descent in civil court settings — Jaya Madhavan on the New York City Housing Court in Bronx County, and Anil C. Singh of New York County Supreme Court, 1st District.

289. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) party retained control of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) apart from emerging the winner in 73 other municipal bodies in West Bengal.

290. Online marketplace Flipkart has acquired Delhi-based mobile engagement and marketing automation company Appiterate. Appiterate started as an A/B testing product for native mobile apps later on expanded into a full-fledged mobile marketing automation platform.

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291. D Harika and Koneru Humpy win silver and a bronze respectively at the World Women Chess Championship. Indian eves finished fourth in the women’s world team chess championship. Georgia defeated China in the finals.

292. The Reserve Bank of India imposed a fine of Rs 1.5 crore each on Dena Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Oriental Bank of Commerce and cautioned eight other public sector banks following its investigation into last year's fixed deposit fraud. The fraud, which ran into several hundred crores, affected organizations such as Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority, South Indian Education Society and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

293. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee declared Nadia as the first Open Defecation Free (ODF) district in the country. Thanking UNICEF and the World Bank for helping the district achieve this feat, Ms. Banerjee declared April 30 as the “Nirmal Bangla Diwas” to be observed in the years to come.

294. Rajya Sabha passed the Regional Rural Banks (Amendment) Bill, 2014. With this, the bill has been passed by both houses of the Parliament. It was passed by the Lok Sabha on 18 December 2014. The Regional Rural Banks (Amendment) Bill, 2014 that seeks to amend the Regional Rural Banks (RRB) Act, 1976 was introduced by the Union Minister of Finance, Arun Jaitley. It removes the five year limit cap that was put on the sponsor banks to assist the upcoming RRBs under the RRB Act, 1976. As per the Act, sponsor banks were liable to train personnel and provide managerial and financial assistance for the first five years.

295. 90 year-old Gandhian philosopher and a Muslim religious visionary, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan has been conferred Sayyidina Imam Al Hassan Ali award for his knowledge and his efforts in keeping peace. Maulana has written over 200 books on Islam and has been conferred the Padma Shri award in the past.

296. Nadia District, West Bengal becomes the first open-defecation-free district. This was possible because of the collaboration of the district with UNICEF and West Bengal Government to construct toilets across the district.

297. Theera-Veeta defence exercise was held by the Indian Coast guard on the Arabian Sea. It aims to develop the preparedness of military forces in case of external attack on Kerala, Lakshadweep and Pondicherry.

298. Microsoft announces the Web Browser “EDGE” to replace the present Internet Explorer. Microsoft had earlier called this as “Project Spartan”

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299. Minimun Alternate Tax has been exempted by Ministry of Finance on foreign investors earning capital gains from royalty, security gains, fee on technical services and interest and if the normal tax rate is below 18.5%.

300. Surender Singh succeeds Arvind Ranjan as the Director General of CISF (Central Industrian Security Force). Surender Singh formerly served as Special Director, Intelligence Bureau (IB).

301. NASA ended a Mars-mission called MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space Environment, GEochemistry Ranging). This mission was sent in 2004 to study the surface of Mercury.

302. Union Minister for Road and Transportation, Nitin Gadkari introduced two new projects in North East India. One is the Shillong Bypass Highway project and the other is the four- laning of Jorabat- Barapani stretch of 60 kms on NH- 40- NH-44.

303. As per the TRAI regulations, the cellular phone companies were directed to implement Mobile number Portability by April, 2015. The Department of Telecommunication has now extended the deadline till 3rd July, 2015.

304. World’s largest Solar Photovoltaic Plant of 750 MW to be built in Rewa district, Madhya Pradesh. Aimed to be completed by 2017, the cost of the project is 4500 Crore Rupees. Presently, the largest of its kind is the Topaz Solar Farm, California.

305. is conferred with the Golden Medal for Merit in Work, one of top civilian honors of Spain.

306. Maharashtra FDA has filed a FIR against the CEO of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl and its directors under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. The reason being that Snapdeal was selling prescription drugs online, which is a violation of rules prescribed under the act.

307. Spring Imperial Decoration of Japan to be conferred on 4 Indians- Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao, Thottuvelil Krishna Pillai Aiyappankutty Nair, Nikunj Parekh and Topgay Bhutia.

308. An American company, Tesla Motors Inc. has launched a solar energy based powerwall system, which can be used for residential purposes.

309. National Sports Federation (under the ministry of Youth Affairs) included motor sports as “sport” in its list of 59 recognized sports.

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310. American Boxer, Floyd Mayweather wins the World Welterweight title by defeating Manny Pacquiao of .

311. Aditya Birla Group announces a merger of all its apparel businesses into one entity, called the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd.

312. 62nd National Film Awards presented by Pranab Mukherjee-  Best Actress- Kangana Ranaut, Queen  Best Actor- Vijay Kumar for Kannada film- Nan Avanalla Avalu  Dada Saheb Phalke- Shashi Kapoor  Best Feature Film- Court, Marathi  Best popular film- Mary Kom  Best children’s Film- Kaakkaa mutthai (Tamil) and Elizabeth Ekadashi (Marathi)  Best Director- Srijit Mukherjee, Chotushkone (Bengali)

313. World Press Day is celebrated on 3rd May. The theme for this year was “Safe to Speak: Securing freedom in all media”. There was a special focus on UN’s action plan on Safety of journalists, Issue of Impunity.

314. World Laughter day falls on the first Sunday of May every year.

315. 2015 UNESCO/ Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize given to Syrian Journalist and Activist Mazen Darwish.

316. Chuck Robbins to replace John Chambers as the CEO of Cisco Systems Inc.

317. CMD of Monnet group, Sandeep Jajodia removed from the post of President of Boxing India after its members passed a “no-confidence” Motion against him.

318. At the International Shooting Compeition held in Hannover, Germany, in the 10m air rifle team- Chain Singh, Gagan Narang and Abhinav Bindra won Gold while Apurvi Chandela won bronze at the women’s event.

319. Railways Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) defeated Jharkhand to win the 5th Hockey India Senior Women National Championship. RSPB won the same event even in men’s category held in early April this year, defeating UP.

320. Union Minister of State for Culture, Dr. Mahesh Sharma inaugurated the first Science Centre and Planetarium in Puducherry. The museum has been set up by

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National council of Science Museum, at the expense of 5.5 crore rupees and is the 47th science museum in our country.

321. Joint Venture Company, Patratu Thermal power station was formed as a result of a MoA signed between NTPC and Jharkhand Bidyut Vitaran Nigam Limited, with equity proportion of 74:26.

322. Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das and Union minister of State for Energy and Renewable resources inaugurated Magadh Open Cast Mine, Asia’s largest mine in Chhatra District, Jharkhand.

323. Future Group’s Retail business to merge with Bharti Retail.

324. The 14th edition of Indo-French naval exercise, VARUNA 2015 concluded on the coast off Goa.

325. The Barclays Premier League 2014-15 Football title was won by Chelsea after defeating crystal Palace, 1-0 at Stamford Bridge, London.

326. M.S. Saini’s book ‘Indian Bumblebees’ reveals that India is home to 48 of the 250 known species of bumblebees.

327. Roger Ferderer defeated Uruguayan Pablo Cueves to win the inaugural TEB BNP Paribas Men’s single title.

328. Rajasthan Health minister, Rajendra Rathore inaugurated a cow urine-refinery unit in Pathmeda, Jalore district of Rajasthan.

329. Australia announced tough punishments for foreign investors who fail to follow rules while buying land in Australia.

330. BHEL commissioned a 195 MW thermal unit of Kanti Bijli Utpadan Nigam ltd. in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.

331. Vedanta Ltd. launched new logo, which was created by internal stakeholders across.

332. Narendra Modi joined the Chinese Social Media, Weibo.

333. 1st Tuesday of May is observed as World Asthma Day. The theme for this year was “You can control your Asthma”

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334. 119th Constitutional Amendment Bill for Land and Boundary agreement between India and passed by the Union Cabinet. This enables exchange of enclaves between the two states, which are under the possession of the states. The territories of Assam, WB, Meghalaya and Tripura are a part of this.

335. 7.02 Billion dollar agreements were signed between Qatar and France. Qatar to supply 24 Dassault Avaiation-built Rafale fighter jets in exchange of training of 36 Qatarui Pilots, 100 technicians and a number of Qatari intelligence officers by the French military.

336. Rajasthan govt. signed a MoU between UNICEF, GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) and NHM (National Health Mission) to tackle severe malnourishment in the state. So far, 10000 children have been identified as malnourished in 13 districts of the state.

337. AWS (Akash Weapon System), which is indigenously developed has been inducted into the Indian Army.

338. Algo-Trading, which is a computer calculation of execution of trade based on pre- defined instruction causes Sensex and Nifty indices to close at their lowest in 2015.

339. The Goods and Services Tax Bill, 2014 was passed by the Lok Sabha.

340. 19th Federation Cup National Senior Athletic Championships- Indian Army team wins men’s title and Kerala emerges winner in women’s title.

341. 10-engine electric plane- Grease Lightening 10 (GL- 10) successfully flight-tested by NASA.

342. Union Minister for Minority Affairs, Najma Heptulla released Save the Children’s 16th annual State of World’s Mothers report titled “The Urban Disadvantage”.

343. State-level ‘Beti Bachao Beti padhao’ scheme launched in Goa, by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar. Among the 100 districts selected across India, North Goa is included.

344. Myntra acquired Bangalore-based Native5 Software Solutions. This will lead to Native5 joining Flipkart, the parent company of Myntra.

345. Industrial and commercial Bank of China tops the Forbes 2000 companies list.

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346. PayTM offline payment option introduced for Domino’s and Café Coffee day.

347. Commemorative coin of Swami Chinmayananda, founder of Chinmaya Mission and visionary of Advaita Vedanta released by Narendra Modi.

348. Achal Kumar Jyothi appointed as the Election Commissioner.

349. Navneet Rajan Wasan becomes the Director General of Bureau of Police Research and Development, after the retirement of Rajan Gupta.

350. Mhairi Black from the Paisley and Renfrewshire constituency becomes the youngest lawmaker of UK after defeating Douglas Alexander.

351. ‘Indian Heritage Museum’, the first museum dedicated to India opened in Little India, by Singapore PM Lee Hsein on the occasion of 50th Independence Day of Singapore.

352. Asian Development Bank and the Union Government sign a deal for 31 M $ for development of irrigation sources and improving its efficiency in Karnataka.

353. Madagascar explorers claim to have found a treasure belonging to the 17th century notorious pirate Capt. William Kidd from Scotland.

354. ‘Unbelievable- Delhi to Islamabad’, a book by Prof. Bhim Singh was released. This book is the result of attempt of Indian and Pakistani advocates to work together to ensure the safety and proper treatment of prisoners of both sides.

355. UK General Election, 2015- David Cameroon-led Conservative Party defeats Ed Milliband’s Labour Party to win the election.

356. Discus Thrower Vikas Gowda won gold in Jamaican International Invitation Meet, Kingston.

357. Kamalpreet singh won gold in Hammer throw event for men in Sacramento State Open, US.

358. Britain’s Andy Murray won men’s single title at the Madrid Open by defeating Nadal. Petra Kvitova won the women’s title by defeating Svetlana Kuznetzova. - won the men’s doubles title by defeating Nimanjic- Matzowski pair.

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359. ‘Namaste Russia’ festival inaugurated in Moscow by Pranab Mukherjee. It aims to showcase the rich culture and heritage of India.

360. Nico Rosberg from Germany won the Spanish Grand Prix of F1.

361. Indian Army and Bank of India signed a MoU on Defence Salary package. This will benefit a large number of army personnel and retired officers with account in the Bank of India.

362. National Technology Day was celebrated across country on 11th May.

363. The Naval Base in Porbander was commissioned as INS Sardar Patel. It will look into infrastructure and organizational development in Gujarat.

364. K. Sathish Reddy, chairman of Dr. Reddy Laborataries succeeded Venu Srinivasan as the chairman of NSC (National Safety Council). He will look after the development of SHE (Safety, Health and Environment) programme at the national level.

365. Arun Pudur, owner-president of Celframe topped the X-Wealthiest entrepreneurs of Asia under 40 list. He has been ranked #10 in the World richest under 40 list.

366. The 14th lion census showed a 27% increase in lion population in Gir reserve in 2015, in comparison to 2010. The present day number stands at 523.

367. K V Kamath, the chairman of ICICI Bank Ltd. has been appointed as the first president of the New Development Bank of BRICS Nations, for a five-year term.

368. Justice Cyriac Joseph appointed as the Interim Chairperson of NHRC (National human Rights Commission), in place of K G Balakrishnan.

369. A 4-Day Indo- Global Pharma Expo and summit 2015 is to be held in Hyderabad.

370. Indian-origin Priti Patel appointed as the Minister of State for Employment in British Government.

371. Deepak Iyer was appointed as MD and CEO of Bharti AXA General Insurance.

372. Lee Alan Johnson named as the Head Coach of U-19 Football Team of India. He was named by the All-India Football Federation.

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373. Indian author Neel Mukherjee won the 2014 Encore Award for his novel ‘The Lives of Others’.

374. Facebook Inc. signed up with nine publishers to launch Instant Articles. Instant Articles will publish articles directly to the social network's mobile news feeds. The launch partners for Instant Articles are NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel and Bild.

375. Indian- American Sivanadane Mandjinay, currently serving as Chemistry Professor in North Carolina University won UNC Board of Governors 2015 award.

376. Indian- Origin Harbhajan Kaur Dheer (Labour Party) became the first Asian woman elected as Mayor in UK.

377. Telangana Government and Google Inc. sign a MoU for building the biggest campus outside America, in Hyderabad.

378. Indian–American Karan Menon won the 2015 National Geographic Bee championship.

379. RBI allowed ‘Tap and Pay’ without pin transaction upto Rs. 2000.

380. 1st IIIT (Indian Institute of information Technology) in Maharashtra in Nagpur.

381. Japanese scientists discovered a new state of matter called Jahn-Teller Metal. This matter resembles insulator, superconductor, metal and magnet simultaneously.

382. Islamic clothing company East Essence to debut entry into online retail through Snapdeal.

383. MJ Joseph has been appointed as the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) in the Union Ministry of Finance. He succeeded Jawahar Thakur.

384. Internet firm Askme acquired grocery marketplace BestAtLowest.com for about 10 million US dollar.

385. Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discovered the world’s first fully warm-blooded fish species named OpahOpah. These fish are found in the deep waters off the US, Australia and several other countries.

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386. Anurradha Prasad, the Editor-in-Chief of News 24 Channel was conferred with the Pandit Haridutt Sharma Award for Journalism, Writing and Social Services.

387. Novak Djokovic of Serbia won his fourth Masters Tennis title defeating Roger Federer. defeated Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain to win the women’s title.

388. The Union Government allocated 5000 crore rupees for the growth of Department of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy.)

389. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first branch of ICICI Bank in China at Shanghai.

390. Harkeert Singh Saini, an Indo-American policeman won the prestigious Top Civillian Supervisor of the Year. He was awarded for his efficient services to the Houston Police department in the state of Texas of United States.

391. Himachal Pradesh will host the Paragliding World Cup from 23rd October to 31st October at Bir Billing in Kangra Valley.

392. Infosys became the first Indian company to join RE100 Renewal Energy Campaign. RE100 is a global platform for major companies committed to 100% renewable power.

393. Draupadi Murmy was sworn in as the first woman Governor of Jharkhand since the state was granted statehood since 2000. She succeeded Syed Ahmed who was recently transferred as Governor of Manipur.

394. SS Ahluwalia was 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. The committee has 20 Lok Sabha members and 10 Rajya Sabha members.

395. HDFC Bank in partnership with Apollo Hospitals launched HDFC Bank Apollo Medical Benefits Card, a co-branded medical benefits card which allows corporates to disburse medical allowances to their employees and has insurance cover for accidents. The card comes with a free accidental death insurance of 3 lakh rupees.

396. Peter M Christian was elected as the 8th President of the Federated States of Micronesia. The Federated States of Micronesia is an independent sovereign island nation in the Western Pacific Ocean consisting of four states-Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei

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and Kosrae.

397. The driest place on the Earth has been discovered by researchers in the Atacama Desert, Chile and is named as Maria Elena South (MES). The earlier place that was touted to be the driest place was the Yungay Region which also lies in the Atacama Desert.

398. President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the 50th anniversary of India’s first historic climb of in 1965 at Rashtrapati Bhavan. On 20th May 1965, Indian team led by Captain Mohan Singh Kohli of the Indian Navy made history by climbing 8848-metres high Mt. Everest, the world’s highest peak, for the first time after a series of three unsuccessful attempts over a period of five years. Kohli had also written a book on the expedition titled “Nine Atop Everest”.

399. Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai won the prestigious Man Booker International Prize for 2015. He gained recognition for his book Satantango. The Man Booker International Prize is a literary award given biennially to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation.

400. Anti-Terrorism Day was observed across India on 21st May. It is also the death anniversary of the 7th Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who was assassinated at an election rally near Chennai by a suicide bomber who was from the LTTE.

401. Food Safety and Drug Administrations (UP FDA) asked Nestle India to withdraw a batch of Maggi noodles from the market after the body found that the product contained high level of lead in it. It also said that the batch contained high level of added monosodium glutamate (MSG), a taste enhancer.

402. Tathagata Roy was sworn in as Tripura Governor succeeding Padmanabh Balkrishna Acharya who is also the Governor of Nagaland.

403. Mumbai’s Siddhivinayak temple received International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001-2008 certification for best quality practices. The temple facilitates darshan and funds various public interest activities like education, drought management in state and others.

404. V Shanmuganathan was sworn in as Meghalaya Governor. Meghalaya was without a permanent governor for the past four months. West Bengal Governor had been given the additional charge after KK Paul was removed from office.

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405. Indigenously developed Beyond Visual Range (BVR) air-to-air missile, Astra was successfully fired at the Integrated Test Range (ITR), Chandipur in Odisha. It was test-fired aboard a Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft.

406. 9th session of the India-South Africa Joint Ministerial Commission was held in Durban. It was co-chaired by Minister for External Affairs and Overseas Indian Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Minister of South Africa Maite Nkoana- Mashabane.

407. ISRO announced that ASTROSAT will be launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) C-34 from the Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. It is the first dedicated Indian space observatory mission aimed at studying distant celestial objects. The satellite is to be launched to a 650 km near equatorial orbit around the Earth.

408. US President Barack Obama entered the Guinness Book of World Record for reaching a million followers in a span of mere 5 hours after going live on the social media platform Twitter with @POTUS account. He beat the previous record that was held by Robert Downey Jr. who reached this milestone in 23 hours and 22 minutes.

409. Ecologists found new fish species Pethia striate in Tunga River in the Kudremukh National Park, Karnataka. The fish from Western Ghats is currently known to be found only in the two streams of Mudba and Turad.

410. International Day of Families was observed on 15th May with the theme “Men in Charge? Gender Equality and Children’s Rights in Contemporary Families.”

411. Mirage 2000 fighter jet of Indian Air Force (IAF) landed successfully on Yamuna Expressway as part of developing road runaway for emergency landing. It’s a kind of first for military aviation in India.

412. Akhil Amar, an Indian-American professor at the Yale University was appointed as a member of the prestigious National Council on Humanities of United States (US) by President Barack Obama.

413. The British sports business magazine SportsPro released the World’s 50 Most Marketable 2015 Report. , a tennis player from Canada topped the list followed by FC Barcelona footballer Neymar and golfer Jordan Spieth in the second and third places respectively. Indian cricketer Virat Kohli was placed on the 6th position and Saina Nehwal, the ace shuttler, was placed on the 44th position.

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414. The UN observed the International Day for Biological Diversity on 22nd May. The theme for this year is “Biodiversity for Sustainable Development.” May 22nd was proclaimed as International Day for Biological Diversity in December 2000 to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues and to commemorate the adoption of Convention of Biological Diversity on 22nd May 1992 by the Nairobi Final Act.

415. Washington based World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Access Initiative released the first Environmental Democracy Index for the year 2015. The index evaluates whether Governments are enacting national laws to promote accountability, transparency and citizen engagement in environmental decision making. India was ranked at 24th among the 70 countries. Lithuania tops the list and Haiti features at the bottom of the list.

416. Department of Science and Technology said that India reached the 6th position in terms of scientific publications.

417. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) released the latest single’s rankings which Saina Nehwal topped followed by Li Xuerui of China.

418. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet gave its nod for appointing G Mohan Kumar as the Defence Secretary. He will be in office for two years and succeeds Radha Krishna Mathur.

419. AIADMK Leader J Jayalalithaa was sworn-in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the fifth time. The oath was administered by the Governor of Tamil Nadu K Rosaiah. She succeeded O Panneerselvam after she was acquitted in the disproportionate assets case by the Karnataka High Court.

420. Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Arcelor Mittal signed a MoU to set up an automotive steel manufacturing facility under a Joint Venture (JV) arrangement in India. 421. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd launched LiteOS operating system for Internet of Things (loT) based devices. It will be the world’s most lightweight loT OS with a size of 10KB. The technology is a part of the Agile Internet of Things (loT) solution.

422. Mumbai Indians won the 8th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) defeating Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by 41 runs. This was their second title triumph after 2013. The following awards were given to the respective players  Man of the Match – Rohit Sharma  Player of the Tournament – Andre Russell

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 Orange Cap – David Warner  Purple Cap – Dwayne Bravo  Emerging Player of the Season – Shreyas Iyer  Most Valuable Player – Andre Russell

423. Nico Rosberg of Germany won the Grand Prix F1 World Championship title while Sebastian Vettel came second and Lewis Hamilton stood third.

424. John Forbes Nash Jr. the Princeton University mathematicians died along with his wife in a car crash. A Beautiful Mind, the movie that won an Oscar, was inspired by his life. He became famous for his game theory, differential geometry and partial difference equations. His theories were used in economics, evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, accounting, politics and military theory. In the year 1994, he shared the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. In 2015, he won the Abel Prize which is considered to be the Nobel Prize in Mathematics.

425. French thriller Dheepan won the Palme d’Or top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The film focused on the lives of the refugees. Masaan directed by Neeraj Ghaywan won the Promising Future Prize Ex-aequo. It also won the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) award.

426. Indian boxers won three gold medals – Savita, Mandeep Sandhu and Sakshi – and two silver medals – Soniya and Niharika Gonella – at the World Junior Women’s boxing Championship held in Taipei, Taiwan.

427. Indian-origin entrepreneur Ranjit Singh Baxi was elected as the Head of the Bureau of International Recycling. This organization facilitates free and fair trade of recyclables in a sustainable and competitive world economy. He succeeds Bjorn Grufman. 428. ICICI Bank launched Voice Recognition Service for Biometric Authentication which will authenticate customers based on their speech patterns. ICICI Bank will become the first bank to offer this service.

429. Kumar Sangakkara was named CEAT International Cricketer of the Year 2015.

430. Forbes released the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women 2015 list. The most powerful woman in the list is Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. The four Indians named in the list are Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chanda Kochhar, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Shobhana Bhartia.

431. Trevor Bayliss was appointed as head coach of the England Cricket Team.

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432. Manabi Bandopadhyay became first transgender principal of KrishnagarWomen's College in the Nadia district, West Bengal.

433. Nirbhay Sharma was sworn in as the Governor of Mizoram. He succeeded Keshari Nath Tripathi who is the West Bengal Governor and had been given additional charge of Mizoram.

434. Microsoft announced to open India's first Digital Experience Centre in Vadodara, Gujarat. The centre aims to bring to life these experiences for Small and Medium Enterprises, entrepreneurs and educational institutions and help them leverage contemporary cloud technology to drive business growth as well as enhance skills and promote learning.

435. Indian-origin teacher Gurnimrat Nimmy Sidhu named for University of Oxford Inspirational Teacher Award. It was given to her for helping one of her students get into one of the world- famous varsity. She received the trophy alongside 11 others. The award was set up to encourage more state-funded schools to connect with the university and to counter criticism of elitism with largely wealthy and privately educated students being able to gain admission.

436. Abhinav Bindra became the 4th Indian shooter to qualify for 2016 Rio Olympics in men’s air rifle event. The three shooters who have already secured a quota are Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai and Apurvi Chandela.

437. Book titled “Ahmedabad: A City in the World” by Amrita Shah was released. It is a biograph of India’s 7th largest city and its all too frequent complicity in communal violence.

438. A book titled “Super Economies: America, India, China & The Future of the World” written by Raghav Bahl was released. The book explains the vastly changed nature of the world since the Cold War and predicts what the likely changes would be in the 21st century.

439. S Christopher appointed as Director General of Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO).

440. 23 year old Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wodeyar, the adopted son of Pramoda Devi Wodeyar was crowned as the 27th Maharaja of Mysuru royal family. The last coronation took place 41 years ago when Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wodeyar was

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crowned at 21.

441. VA Prasanth appointed as the Chief Financial Officer of the Indian Bank succeeding K Srinivasa Raghavan. Indian Bank was established in 1907, is an Indian state-owned financial services company with headquarters in Chennai.

442. Veena Jain appointed as Director General of Doordarshan News. She succeeded Akshay Rout.

443. Pradeep Kumar Sinha appointed as Cabinet Secretary to Union Government. He succeeded Ajit Seth.

444. G Satheesh Reddy appointed as Scientific Advisor to Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.

445. Sepp Blatter re-elected as FIFA President.

446. International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers observed across the world on 29th May. The theme for this year was “Together for Peace”. The day was established to honour the memory of the UN peacekeepers who have lost their lives in the cause of peace and pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in UN peacekeeping operations.

447. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated new Bank Note Paper Line unit in Hoshangabad, MP. With this step, India will become self-reliant in producing Bank Note Paper for big denominations.

448. Former Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo was appointed as Chancellor of Nalanda University. He will succeed Amartya Sen who withdrew his candidaturecand idature for a second term. The ancient Nalanda University was revived in September 2014 in which only 15 students were selected from over 1000 applicants.

449. Gurpreet Singh became 5th Indian to get quota place in shooting for 2016 Rio Olympics.

450. Mohun Bagan won I-League title of football after 13 years defeating Bengaluru FC.

451. Ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili appointed as Governor of Ukraine's Odessa region.

452. Barcelona won King's Cup final triumph against Athletic Bilbao.

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453. WHO launched campaign against illicit trade of tobacco products on World No Tobacco Day which was observed globally on 31st May.

454. Sanjay Gupta took over as Chairman and Managing Director of Engineers India Ltd, the state-owned engineering and consultancy, procurement and construction (EPC) company in hydrocarbons and petrochemicals replacing A K Purwaha who superannuated recently.

455. Arun Jaitley in his Budget had proposed to raise service tax from 12.36% (including education cess) to 14%. Jaitley had proposed to raise the service tax rate to 14% to facilitate a smooth transition to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, which the government wants to roll out from April 2016. Some of the key services that will attract higher tax and hence become costlier are: railways, airlines, banking, insurance, advertising, architecture, construction, credit cards, event management and tour operators.

456. K. Sivan, Distinguished Scientist, ISRO, assumed office as the 12th Director of the Space Centre (VSSC) taking over from M.S. Dathan who has retired from service. Dr. Sivan joined ISRO in 1982 in the PSLV project and has contributed towards mission planning, design, integration, and analysis. He also headed the Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD) project.

457. The Reserve Bank of India has reduced the policy repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points from 7.5% to 7.25% with immediate effect. The cash reserve ratio (CRR) of scheduled banks remained unchanged at 4.0% of net demand and time liabilities (NDTL).

458. Bangladesh has honored former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for his outstanding support for the country’s independence from Pakistan in 1971 when he was a Lok Sabha member. Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina also approved a proposal to honour the families of the members of Indian armed forces for sacrificing their lives for the cause of Bangladesh’s independence.

459. Ericsson has partnered with Sterlite for the smart city initiative. Under the agreement, Ericsson will collaborate with Sterlite to design a roadmap and deploy solutions. The alliance will design, deploy, integrate and manage solutions in areas like communications, public safety, smart grid solutions and intelligent transport. Sterlite is working closely with the Government to drive smart sustainable city initiatives and supports Digital India programme.

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460. Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa was sworn-in as the 19th Governor of Arunachal Pradesh. He is a retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from 1968 batch. He is the former Chief Secretary of Assam and had retired from service in 2004. Mr. Rajkhowa has authored a book, Central Vigilance Mechanism with special reference to P.S.E’s, and also had contributed by writing number of articles to leading newspapers.

461. The USA Senate passed the USA Freedom Act today by 67-32, marking the first time in over thirty years that both houses of Congress have approved a bill placing real restrictions and oversight on the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers. The Bill ends a system exposed by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. The spy agency collected and searched records of phone calls looking for terrorism leads but was not allowed to listen to their content.

462. Former security contractor Edward Snowden won a Norwegian prize for freedom of expression. The Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression said the 31-year old fugitive had won the Bjornson Prize named after a Norwegian Nobel literature laureate "for his work protecting privacy and for shining a critical light on US surveillance of its citizens and others." Snowden was awarded Sweden's Right Livelihood Award in 2014 but chose to accept it by video link rather than leaving his exile in Russia.

463. Irwin Rose, a biochemist who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a way that cells destroy unwanted proteins the basis for developing new therapies for diseases such as cervical cancer and cystic fibrosis has died at the age of 88 years. Rose, along with Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, won the Nobel for discovering how plant and animal cells marked old and damaged proteins with a “kiss of death” molecule the polypeptide ubiquitin.

464. The Loan and Project Agreements for World Bank (IBRD) has entered into an agreement for assistance of US$ 400 million for Tamil Nadu Sustainable Urban Development Project were signed between the Government of India/ Government of Tamil Nadu and World Bank. The objective of the project is to improve urban services in participating Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in a financially sustainable manner and to pilot improved urban management practices in selected cities.

465. AB de Villiers won as many as five awards, including the South African Cricketer of the Year for a second consecutive time at a gala function, hosted by Cricket South Africa (CSA) in Johannesburg. The 27-year-old batsman was named the ODI Cricketer of the Year, Cricketers’ Cricketer of the Year, SA Fan’s Cricketer of the Year and also got the ‘So Good Award’ for scoring the fastest century in the history of ODI cricket against the West Indies in December 2014. Morne van Wyk won the T20

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Cricketer of the Year, Dale Steyn received the Delivery of the Year and Rilee Rossouw was named the SA Newcomer of the Year.

466. Infosys Limited has announces the appointment of R. Seshasayee as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board with immediate effect taking over from K.V. Kamath who will be stepping down from his position as Chairman of the Board and as an Independent Director of the Company. This takes place consequent to his nomination as President of the BRICS New Development Bank. Mr. Seshasayee’s other board positions include Non-Executive Vice Chairman of Ashok Leyland Ltd. and Chairman of IndusInd Bank Ltd.

467. Prince Harry has been knighted by his grandmother the Queen as a sign of her personal esteem. The fifth in line to the throne was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace. The Order was founded in April 1896 by Queen Victoria as a way of rewarding personal service to her, on her own initiative rather than by ministerial recommendation and remains entirely within the Sovereign's personal gift.

468. Essel Group formed a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with the Rajasthan government to set up solar parks in the state. The solar parks will be set up in Bikaner and Jaisalmer regions. The project is entitled to have a cost outlay of around 4,000 crores.

469. World City Jaipur (MWCJ), spread across 3,000 acres on the Delhi-Mumbai corridor, has become the first project in Asia — and sixth in the world — to commit to a carbon-positive road map as part of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. It is projected to reduce 8 lakh tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in about 10 years to become climate-neutral.

470. E-commerce giant Snapdeal and Tata Housing, which have partnered to sell homes online, have announced their largest transaction worth Rs. 1.1 crore hours after commencing the sale of premium and luxury apartments. The real estate category of Snapdeal has grown 400 per cent in the last six months and currently comprises a portfolio of residential projects from developers across India which includes Tata Value Homes, Tata Housing, DLF, Sobha Developers, Godrej Properties, Mantri Developers, and Purvankara.

471. India and Bangladesh sealed a historic agreement that will settle a 41-year-old land boundary dispute through exchange of territories, removing a major irritant in bilateral ties. The exchange of documents paves way for the operationalization of the 1974 India-Bangladesh LBA that provides for exchange of 161 enclaves between the two countries. A total 111 border enclaves will be transferred to Bangladesh in

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exchange for 51 that will become part of India. Under the agreement, India will have an advantage of 500 acres and 10,000 acres will go to Bangladesh.

472. South Korea has successfully test fired a ballistic missile; The Hyunmoo-2B is an upgraded version of the Hyunmoo-2A, capable of hitting targets anywhere in North Korea. The test demonstrated improved ballistic missile capability that can strike all parts of North Korea swiftly, and with precision, in the event of armed aggression or provocation.

473. The government appointed S Christopher, 59, as Secretary, Department of Defence Research and Development-cum-Director General, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) while G S Reddy, 51, has been appointed as scientific advisor to the Defence Minister. DRDO has been functioning without a full- time head since January 31, when Avinash Chander resigned.

474. Reliance Power has signed an agreement to invest $ 3 billion in setting up a mega power plant and a floating LNG import terminal in Bangladesh which faces acute power shortages. Reliance Power will set up a 2 million tonnes a year floating LNG import terminal as well as 3,000 megawatt power plant in Bangladesh. The company will invest in an integrated facility comprising of 3,000 MW of LNG based combined cycle power plant and LNG Terminal with a Floating Storage and Re-gasification Unit (FSRU).

475. BCCI has announced Rahul Dravid as the coach of India A team and Indian U 19 cricket team. Dravid had a short stint as mentor of the Indian team before the series in England last year and several players spoke highly of their interactions with the former India captain.

476. Former Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, K.V. Chowdary has been appointed as the new Central Vigilance Commissioner, while the senior-most Information Commissioner, Vijai Sharma, is the new Chief Information Commissioner. A selection panel headed by the Prime Minister, which includes leader of the principal opposition party, and senior cabinet ministers selects the CVC, CIC, vigilance commissioners and information commissioners. The Central Vigilance Commission is headed by a CVC and comprises of two vigilance commissioners.

477. Yes Bank’s shareholders approved the re-appointment of Rana Kapoor as MD & CEO of the bank with a majority vote of 99.97%. Shareholders also re-appointed M R Srinivasan as non-executive non- independent director with a majority vote, who was

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previously the chairman of Yes Bank. Also, Diwan Arun Nanda and Ajay Vohra have been appointed as independent directors.

478. Tintu Luka bagged her maiden gold in a major international event by winning the women's 800m finals as India finished with five medals on the final day of competitions to sign off third in the 21st Asian Athletics Championships held in Wuhan, China. India secured a medal haul of 4 gold, 5 silver and 4 bronze in the championships to finish third behind China (15, 13, 13) and Qatar (7, 2, 1). Japan (4, 3, 11) and Bahrain (3, 3, 2) finished fourth and fifth respectively.

479. Deutsche Bank has appointed John Cryan as its new CEO after co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen resigned following criticism from investors. John Cryan, 54, has been on the bank’s supervisory board since 2013 and was a former chief financial officer of UBS. Making Anshu Jain directly responsible for cutting Deutsche Bank’s costs by 4.7 billion euros ($5.2 billion), selling its Postbank retail business and paring back its investment bank put huge pressure on the former trader.

480. IRCTC's has entered a tie-up with SpiceJet and Go Air which enables a train traveller whose ticket is wait-listed to cancel the train ticket and instead get on to a flight of either airline by paying some incremental fee. There are no fixed sectors to which the scheme applies, no fixed number of tickets either airline must make available to IRCTC and no fixed rates. SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh pointed out that this tie-up is promising for the airline and he expects "significant" passenger volumes to be generated through this scheme.

481. Serena Williams emerged with a 20th grand slam title victory over the Czech Lucie Safarova. The American is now two short of Steffi Graf, the open era leader, and four off Margaret Court, the all- time leader

482. played magnificently in a victory at Roland Garros bringing an end to Novak Djokovic's 28-match winning streak as he claimed his second Grand Slam title. The victory makes him only the second Swiss to win at Roland Garros after Roger Federer, the man he beat in the quarter- finals.

483. The country's low-cost Mangalyaan Mars orbiter mission which is in rendezvous with the Red Planet for an extended period has been presented with the Space Pioneer award for the year 2015 by the US' National Space Society. The ISRO spacecraft was launched on its nine-month-long odyssey on a homegrown PSLV rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on November 5, 2013 and had escaped the earth's gravitational field on December 1. The spacecraft is under 'solar conjunction' at Mars,

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which means the spacecraft, which is orbiting Mars, is behind the sun as viewed from the Earth.

484. The sprawl of the National Capital Region (NCR) just got bigger as the nod has been given for the inclusion of Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh and the Jind and Karnal districts of Haryana as part of the conurbation. With the inclusion of Jind and Karnal in NCR, 57 per cent of the state's area had become part of the entity.

485. Senior IPS officer R C Tayal has been appointed as the new chief of the elite counter- terror force National Security Guard (NSG). He is presently serving as the Special Director General in paramilitary CRPF and is heading its formation in Jammu and Kashmir. NSG was raised in 1984 as a federal contingency force with a specific aim to undertake counter-terror and counter-hijack operations and it was later tasked to protect high-risk VVIPs.

486. Anantjeet Singh Naruka beat Lari Pesonen of Finland 12-11 in the skeet match for gold in the 7th International junior shotgun cup that concluded in Orimattila, Finland After having qualified at the bottom with a modest score of 110, Anantjeet kept getting better, as he wriggled his way through to the gold medal match by winning a three-way tie in the shoot-off to challenge the Finn.

487. ICICI Bank’s board has approved the appointment of MK Sharma as non-executive chairman for a period of five years who will replace KV Kamath who would shortly step down from the board consequent to his nomination as the first president of the BRICS New Development Bank. Mr Sharma was formerly the vice chairman of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL).

488. Delhi Jal Board vice chairman Kapil Mishra will succeed Jitender Tomar as Delhi's law minister. Mr Tomar had stepped down after being arrested over allegations that he had faked his law degree. Mr Mishra, the legislator from northeast Delhi's Karawal Nagar, was placed in the crucial Jal Board to help realise the Aam Aadmi Party's election promise of providing cheap water to Delhiites.

489. Microsoft has kick-started rebranding of Nokia Priority Stores as Microsoft Priority Resellers with India becoming the first country among Microsoft's global markets to roll out the new look for its retail outlets. While existing Nokia stores would transform into Microsoft Priority Resellers, housing only Microsoft products, the multi-branded retail stores will be rechristened as Microsoft Mobile Resellers.

490. Dr. Srivari Chandrasekhar was appointed Director of CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) a premier research institute of Union Government

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based in Hyderabad, Telangana. He was named appointed to the top post by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is ex-officio Chairman of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) functioning under Union Ministry of Science and Technology. He has made significant contributions in diverse areas of organic chemistry with a special emphasis total synthesis of biologically active natural products, on chiral chemistry and pharmaceutical products.

491. An Indian-origin US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has been presented with the Pride of the Community Award by a prominent Hindu advocacy group. He received the award by the Hindu American Foundation at its 12th Annual Day reception at Capitol Hill. HAF also awarded Anantanand Rambachan, Professor of Religion at St Olaf College, Dharma Seva award; Harpreet Singh Mokha of the Department of Justice, the Mahatma Gandhi Award for the Advancement of Pluralism; and Senator Mark Kirk and Rep Joe Crowley, HAF's Friend of the Community awards.

492. Cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni became the only Indian sportsman in Forbes magazine's 100 highest- paid athletes in the world. Dhoni has been ranked 23rd on the Forbes list of The World's Highest-Paid Athletes 2015 dropping a notch from his ranking of 22 last year. His total earnings stood at $31 million, including amount from salary/winnings at $4 million and endorsements worth $27 million.

493. C. S. Verma had relinquished the charge as Chairman and Managing Director on completion of his tenure and Steel Secretary Rakesh Singh has assumed the charge till a regular incumbent is appointed for the state-owned SAIL steel giant. Mr. Verma was appointed CMD of the country’s largest steel producer for a 5-year term in June 2010 by the previous UPA government, and was eligible for an extension till he attained the superannuation age of 60 years in September 2019. This makes him the first ‘Maharatna’ PSU head to be denied an extension during the current NDA regime.

494. Dick Costolo resigned as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Twitter Inc. after serving the company for five years. Twitter co-founder and Square Inc's CEO Jack Dorsey will take over as the Interim CEO of the company and will stay until a replacement is found. Costolo joined the company in 2009 as its Chief Operating Officer. In 2013, he helped the company to go public and recently he struggled to attract new users to the service.

495. Former West Indies fast bowler Wes Hall was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame to become the fourth cricketer to receive the honour this year after Betty Wilson, Anil Kumble and Martin Crowe. Hall is now the 18th cricketer from the Caribbean to be bestowed with the award.

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496. Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs V K Singh inaugurated first India-China Yoga College at Yunnan Minzu University in Kunming, China. The Yoga College was established in lines with the MoU for establishing the Yoga College signed during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China in May 2015. This college seeks to provide certification courses in the Indian spiritual art with them Indian teachers who are going to help in curriculum development and training.

497. World Blood Donor Day was observed across the world on 14 June to raise the public awareness about the need for safe blood donation. The theme of this year’s campaign is ‘Thank you for saving my life’. This year’s campaign encourages donors all over the world to donate blood voluntarily and regularly with the slogan Give freely, give often. Blood donation matters. The objective of celebrating the day is to spread awareness about the need for safe and secure blood supplies and provide an opportunity to draw public attention to the importance of blood donation for saving lives.

498. As per report by British Petroleum (BP) Energy Company, United States (US) became the world’s largest oil producer in 2014 surpassing Saudi Arabia with production of 11.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) i.e. 15.9% more oil in 2014. While, Saudi Arabia was placed second position as it had produced 11.5 million bpd in 2014. Russia was placed at third position with 10.8 million bpd oil production. US also has surpassed Russia as the world’s largest producer of natural gas while China remained the world’s largest growth market for energy in 2014

499. The Bibek Debroy committee has suggested measures for restructuring the Railway Board and its departments so that policy making is separated from day-to-day operations. Some of the recommendations of Bibek Debroy committee include- • Establishment of an independent regulator Railway Regulatory Authority of India (RRAI) with a separate budget and to be independent of the Ministry. • Railway Budget should be phased out with gross budgetary support to Indian Railways. • No privatisation of Indian Railway but allowed participation of private sector in the railway projects. • State governments should be asked to entirely fund the Government Railway Police (GRP). • The recommended changes should be implemented only by Union Railways ministry in the first five years including the resolution of the social cost issue.

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500. Shri Ameising Luikha took over as Secretary, Department of Public Enterprises in the Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises. Prior to this he was working as Secretary, North Eastern Council, Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region.

501. Sunil Chhetri becomes the first person to score 50 international goals for the Indian football team

502. In basketball, The Golden State Warriors defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers to win the NBA Finals trophy, their first since 1975.

503. Hindi writers Babusha Kohli and Upasana were awarded the 10th Navlekhan Award of Bharatiya Jnanpith for their works, the poem Prem Gilhari Dil Akhrot and novel Ek Zindagi Ek Ek Script Bhar respectively.

504. Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on 18 June 2015 launched a weather alert service named NOWCAST

505. ISRO announced that it would provide navigational support to Indian Railways through its GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) system.

506. B Jayant Baliga, a US-based Indian-origin scientist, is being awarded Russia's top technology award in recognition of his work as a major development in energy management which brought about huge increase in efficiency and major savings.

507. Historian-author Ramachandra Guha has been selected for Japan's prestigious Fukuoka Prize in the Academic category

508. Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the great stars of football world has a Galaxy named after him (CR7), an honour bestowed by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

509. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) observed the World Refugee Day on June 20th. The theme for this year was “With courage let us all combine”

510. Serbia were crowned the world Under-20 champions after beating in the finals.

511. Roger Federer wins the 2015 Gerry Weber Open tennis title in Halle, Germany.

512. The first International Yoga Day was celebrated across the globe on the 21st of June. The National Yoga Day is celebrated on 3rd June 2015

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513. Carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan has been awarded the Sangita Kalanidhi award for this year.

514. Nico Rosberg wins the 2015 F1 Austrian Grand Prix, ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

515. Three Indians won the inaugural Queen's Young Leaders Award in the UK for taking the lead in transforming the lives of others and making a lasting difference in their communities. These winners are Ashwini Angadi, Devika Malik and Akshay Jadhao.

516. Maharashtra government declared Blue Mormon as the state butterfly, the first such announcement in the country.

517. Sri Lanka, China began joint military training exercise code named 'Silk Route- 2015'.

518. Kerala government declares June 22 as ‘Snake Bird Day’ to protect the species that is also known as the Indian darter.

519. Cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar has been voted as the best test player of the 21st century, in a poll conducted by Cricketing Australia on their official website

520. The Indian Railway Team won the World Railway Championship and Volleyball.

521. Steffi Graf was appointed the Ayurveda brand ambassador of Kerala by the Kerala government, a move aimed under the ‘Visit Kerala’ scheme to increase tourism

522. Spiritual leader Sri Sri Shankar has been conferred with ’s highest civilian award, Orden de la Democracia Simon Bolivar en el grado de cruz Caballero.

523. The Union Cabinet on 24 June 2015 approved renaming of Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) as Renewable Energy Corporation of India (RECI).

524. Zaheer Abbas was named as the President of International Cricket Council (ICC) during the ICC Annual Conference in Barbados.

525. Rajasthan becomes the number one state in the country in terms of total installed capacity of solar energy, having around 1150 MW of installed capacity.

526. State Bank of India appoints Anshula Kant as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the organisation.

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527. President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the Punyabhushan Award on Prataprao Pawar, Chairman of Sakal Media Group (SMG) in Pune.

528. Satnam Singh Bhamara became the first Indian to be drafted to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA)

529. The 28th 2014 was awarded to the work “Vyomkesh Darvesh” written by noted Hindi writer Vishwanath Tripathi.

530. According to research published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Indian Railways and the Indian Army are the 8th and 9th largest employer in the world with 1.4 and 1.3 million employees respectively.

531. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)’s indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Helicopter, the TD-3 attained a milestone by successfully completing the hot weather flight trials.

532. Bahrain-based GFH Financial Group signed an agreement with Indian conglomerate Adani Group for developing a Mumbai Economic Development Zone (MEDZ).

533. The World Resources Institute (WRI) estimates India to be the fourth largest carbon emitter in the world in terms of per capita emission. China is the first.

534. The Nadia district in West Bengal was won the UN Public Service Award 2015 for the category of eliminating open defecation in the district, and in doing so has become the first open defecation free district in India.

535. Indian Grandmaster Abhijeet Gupta wins the Commonwealth Chess Championship 2015.

536. Greece became the first developed nation to default on International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt. It defaulted on payment of 1.7 billion dollar (1.5 billion euro) to IMF. Greece is at a risk of leaving Euro and shifting back to its old currency Drachma; the replacement had taken place in the year 2001.

537. Matti Makkonen who was the pioneer of SMS (short messaging service) technology died. He was a Finnish tech pioneer who had collaborated with two other colleagues in 1984 at a telecommunications conference. It was on 3rd December 1992 that the first text message was sent from a computer to a mobile device via the Vodafone

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network. He joined with Nokia Network in 2000, was CEO of Finnet Oy from 2003 to 2005 and was also the President of Telecom Finland in 1989.

538. Sanjeev Galande was selected for the GD Birla Award for Scientific Research for 2014. He will be the 24th recipient of the award.

539. Darshna Jain, an Indian-American teacher from Illinois, US was named for the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching along with 108 other Mathematics and Science teachers by President Barack Obama.

540. Anisa Rasouli, the head of the Afghan Women Judges Association was nominated as the first ever female Supreme Court judge of Afghanistan. A Supreme Court judge in Afghanistan has a fixed tenure of ten years.

541. Cuba became the first country to eliminate mother-to-child (vertical) transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and syphilis in the world. Cuba was able to achieve this feat by integrating with its Public Health’s HIV program with the maternal and child health program in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organsiation (PAHO) of the WHO.

542. Sir Fazle Hasan Abed was selected for the 2015 World Food Prize as he had contributed to reduce hunger in Bangladesh and 10 other countries through his organisation Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) which was established in 1972 as a relief operation to help the country recover from its war of independence.

543. Corporation Bank launched country’s first MUDRA (Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency) card under the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) in Mangalore, Karnataka. The card is based on the RuPay platform and facilitates the withdrawal and use of the working capital finance by micro entrepreneurs. The PMMY was launched by Narendra Modi to ensure that credit facility reaches the small entrepreneurs through micro-finance institutions.

544. Chile won its first Copa American Cup football tournament defeating 4-1 at the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile.

545. The book “37 Bridges and Other Stories” authored by Pakistani Aamer Hussein was released. It highlights the matter of identity with respect to both the Hindu and Muslim.

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546. Goa will host the 5th Youth Delphic Games in February 2016. The motto will be “Celebrating Arts and Cultures”. These games are held every four years with participation from the age group of 15 to 25 years for the categories that include musical arts and sounds, performing arts, language arts, visual arts, social arts and ecological arts & architecture.

547. Sriram Kalyanaraman was appointed as the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Housing Board (NHB) for a period of 5 years. He became to first person from the private sector to head a Public Sector Financial Institution. NHB is a wholly owned subsidiary bank of the Reserve Bank of India and its objective is to promote housing finance institutions at local and regional levels.

548. The 7th BRICS Summit was held from 8th to 9th July 2015 in Ufa, Russia in Bashkortostan. The theme for this year was BRICS Partnership – a Powerful Factor of Global Development. Apart from the BRICS Summit level meeting, there was a summit with the members of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Eurasian Economic Union.

549. India’s first Earthquake Warning System (EWS) was successfully installed in Dehradun, Uttarakhand in the first week of July. This system has already been installed in Japan, Italy and the US. It issues warning 1-40 seconds before the occurrence of earthquakes of 5 or more magnitude.

550. Novak Djokovic won the men’s singles title of Wimbledon by defeating Roger Federer of Switzerland. Serena Williams won the women’s single title against Garbine Muguruza from Spain. This was Serena’s sixth Wimbledon women’s singles title. Leander Paes and Martina Hingis won mixed doubles title defeating Austrain- Hungarian team of and Timea Babos. Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis, the top seeded Indo-Swiss pair won women’s doubles title defeating the Russian duo of Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina. With this win, Sania Mirza became the first woman to win a Wimbledon title.

551. The book ‘Green Signal: Ecology, Growth and Democracy in India’ written by Jairam Ramesh was released recently. It unveils the story of environmental policy making in India from the perspective of a pivotal decision maker.

552. Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘Buddha in a Traffic Jam’ won the Best Original Screenplay award in the Foreign Language Category at the Madrid International Film Festival, Spain.

553. Lt Gen Man Mohan Singh Rai was appointed as the Vice-Chief of the Indian Army and will succeed Lt Gen Philip Campose who will superannuate the office.

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554. Mid-tier IT services company Mindtree has acquired two companies - BlueFin Solutions Ltd of UK and Relational Solutions Inc. of US. Mindtree is a multinational IT and outsourcing company founded in 1999. It is headquartered in Bengaluru and New Jersey. Presently, it has more than 200 clients and offices in 14 countries and has major markets are US and Europe.

555. Indian-American woman Sunita Viswanath honoured with Champion of Change and was among the 12 other recipients who have been honoured with this award for their continuous efforts towards climate change. Sunita was honoured for her work with Sadhana, US based organisation’s s Project Prithvi which encourages Hindus to take care of the environment. She is the co-founder and board member of Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus. She is also co-founder and active board member of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), US based women`s human rights organisation. In 2011, she was awarded with the Feminist Majority Foundation`s Global Women`s Rights Award for her work with WAW.

556. Shiv Pande, an Indian origin doctor has been award with honorary fellowship by prestigious University of Central Lancashire of . He was award with this fellowship in recognition of his contribution to the community as a general practitioner and medical educator.

557. Union Government has appointed Bhanu Pratap Sharma as Chairperson Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). Presently, he is Health and Family Welfare Secretary was given additional charge of FSSAI for three months. Sharma is an IAS officer of 1981 batch from Bihar cadre.

558. The New Development Bank (NDB) created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) nations formally started its operations from its headquarters in Shanghai, China. Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei, Shanghai Mayor Yang Xiong and the bank’s first President K V Kamath from India attended the opening ceremony. Agreement for establishing NDB was signed during the 6th BRICS Summit being held in Fortaleza, Brazil in April, 2014. It was formally launched at the 7th BRICS summit held in Ufa, Russia in July 2015.

559. Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group’s Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering (PDOE) inked a multi-crore agreement with Russian firm Zvyozdochka, JSC Ship Repairing Centre. With this, Reliance Group became the first private sector Indian company to refit of submarines in India.

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560. Noted Canadian author Naomi Klein has won the 36th edition of American Book Award 2015. She has won this award for her environmental work This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate published in 2014. Apart from her, 14 others also have won the award. Some of them are Marlon James (A Brief History of Seven Killings), Carlos Santana (The Universal Tone) etc. Poet Anne Waldman was honoured with lifetime achievement award in this edition of prize.

561. July 23 is observed as National Broadcasting day. On this day in 1927, Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC) began organized radio broadcasting from Bombay station. To mark the occasion, All India Radio (AIR) had organized a symposium on the subject Creation of New India and Broadcasting Medium in New Delhi.

562. FlipkartFlipkart----ownedowned online and mobile style store Myntra has seleselectedcted Ananth Narayanan as its (CEO). He will succeed Flipkart's fellow benefactor Mukesh Bansal.

563. Seven Indian companies, including Reliance Industries and Tata Motors, are among the world’s 500 largest companies, according to a list compiled by Fortune. The Indian companies on the 2015 Fortune Global 500 list are Indian Oil ranked 119 on the list, with revenues of about USD 74 billion, Reliance Industries (158) with revenues of USD 62 billion, Tata Motors with revenues of USD 42 billion (254), State Bank of India with revenues of USD 42 billion (260), Bharat Petroleum with revenues of USD 40 billion (280), Hindustan Petroleum with revenues of USD 35 billion (327) and Oil and Natural Gas with revenues of USD 26 billion (449). The list has been topped by , which retained its top spot. It is followed by Chinese petroleum refining giant, Sinopec Group on the second spot, - based Royal Dutch Shell (3), China National Petroleum (4) and Exxon Mobil (5).

564. India’s ODI cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was named the ninth most marketable sportsperson in the world ahead of the likes of football superstar Lionel Messi in a list prepared by London School of Marketing. Swiss tennis master Roger Federer was named as the most marketable sports star in the world, followed by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson at second and third respectively.

565. Roelant Oltmans was officially named as the new chief coach of the Indian men’s hockey team following a series of meetings between the Dutchman, Hockey India president Narinder Batra and Sports Authority of India Director General Injeti Srinivas.

566. Jain Irrigation Systems Limited (JISL) and Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. (HCCBPL) have joined hands through Project Unnati (meaning betterment) to help

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farmers adopt Ultra High Density Plantation (UHDP) technique to boost mango yield.

567. Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel of Germany won the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix of Formula One (F1). This was his overall second victory of the season after Malaysian Grand Prix and first of Hungarian Grand Prix.

568. Nestle India’s MD Etienne Benet has step down from his post, he will be replaced by Nestle Philippines Chairman and CEO Suresh Narayanan. Etienne Benet will be relocated to Nestle’s head office in Switzerland while Mr. Narayanan will take over from August 1. This was due to the Maggi controversy.

569. The IT Secretary Ram Sevak Sharma was appointed as the chairman of telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). He will take place of Rahul Khullar who had retired in May 2015. However, Sharma is also set to retire in September 2015 as secretary for department of electronics and information technology.

570. World Hepatitis Day is being observed every year on July 28 around the globe. Focus of the day was to: spread awareness about viral hepatitis that causes acute and chronic disease and kills around 1.4 million people every year. It also seeks to encourage diagnosis, prevention and treatment of Hepatitis. 2015 Theme- Prevent Hepatitis: It’s up to you. It is being observed since 2010 and is one of the 8 official global public health campaigns marked by the World Health Organization (WHO).

571. Online furniture marketplace Pepperfry.com, has raised $100 million (around Rs. 640 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by US investment bank Goldman Sachs and Zodius Technology Fund, a partnership between Zodius and Avendus Capital, a leading India-based financial services firm.

572. The Indian women’s team, comprising , Rimil Buriuly and Laxmirani Majhi, qualified for the Rio Olympic Games next year by winning three quota places at the world archery championship at in Denmark. The team also made it to the final by defeating Germany, Colombia and Japan for a meeting in the final against Russia.

573. Debjani Ghosh took charge as new president of MAIT (the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology), the apex body of India’s Information technology hardware industry. Ghosh is the first woman President of MAIT since its inception 32 years ago. She is vice-president sales and marketing group and

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managing director of Intel Corporation, South Asia and will succeed Amar Babu the chief operation officer at Lenovo for Asia Pacific and chairman of Lenovo India.

574. Two Indians Sanjiv Chaturvedi and Anshu Gupta have been awarded prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2015. They are among the total five awardees have been conferconferredred with this year’s award which is oftenoften regarded as Asia’s Nobel Prize.

575. Procter & Gamble (P&G) has appointed its company veteran David Taylor as the new CEO by replacing A G Lafley on 29 July 2015. However, A G Lafley the existing CEO who has led the P&G from 2000 will remain as the chairman of the company.

576. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has topped the list of the world’s wealthiest private foundations established by living ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individuals, according to a Wealth—X report.

577. The Reserve Bank announced plans to put into circulation 10 rupee coins to commemorate the International Day of Yoga The coin bears the logo of the International Day of Yoga, with the inscription “Saamanjasya evam shanthi ke liye yog” in script and “yoga for harmony and peace” around the logo. At the bottom of the logo the date June 21 is inscribed, according to an official statement.

578. Forbes Asia Fabulous 50 list released on the eve of its 10th Anniversary has listed 10 Indian companies which stands second after China in terms of number of companies listed. China’s Tencent continued to be at the top on chart. Indian companies that made to the list are: HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Aurobindo Pharma, Lupin, Sun Pharma Industries, Motherson Sumi Systems, Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors and Titan.

579. Every year 7th August will be celebrated as National Handloom Day. It was announced by Union Textiles Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar in both the Houses of Parliament. Observance of this day aims at development of handloom weavers in the country.

580. was chosen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, becoming the first city to be awarded both summer and winter Games.

581. France’s biggest bank, BNP Paribas SA, has agreed to buy Indian brokerage Sharekhan for an undisclosed sum as it looks to beef up retail broking operations in India, taking advantage of a surge in retail investments into stocks.

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582. Ranveer Singh Saini won the first gold medal for India at the Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles. He became the first Indian Golfer to win a gold medal at the games. He had earlier become the first golfer from India to win two gold medals at the Asia Pacific World Games.

583. Prabhroop Sekhon won two gold medals in the Special Olympics World Games in 30 and 500 metre Roller Skating event.

584. Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) Paribas is all set to acquire the famous retail brokerage company, Sharekhan for an amount of 2000 crore. BNP Paribas has its presence in India since 1860 with its first branch in Kolkata. Sharekhan was founded in 1995 and offers brokerage services to non-institutional clients.

585. Sania Mirza’s name has been recommended by the Youth Affairs and Sports Ministry for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award 2015. She is ranked world no. 1 in women’s tennis doubles. She won the 2015 Wimbledon women’s doubles titles. The Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award is India’s highest honour for performance in sports.

586. Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) lifted the 5 year ban on Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on entering the Wankhede Stadium. He had been banned from entering the MCA premises for five years after engaging in a scuffle with the officials of the cricketing body and the security staff on 16th May 2012.

587. Indian women’s team won silver medal in the World archery Championship which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The team included Laxmirani Majhi, Deepika Kumari and Rimil Buriuly. Rajat Chauhan won the silver medal becoming India’s first ever individual winner in the World archery Championship.

588. The 2nd meeting of FIPIC (Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation) will be held in Jaipur. The first summit was held at Suva, Fiji.

589. Pangaea Labarotaries Limited (UK) bid to patent the use of pine bark, turmeric and tea for treating hair loss was foiled by TKDL ( Traditional Knowledge Digital Library) a unit of CSIR (Council for scientific and Industrial Research) after it succeeded in protecting India’s traditional knowledge.

590. Joshna Chinappa won the women’s title in WSA Victorian Open Title (Squash) held in Melbourne, Australia defeating second seed Line Hansen of Denmark.

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591. Pakistan was conferred Associate Membership status by European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). It became the first Asian country to become the member of CERN, which is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, established in 1954. India currently has an observer status in CERN programmes.

592. Astronomers discover a new planetary system with 3 super-earths. The systemhas been given the name of HD219134 and has constellation named Cassiopeia.

593. Bharti Airtel has acquired YTS Solutions, a mobile payments solution company.

594. The World’s largest radio telescope, Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is being constructed in Guizhou province of south west China. The dish size is equivalent to 30 football fields. It’s going to be the world’s largest radio telescope and is said to cost approximately 1.2 billion Yuan. It will overtake Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory which is 300 metres in diameter.

595. Reliance Mediaworks Ltd, which runs ‘BIG Cinemas’, has sold its multiplex business to Carnival Group. Carnival Group, which is based in Kerala, will now be India’s 3rd largest multiplex operator with over 300 screens all over the country.

596. Dr. Amalendu Krishna won the 2015 Ramanujan Prize for his work in algebraic cycles, algebraic k-theory and theory of motives. He is a professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Reseach (TIFR), Mumbai. The second Indian to win this award, the first being Sujatha Ramadorai who won it in 2006.

597. Mobile payment company, Paytm is to receive 400 crores investment from ee---- commerce giant, Alibaba.

598. India’s Murugappa Group and Japan’s Organo Corp have entered into a JV to set up an industrial water treatment requirement company. Murugappa will hold 51% of the JV and Organo 49%.

599. Snapdeal, an eCommerce firm launched its new service named Snapdeal Instant to enable delivery of packages to customers as early as within an hour of placing the order. Snapdeal Instant is available in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore as of now.

600. The R&D department of Snapdeal has launched its first product, findmystyle.in where the consumers using data analysis can pick their products.

601. Forbes released the list of 2015 World’s Highest Paid-Actors with Robert Downey Jr. topping the list with earnings of 80 million US dollars. Jackie Chan and Vin Diesel

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stood second and third respectively. Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan stood at 7th position and at 9th position.

602. The Lok Sabha passed the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill which will amend The Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881. The amendment will make filing of cheque bouncing cases more easy and convenient.

603. DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organization) has developed Lukoskin, a poly-herbal medicine that will help in treatment of Leucoderma. Can also be used as anti-septic, wound healing etc.

604. Dilip Parulekar, Goa’s Tourism Minister conferred with the PATWA (Pacific Area Travel Writers Association) and Safari India South Asia travel Award 2015. The award was given in the Best Tourism Minister category.

605. In order to promote digital literacy in Bihar, Telecom Minister has launched a mobile app called DISHA (Digital Saksharta Abhiyan). The app will educate people about computer and internet.

606. 10th August is observed as World Bio-Fuel Day in order to promote awareness about green fuels/ non fossil-fuels. On this day Sir Rudolph Diesel conducted a successful engine run.

607. Union Government launched Suraksha Bandhan drive in a Mission Mode through participating banks and insurance companies to facilitate enrolment under social security schemes. The schemes are Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY). This drive aims at taking forward the Government’s objective of creating a universal social security system in the country.

608. BJP leader Ram Nath Kovind was appointed as Governor of Bihar. He succeed West Bengal Governor Keshri Nath Tripathi, who was holding additional charge of Bihar.

609. Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke, nicknamed as “Pup”, announced his decision to retire from International Cricket after playing the ongoing Ashes series.

610. Indian sociobiologist Raghavendra Gadagar was awarded with the Germany’s highest civilian honour Cross of Order of the Merit at the German Consulate in Bengaluru. He was bestowed with this honour for his contribution in the field of behavioural ecology and sociobiology and for strengthening research corporation between India and Germany.

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611. Google Inc. has announced that it will form a new parent company called Alphabet, which will control its search engine unit and other subsidiaries. ChennaiChennai----bornborn Sundar Pichai will be the CEO of Google. Larry Page will be the CEO of Alphabet Inc., Sergey Brin will serve as the President and Eric Schmidt will take up the post of Chairman.

612. Kochi becomes the first city from India to join the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF) Council. The WTCF which is headquartered at Beijing is a non-profit, non- governmental organization which aims at fostering co-operation between member countries development of tourism.

613. Amitabh Bachchan will be the ambassador for Maharahstra’s Tiger Conservation Project. The state of Maharashtra has 6 tiger reserves- Bor, Sahadri, Pench, Tadoba, Melghat and Nagzira.

614. President Pranav Mukherjee presented the 24th Saraswati Sammaan for the year 2014 to Dr. M. , Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) in New Delhi. He received the award for his epic Sri Ramayana Mahanveshanam written in Kannada. is given for the literary works of last 10 years and was established by the KK Birla Foundation. It’s given in recognition of outstanding prose or poetry literary works in Indian languages that are listed in Schedule VIII of the constitution of India. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was the first recipient.

615. International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was observed on 9th August 2015 with the theme Post 2015 Agenda: Ensuring indigenous peoples’ health and well-being. The United Nations General Assembly on 23rd December 1994 adopted resolution 49/214 and proclaimed that the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People shall be observed on 9th August every year during the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People (1995-2004). In 2004, the Assembly proclaimed a Second International Decade from 2005-2015, with the theme of A Decade for Action and Dignity.

616. The World Bio-Fuel Day was observed across the world on 10th August 2015. It is observed every year with an aim to create awareness about non fossil-fuels (Green Fuels). On 10th August 1893, Sir Rudalph Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, for the first time successfully ran mechanical engine with Peanut Oil.

617. Sanjay Jalona, former Infosys executive vice-president has been appointed as the MD and CEO of L&T (Larsen & Turbo) Infotech.

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618. NABARD (National Bank for Agricultural Development) has been accredited by UN’s Green Climate Fund as a national implementing entity, which will undertake climate and clean energy projects in India. NABARD is the sole implementing body in India which can undertake projects related to climate change.

619. In the recently published Forbes’ 1st ever list of ‘100 richest People in Technology’, Wipro founder Azim Premji is at 13th position whereas HCL founder Shiv Nadar is at 14th spot. Bill Gates is ranked 1st whereas Oracle CEO Ellison is at 2nd position. The list is followed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at 3rd and Mark Zuckerberg at 4th.

620. Jethabhai Patel was selected as the chairman of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) which markets all the dairy products of Amul brand. The GCMMF was started by Dr. who was also known as the Milk Man of India.

621. Sudhakar Shetty of Maharashtra was elected as President of the Federation of India (GFI) succeeding Jaspal Singh Khandhari.

622. Acharya Dev Vrat was sworn in as the Governor of Himachal Pradesh in Shimla replacing Kalyan Singh.

623. Sania Mirza, currently ranked No. 1 in world rankings in women’s doubles became only the second tennis player to be recommended for the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, the first being Leander Paes who was bestowed the honour way back in 1996 after his bronze medal in the Atlanta Olympics.

624. Senior Congress leader Verappa Moily was bestowed with the Saraswati Samman Award. The award was given for his kannada poem, Ramayana Mahanveshanam. The prestigious award was established by the K.K. Birla Foundation and is given for outstanding work in prose or poetry in any language mentioned in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

625. was appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner of India by the President. His tenure will end in December 2018. An EC or a CEC has a tenure of six years in office or till he or she attains the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. Naseem Zaidi is the Chief Election Commissioner and Achal Kumar Joti is the other Election Commissioner.

626. The PAHAL (Pratyaksha Hastaantarit Laabh) scheme has entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s largest cash transfer program (households). The scheme was formally launched as Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme

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for LPG subsidy in 2013 in 291 districts under the aegis of Union Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. The scheme aims at reducing eliminating duplication or bogus LPG connections and its diversion and seeks to meet substantive savings in LPG subsidy.

627. Axis Bank became the first bank to launch contactless Debit., Credit and Multi Currency Forex card.

628. Tata Sons has raised its stake in AirAsia India from 30% to 41%. AirAsia India is a joint venture of AirAsia Berhad, Tata Sons and Telestra Tradeplace. Tata Sons will purchase the additional stake from Telestra Tradeplace.

629. Swatantra Raj Singh (Boxing), Nihar Amin (Swimming) and Harbans Singh (Athletics) have been selected for the Dronacharya Award which is given for excellence in sports coaching.

630. Maharashtra’s famous Dahi Handi (Govinda) was accorded with the status of Adventure Sport through a Government Resolution (GR) 201508131458581621. It will now be played as per rules and regulations framed by a State-level association and not just limited to Janmashtami. Anyone can participate except those below 12 years of age.

631. Saina Nehwal became the first indian to enter into the World Badminton Championship finals, to face Carolina Marin. Prakash Padukone was the first Indian to win a a medal in the 1983 Championships.

632. The Agriculture Ministry will be renamed as Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Ministry. This was announced by PM Modi during his Independence Day Speech.

633. Indian Men’s Hockey Team won three match series of their European Tour 2-1 defeating Spain at Teresa in Spain.

634. 2015 US-India Cyber Dialogue was held at the US Department of State in Washington, DC and it was held with an aim to increase global cyber security and promote the digital economy.

635. Gujarat has declared a restriction on the utilization of plastic in the state.

636. Administration of Kerala announced the state as Complete Digital State.

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637. Expert badminton player Saina Nehwal is the first Indian badminton player to win a silver decoration at the World Championships held in Jakarta, Indonesia. She was defeated by Spain’s Carolina Marin. The following are the Indian medal winners at the World Badminton Championships which had started in 1977: Prakash Padukone (1983) - Bronze, Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa (2011) – Bronze, PV Sindhu (2013) – Bronze, PV Sindhu (2014) – Bronze.

638. The Indo-United States Combined Military Training Exercise will be held from September 9 to 23 at the Joint Base Lewis McChord in the US. This is the eleventh piece of "Yudh Abhyas" by both the nations.

639. Property port al Housing.com has procured HomeBuy360, a cloud-based deals lifecycle administration stage

640. Ram Nath Kovind was confirmed as new legislative head of Bihar.

641. Indian golfer Anirban Lahiri has made history after he completed tied Fifth at the PGA Championships.

642. India’s Abhishek Verma won the gold medal in the compound men’s individual section in the Archery World Cup Stage 3 competition at Wroclaw, defeating Esmaeil Ebadi of . Apart from this, India’s recurve mixed pair Deepika Kumari and Mangal Singh Champia won silver at the World Cup stage 3.

643. Briton Andy Murray won the Rogers Cup Masters tournament in , Canada defeating Novak Djokovic. In the women’s category, of Switzerland lifted her maiden Canadian Open Masters title after world number two Simona Halep retired hurt.

644. Former Cabinet secretary Ajit Kumar Seth was appointed as the Chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB). He was appointed for a period of three years or till he attains 65 years of age. He succeeded Atul Chaturvedi.

645. The Union Government announced the awardees for prestigious sports awards. They are as follows: • Sania Mirza was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna for the year 2015. • Rohit Sharma was awarded Arjuna Award with 16 others from various sporting fields

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646. Aditi Chauhan, India’s international football goalkeeper, became the country’s first woman to play English league football for the West Ham United Ladies Football Club.

647. Volleyball star TP Padmanabhan Nair was duly honoured with the Dhyan Chand Award

648. Kishori Piraji Kharat was appointed as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI). IDBI was constituted on 1st July 1964 and is based on the model of Development Bank of Canada with a motive to provide direct and indirect finance to Industries.

649. The Cochin International AirporAirportt on Tuesday turned into the first on the planet to work totally on complete solar power. Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy initiated the 12 MWp sun oriented force plant, containing 46,150 sun based boards laid crosswise over 45 sections of land close to the payload complex

650. Book titled The Kumbh Mela: Mapping the Ephemeral Megacity written by Tarun Khanna was discharged by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on 17 August 2015. The book, a result of Harvard University, is edited by Rahul Mehrotra, Felipe Vera and Diana Eck.

651. The World Photography Day is yearly seen on Aug 19 over the world.

652. Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh announced that Sanskrit will be introduced as a mandatory subject in all Government schools of the state.

653. India’s historic Mughal mausoleum Taj Mahal has ranked fifth position in the prestigious list of most attractive travel hotspot in the world. Tajmahal is one of those wonders which have been given the status of world heritage and it attract the maximum number of visitors from all the foreign countries each year to India.

654. The former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe was elected as the 6th President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) at the 50th IAAF Congress in Beijing, China.

655. World Humanitarian Day was observed on 19th August 2015 with the theme “Inspiring the World’s Humanity”. The theme calls on people to join any of the world’s humanitarian organisations and become an active messenger of Humanity.

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656. Bangladesh novelist Zia Haider Rahman won the James Tait Black award 2015 for his debut novel In the Light of What We Know. The novel is based on an investment banker who receives a visit from an old friend and addresses the issues of Afghanistan war, the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and global banking crisis.

657. Bangladesh became the first country to receive funds from the United Nations (UN) for its fast growing solar home systems. The UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) issued 395286 carbon credits worth 3.56 million US Dollar to two Bangladeshi organizations. Infrastructure Development Company Ltd IDCOL) AND Grameen Shakti are the two organization that won the carbon credits.

658. Google run video sharing portal YouTube tied up with Whistling Woods International (WWI) to set up YouTube Space in Mumbai, a collaboration and production facility for YouTube video creators. However, the firms did not disclose any financial details.

659. Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and was administered oath of office by President Maithripala Sirisena.

660. The book titled ‘Making India Awesome’ authored by Chetan Bhagat was released by Rupa Publications. It is his second non-fiction book after What Young India Wants.

661. Historian Babasaheb Purandare was awarded with Maharashtra Bhushan Award 2015. He was credited with writing the first historical work on 16th century Great Maratha King Chattrapati Shivaji. Babasaheb Purandare is famously known as Shiv Shahir, Shivaji’s poet. His best known book is Raja Shiv Chhatrapati and popular play is Janata Raja.

662. Uber Cabs tied-up with Bharti Airtel to set up WiFi hotspots in each of its taxis.

663. India’s second largest IT services company Infosys launched Aikido, three enhanced service offerings in design thinking, platforms and knowledge-based IT (KBIT). Aikido services are aimed at helping its clients address three key aspects – Ki in Knowledge- Based IT, Do in Design Thinking and Ai in Platforms.

664. Pro Indian golfer Aditi Ashok won the prestigious Ladies British novice stroke-play Championship 2015 at Leeds, United Kingdom. ith this triumph she turned out to be first lady and most youthful player from India to win this Championship.

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665. Roger Federer of Switzerland won the Masters Men’s Singles title by defeating Novak Djokovic of Serbia. World number one ranking Serena Williams won the women’s singles title by defeating Simona Halep of Romania.

666. England cricket team won 2015 Ashes Test series, 3-2 against Australia at England. Chris Rogers of Australia and Joe Root of England jointly shared the man of the series award. End of the series also saw an end to the Test career of Australian Skipper Michael Clarke.

667. Veteran actor Amol Palekar was appointed as the Chairman of India’s Oscar jury by Film Federation of India (FFI). He succeeded Hriharan and Goutam Ghose as the chairman of the committee. He will select the country’s official entry in the best foreign film category of the 88th Academy Awards.

668. Union Telecom Ministry released a commemorative postal stamp on emperor Ashoka. The postal stamp of 5 rupees will be available for sale in the post offices.

669. Indian-American Vince Chhabria was appointed as the full-time federal judge of California court by President Barack Obama. He is the Bay Area’s first Indian- American federal judge.

670. Girish Sahni assumed charge as Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

671. Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D6) has been effectively launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. It is to be noticed that after this, GSAT-6 will join the gathering of India's other operational geostationary satellites and it will give correspondence through five spot pillars in S-band and a national bar in C-band for key clients.

672. Serbian Tennis Star Novak Djokovic was appointed as the Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), after having served as UNICEF’s Serbia Ambassador. Djokovic, who was born in Belgrade in 1987 right away before the Balkans war broke out, spent quite a bit of his adolescence in Serbia.

673. Kolkata Port was adjudged as the ‘Major Port of the Year’ amongst the 12 major ports in the country for the year 2014-15.

674. Former Indian captain Dilip Vengsarkar was elected as the President of the Association of Indian Statisticians and Scorers of India (ACSSI). The ACSSI was

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formed in 1987 to do serious research on Indian cricket, both past and present and provide one-stop accurate information about Indian domestic, test and limited overs international cricket statistics.

675. Rajendra Singh, also known as the Waterman of India, was conferred with the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize. He was named for the prestigious award for his innovative water restoration efforts, improving water security in rural India and for showing extraordinary courage and determination in his quest to improve the living conditions for those most in need.

676. Novak Djokovic of Serbia selected as Goodwill Ambassador of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on 26th August 2015.

677. Ab de Villiers of South Africa broke the record of speediest 8000 ODI keeps running on 26th August 2015 in the match played against New Zealand in Durban, South Africa. He finished his 8000 keeps running in 182 innings. Prior, Sourav Ganguly made this record in 200 innings.

678. Air India’s Hockey team won the Guru Tegh Bahadur Hockey title defeating Army XI. It regained the title after seven years.

679. FMCG firm Gillette India said it has selected Al Rajwani as its overseeing chief for a time of five years, powerful on Saturday.

680. Tennis star Sania Mirza, who won the Wimbledon ladies' pairs title as of late, was on Saturday deliberated with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna grant. Mirza turned into the second tennis player to get the nation's most astounding donning honor after Leander Paes.

681. National Sports Day was celebrated on 29th August 2015 to mark the birth anniversary of hockey player Dhyan Chand. He had scored over 1000 goals between 1926 and 1948. India won 3 Olympic Gold medals during his time – 1928 in Amsterdam, 1932 in Los Angeles and 1936 in Berlin.

682. Petroleum Ministry dispatched a plan SAHAJ for online arrival of new LPG associations for the customers. With the guide of this plan, the candidates can now apply online for new LPG associations and they require not visit to the LPG merchants for it.

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683. Indian women hockey team qualified for Olympics after 36 years. India’s latest participation was in 1980 that was held in Moscow, Russia where India finished fourth after losing to Soviet Union.

684. Mare Dibaba of Ethiopia won the women’s marathon title at the 2015 World Athletics Championships at the Beijing National Stadium, China. She is the first Ethipian female to win the event at the world championships.

685. 15th IAAF World Championships in Athletics was held between 22nd August and 30th August 2015 at the Beijing’s National Stadium in China. Kenya topped the table with 16 medals followed by Jamaica. India did not win a single medal in the championships.

686. U Mumba won the Pro Kabaddi League 2015 title by defeatingdefeating Bengaluru Bulls in the finals held in Mumbai.

687. The Ramon Magsaysay award for 2015 from India was conferred on Anshu Gupta and Sanjiv Chaturvedi of India in a ceremony held in Manila, Philippines. Philippine President, Benigno Aquino III, presented the award to them.

688. Highest mountain in North America to be renamed as ‘Denali’, instead of its existing name of ‘Mt McKinley’, meeting the long pending demand of Native Americans in Alaska. The peak had been named after the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley.

689. U2 frontman Bono has become the world’s richest pop star; he is worth £ 940 million. He has overtaken Beatles legend, Paul McCartney, who is estimated at £730 million. The ‘Beautiful Day’ hitmaker had bought a 2.3% share in the social networking website, Facebook, for £56 million in 2009 with the investment group that he co- founded, Elevation Partners. Today the share of the 55- year old is worth £940 million. Since its inception in Dublin in 1976, the U2 Band has become one of the world’s biggest rock acts. The news comes after Facebook co- founder Mark Zuckerberg announced last week that over billion people used the website in a single day, which means one in seven people on Earth.

690. P K Singh, Durgapur Plant’s CEO, has been appointed as the new chairman of Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL).

691. The test series between India and South Africa will henceforth be known as ‘The Mahatma Gandhi- Nelson Mandela Series’.

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692. Ashes series 2015 won by Australian women cricketers. The trophy was presented during the England- Australia T20I in Cardiff, Wales.

693. The Sports Ministry of India has decided to recognize yoga as a sports discipline and put it in the ‘Priority' category. It has also decided to upgrade fencing from ‘others’ to ‘general’ category and to place University Sports in the ‘priority’ category.

694. Maruti Suzuki India has introduced India’s first smart hybrid diesel car and has named it ‘Ciaz SHVS’. The company claims that it is India’s most fuel- efficient car at 28.09 km per litre.

695. Television series “Game of Thrones” has set a new record in the Guinness World Records 2016 book for largest TV simulcast. The series aired the largest simultaneous broadcast when the second episode of Season five was simulcast to 173 countries around the world on April 20.

696. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana of the Supreme Court has held that differently abled persons can claim benefit of reservation in Government- jobs only at the time of appointment and cannot get the benefit of the affirmative policy in promotions.

697. The first six presidents of independent India received 263 mercy petitions from those who were on death row, of which only one was rejected and the rest commuted to life imprisonment. The only rejection was by Dr Rajendra Prasad. R Venkatramana rejected the maximum number of mercy petitions (45), followed by incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee who rejected 31 of the 33 petitions he has received so far. Since Independence, 437 mercy petitions have been filed with successive Presidents, of which 306 cases were commuted to life. All this was compiled by the Law Commission and form part of its report on death penalty.

698. According to rankings released by UK- based Skytrax Consultancy Agency as part of its five star ranking system, which is widely considered the global benchmark of airline standards, North Korea’s Air Koryo is the world’s worst airline. The airline, the only one to receive one star, has received this distinction for four straight years.

699. Cheteshwar Pujara has jumped four places to the 20th spot in the ICC Test Rankings, making him the second Indian batsman to feature in the Top 20. However, following Virat Kohli’s drop to 11th (down by one spot), the fifth ranked side has no batsmen in the Top 10. Also, Rohit Sharma has moved up two places to 48th and R R Ashwin has gained five spots and is now on the 50th spot.

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700. Jet Lite has merged with Jet Airways. Jet Airways had bought Air Sahara in 2007 and branded it as Jet Lite/ Jet Connect, a low cost carrier.

701. According to US- based job hunting website Glassdoor.com, Chief Executives of healthcare platform Practo and India’s biggest e- commerce company Flipkart have received the highest approval ratings from their employees. Practo has 100% of its reviewers approving Shashank ND as CEO, while Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal has an approval rating of 94%. Snapdeal Chief Executive Kunal Bahl has the approval rating of 91% reviewers, restaurant review website Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal has received 88%, Bhavish Agarwal , CEO of India’s largest taxi aggregator Olacabs and Vijay Sekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm have approval ratings of 70% and 69% respectively. As for overall ratings of the companies, Flipkart scores 3.9/5, Practo 3.5, Zomato 3.3 and Snapdeal 3.3. Among major IT Companies in India, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka has the highest approval rating of 95%, followed by Cognizant’s Fransisco D’Souza with 94%, TCS’s Natarajan Chandrasekharan with 87%, Wipro’s CEO T K Kurien with 74% and HCL’s Anant Gupta with 69%.

702. According to Lloyd’s, the world’s oldest active insurance marketplace, Mumbai tops the global list in terms of economic output at risk ($ 8 billion) in the event of a terrorist attack, followed by Kabul. In terms of GDP@risk due to power outage, Mumbai and Delhi rank third and fourth respectively. However, the biggest risk to Mumbai’s output is a human pandemic which has the potential to cause losses amounting to $ 11.44 billion, followed by terrorism, market crash, flood and oil price shocks. Lloyd’s City Risk Index is the first bid to measure the economic output at risk in 301 countries from 18 man- made and natural threats over a decade. In terms of events, the biggest threat to economic output is a crash in stock markets, which could collapse $ 1 trillion, followed by human pandemic ($ 591 billion) and windstorm ($ 586 billion). The top three cities in terms of GDP@risk are Taipei ($181 billion), Tokyo ($153 billion) and Seoul ($ 103 billion).

703. Ashwani Lohani has been appointed as the new chairman of Air India, replacing Rohit Nandan.

704. On 3rd September 2015, China celebrated the 70th Anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia with a massive parade, where President Xi Jinping announced a cut in the size of 2.3 million strong military by 3,00,000 men, seen as a part of the country’s ongoing military modernization programme meant to shift the dependence from men to computerized machines. India was represented by Union Minster Gen (retd) V K Singh, who was among the delegates from 50 countries. India, however, refrained from sending its troops to march in China’s Tiananmen Square; soldiers from 17 countries including Pakistan, Russia and Central Asian Republics attended it.

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The event was also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who stood next to President Xi.

705. HCL Technologies, India’s fourth largest IT services company, has signed a three year deal with English football club Manchester United, to help it set up a state- of- art digital infrastructure lab. The lab named United Experience Lab, will come up at Manchester United’s home ground Old Trafford Stadium.

706. In the latest FIFA rankings, the Indian football team has climbed up a place to occupy the 155th spot. The first place is held by Copa America runners- up Argentina, followed by and then Germany.

707. Pakistan’s former hockey World Cup winning captain, Shahbaz Ahmed has been appointed as the new general- secretary of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF).

708. IndianIndian---- American Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri has bebeenen selected for the prestigious 2014 National Humanities Medal that would be presented to her by US President Barack Obama. She has been selected for enlarging the human story.

709. The National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal cloned the world’s first buffalo in 2009 and has repeated the experiment over the years. The 11th such calf, named “Swarupa” was born month, using an advanced ‘hand- guided cloning technique’. The donor cell had been taken from the ear of an adult buffalo named “Karan Kirti”, who has a peak yield of

710. India will host “AAI Paragliding World Cup 2015” at Bir Billing in Himachal Pradesh from October 23-31.

711. China beat Japan to win their fourth women’s volleyball World Cup title.

712. Auckland author Ted Dawe’s book ‘Into the river’, which had won the New Zealand Post Children’s book of the year in 2013, has become the first book to be removed from shelves in over two decades.

713. Novak Djokovic has reached 26 consecutive Grand Slam Quarterfinals, the third longest in the open era (since 1968).

714. Ahmed Javed, who headed Home Guards and Civil Defense, has replaced Rakesh Maria as the new Mumbai Police Commissioner. Rakesh Maria has now been allotted the office of Head of Home Guards and Civil Defense.

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715. ‘Cry for love’, a 22- year old song mocking the neo- Nazis has reached the top of Germany’s singles charts. The song by German punk band Die Aerzte, was first released in 1993.

716. The Election Commission has announced a five- phase poll schedule for Bihar, beginning October 12 and ending November 5, with results on November 8. In a first, in the Bihar elections, the inedible mark on a voter’s finger will extend from the nail tip to the bottom of the first joint of index finger. Also, for the first time, photographs of candidates will be displayed on ballot unit of EVMs.

717. Jagdeep Grewal, a 57- year old Indian American has been made the Postmaster in Sacremento in the US State of California, becoming the first woman to occupy the post in 166 years. Following in the footsteps of Sacremento’s first postmaster, Henry E Robinson, Esq in 1849, Jagdeep will be the 29th Postmaster to serve the city.

718. The United States has remained undefeated at the Men’s volleyball World Cup by beating Canada.

719. 119 nations, including India voted in support of a UN General Assembly Resolution, which granted the right to non- member observer states of Palestine and Vatican City to raise their flags at the world body’s headquarters alongside the flags of UN member nations. The resolution ‘Raising the flags of non- member observer states at the United Nations’ was adopted with a vote of 119 in favor to 8 against, with 45 delegations abstaining. Palestine became an observer state in 2012, while the Vatican has been a non- member observer state since 1964. The Assembly’s 70th session begins on September 15.

720. Qatar’s emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al- Thani has appointed Zayed al- Khayareen as an ambassador to Iraq, the first since the embassy was closed 25 years ago.

721. Shiv Prakash Misra, 73 was awarded the Dhyanchand Award for Lifetime Achievement. He had qualified for the Wimbeldon in the very first attempt in 1964. He also played the longest match of the US National Championships in 1964.

722. G Satheesh Reddy, scientific advisor to defence minister and distinguished scientist at DRDO, has been selected for the silver medal of Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), London, becoming the first defence scientist working in India to be honored with the medal. The medal will be presented to him during the Wilbur and Orville Wright Lecture on December 9, 2015 in London. The RAeS has been honoring outstanding achievers in the field of global aerospace industry since 1909, when Wilbur and

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Orville Wright came to London to receive the society’s first gold medal. Reddy will be honored as one of the leading navigation and avionics experts of India.

723. Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis won the Women’s doubles title at the US Open, defeating and Casey Dellacqua 6-3, 6-3 in New York. It was Sania’s second Grand Slam success this year, after the Wimbledon Title that she had also won with Hingis.

724. Martina Hingis and Leander Paes won the Mixed doubles title at the US Open this year, defeating Americans Bethanie Mattek- Sands and 6-4, 3-6, 10-7. Theirs has become the first team to win three major mixed doubles titles in the same year, since Maragret Court and Marty Riessen in 1969. With this US Open title, Paes has now won more Grand Slam titles than any other man in the Open Era (9), surpassing fellow Indian Mahesh Bhupathi (8). Only Martina Navratilova with 10 titles has won more.

725. , the 26th seed, beat , to become the oldest first time winner of a Major Tournament, the Women’s singles title at the US Open. At 33- years and 6 months, Pennetta is three years older than Francesca Schiavone was in 2010 when she won the French Open to become the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam title.

726. Nadia Ahmad, the only female driver in all of Palestine, is planning to start her own fleet of taxis in the occupied West Bank- driven by women, for women. Meanwhile in Egypt, a fleet of girls- only “Pink Taxis” has been launched.

727. Whitney Houston will become the fourth celebrity to be posthumously honored with a hologram- where her digital likeness will perform at a “live” concert and will be streamed and shown on cable.

728. SupeSuperr Mario, the famous game, turned 30 on 13th SeptembSeptemberer 2015.

729. Yuki Bhambri, the highest ranked Indian at 145- in World Rankings, won the $ 50,000 Shanghai ATP Challenger series title, defeating home favourite Di Wu in the hardcourt Event.

730. Cristiano Ronaldo has become Real Madrid’s record scorer in La Liga with a five- goal haul at Espanyol. He has netted 230 goals in only 203 appearances for Real Madrid. It is two more than the club’s former striker Raul, who needed 550 games to amass 228 goals. He is fourth on the list of all- time top scorers in La Liga behind

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Hugo Sanchez (Real, 234 goals), Telmo Zarra (Athletic Bilbao, 253) and Lionel Messi (Barcelona, 285).

731. Defending world champion Marc Marquez of Spain on his Honda, won the San Marino MotoGP, defeating British riders Bradley Smith (Yamaha) and Scott Redding (Honda). Italy’s Enea Bastianini on Honda won the Moto3 race at the San Marino Grand Prix. He came home ahead of Portugal’s Miguel Oliveira (KTM) and other Italian, Niccolo Antonelli (Honda).

732. In the State- wise report on ‘Ease of doing Business Index’ released by the World Bank and the Union Government’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Gujarat has ranked first with a score of 71.14% out of 98 point reform measures, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 70.12% score. While Jharkhand was ranked third with 63.09%, Chhattisgarh came fourth with 62.54% and Madhya Pradesh fifth with 62% score. The States with the lowest scores were- Arunachal Pradesh (1.2%), Nagaland (3.4%), Meghalaya (4.4%), Jammu and Kashmir (5.9%) and Mizoram (6.4%).

733. The first ever-bilateral maritime exercise between Australia and India, named AUSINDEX- 2015 kicked off on 12 September 2015, in Visakhapatnam.

734. Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 to claim the US Open. The win gave the Serb, three of the four major titles this year- he lost the French Open final to Stan Wawrinka. This is Djokovic’s 10th Slam Title (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015 ; 2011, 2014, 2015 Wimbledon; 2011, 2015 US Open). This is also Djokovic’s 9th major title in the last five years. The record for the most Grand Slam titles is held by Roger Federer (17), followed by Rafael Nadal and (14), Roy Emerson (12), Bjorn Borg and Rod Laver (11), Bill Tilden and Novak Djokovic (10).

735. Ashok Sridharan, of the Angela Merkel led- Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has won the mayoral election in Bonn, becoming the first person of Indian- origin to occupy the mayor’s office in a major German city. Sridharan, 49, secured the absolute majority by polling 50.06% of the votes in the elections held in the former German capital. His victory has marked the end of more than 21- years of rule of the city by the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Sridharan, will take over the reins of the city administration from the outgoing mayor Juergen Nymptsch on October 21. Until now, Sridharan had served as the treasurer and assistant mayor in the municipal administration of neighbouring town, Koenigswinter.

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736. Indian Para Badminton Team won 11 medals, including four gold, three silver and four bronze at the recent BWF Para Badminton World Championship held at Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom.

737. Yuki Bhambri achieved his career- best singles rank of 125, following his title win at the ATP Shanghai Challenger. Yuki is the country’s number one singles player as he jumped 20 places after earning 20 points from his win.

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