MODULE : GENERAL AWARENESS READING MATERIAL POLITICS • Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu-Kyi released from house arrest on Nov 13, 2010 after 15 years. • Dilma Rouseff elected as first women president of Brazil. • Julia Gillard elected as first women PM of Australia on Sept 12, 2010. • Roza Otunbayeva- Kyrgystan's first women president. • Christien Wulff- germany's youngest president. • Yukio Hatoyama -Japanese PM resigned on June 2, 2010. Naoto Kan succeeds him. • David Cameron(conservative party) sworn in as British PM- first coalition government. • Indian origin politician Kamala Persad became PM of Trinidad&Tobago. • India launches Census 2011- biggest Census covering 1.2 billion people. • Right to education- free and compulsory education till the age of 14. • Mukul Sangma sworn in as CM of Meghalaya suceeding D.D Lapang. • India -US annual naval exercise held in April- codename 'Malabar' • S.H Kapadia- 38th Chief Justice of India. • Haryana becomes first state to launch a web portal based public grievance monitoring system. • New Chief Election Commissioner(CEC)- Shahabudin Yaqoob Qureishi (17th CEC) succeeding Naveen Chawla. • Arjun Munda elected as CM of Jharkhand for the third time. • India signs agreements for Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-lndia(TAPI) gas pipeline project. • Belgium becomes first European country to ban Burkha in public places. • US- Russian presidents sign Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty(START) in Prague. • Dissanayake M Jayaratne elected as PM of Sri Lanka. • 16th SAARC summit held at Thimpu, Bhutan. 17th will be held at Maldives in 2011. • Atul Khare appointed as Assisstant Secratrary General of UN(Peace Keeping Operations). • G15 summit in Teheran elected Mahinda Rajapakse as Chairman replacing Mahmood Ahmedinejad. • Paul Kagame sworn in as president of Rwanda for the second time. • Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage bill passed on August 2010. • Ayodhya verdict on Sept 30, 2010. • Chief guest of 2010 republic day parade- S.Korean president Lee Myung Bak. • Army Chief- Lt. Gen. V.K Singh succeeds Gen. Deepak Kapoor. • Navy Chief - Adm. Nirmal Verma succeeds Suresh Mehta. • Air Force Chief - Air Marshal P.V Naik succeeds Fali Homi Major. • India-Canada signed a civil Nuclear bill on June 28th • Secretary General of Amnesty International Salil Shetty • India and Switzerland signed a protocol to the double taxation avoidance agreement that would enable the government to get information about illegal wealth in Swiss banks BUDGET • No income taxes upto 1.6 lakhs. 10% above 1.6lakhs upto 5 lakhs. 20% above 5 lakhs upto 8 lakhs. 30% above 8 lakhs. • MAT(Minimum Alternate Tax) increased from 15% to 18%. • Surcharge on domestic companies- reduced from 10% to7.5%. • Presumptive taxation limit for small business raised to 60 lakhs. • Central Excise duty on all petroleum products raised from 8% to10%. • 40,100 crore for MGNREGA scheme. • 48,000 crore for Bharat Nirman project. • Unit cost under Indira Awaaz Yojana upto 45,000 in plains and 48,500 in hilly areas. • Rashtriya Swastya Bheema Yojana extended to MNREGA beneficiaries who work for more than 15 days. • Allocation for defense 1,47,344 crore. • Fiscal Deficit 5.5% of GDP. • Economic survey predicted 8.5% growth for 2010-11 and 9% for 2011 -12 • Industrial growth for 2009-10 8.6% • Bharat Thirth -Pilgrimage series of trains. • Service tax on purchase of e-ticket reduced from 40 to 20 for AC/15 to 10 for sleeper SPORTS • ICC Cricketer of the Year - Sachin Tendulkar • ICC Test Player of the Year - Virender Sehwag • ICC One day player of the year- A B De Villiers • 19th FIFA world cup hosted by South Africa in 2010 Champion - Spain, Runner up- Netherlands, Golden Ball- Diego Forlan, Golden Boot- Thomas Mueller, Fair Play - Spain. Mascot- Sakumi • FIFA Player of the year - Lionel Messi • IPL III Champion-Chennai Super Kings, Runner Up- Mumbai Indians. • IPL Interim Chairman- Chirayu Amin. • Azlan Shah Hockey- India & Korea Joint winners. • French Open Singles Men- Rafael Nadal Women - Francesca Schiavone(first Italian to win the title) Doubles Men- Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic Women- Serena and Venus Williams Mixed- Katarina Srebotnik and Nenad Zimonjic. • Wimbledon Singles Men- Rafael Nadal Women - Serena Williams Doubles Men- Jurgen Melzer and Philipp Petzschner Women- Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova Mixed- Leander Paes and Cara Black. • Commonwealth games 2010 mascot- Shera. • Rajeev Gandhi Khel Retna - Saina Nehwal • Muttaih Muraleedharan retires from cricket. TROPHIES: BADMINTON :- Rahamtoola Cup & Chadha Cup, Indonesia Open, Uber Cup FOOTBALL :- Santhosh trophy, Durand cup, Federation Cup GOLF :-Ryder cup, Brunei Cup, John Jay Hopkins Trophy HOCKEY :- Azlan Shah Cup, Agha Khan Cup CRICKET :- Irani Trophy, Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Deodhar Trophy AWARDS AND HONOURS • Saraswathi Samman - Surjit Patar(Punjabi Poet). • Jnanapeetham - Malayalam Poet O N V Kurup(2007) and Urdu Poet Akhlaq Khan(2008) • Vyas Samman - Amarkant for his novel 'Inhi Hathiyaron Se' • Oscars - Best Film- The Hurt Locker Best Director- Katherine Bigelow Actress- Sandra Bulloock(The Blind Side) Actor- Jeff Bridges(Crazy Heart). • Pulitzer Prize- Sheri Fink of ProPublica. • Abel Prize- John Torrence Tate. • Nobel Peace -Liu Xiabo; Literature- Mario Vargase Llosa; Physics- Andre Geim& Konstantin Novoselov; Chemistry - Richard Heck, Akira Suzuki& Ei-ichi Negishi; Medicine- Robert G Edwards; Economics - Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen& Christopher Pissarides. • Orange Prize- Barbara Kingsolver MISCELLANEOUS • Kaziranga national park- highest density of tigers in the world. • NASOVAC- Intranasal vaccine for H1N1 developed by Serum Institute of India. • First World Classical Tamil conference held at Coimbatore. • INS Vela- Navy's oldest submarine decommissioned in Vishakapatanam. • Retirement age of Judges raised from 62 to 65. • Jantar Mantar(Jaipur) is granted world heritage status by UNESCO. • 300% salary hike for MPs. • Vineeth Jain, MD of Times of India, elected as chairman of Press Trust of India(PTI). • R.K Madhekar, new NSG chief. • Amp Roy Chaudhary, new CMD of NTPC succeeding R.S Sharma. • P.J Thomas sworn in as Central Vigilance Commissioner(CVC). • 'Hadi Rani' countries first all women police battalion inducted by Rajasthan CM. • The first set of 12 digit UID numbers distributed in Tembli in Maharashtra- first Aadhar village in India. • Ranbir Singh Butola selected as head of Indian Oil Corporation(IOC). • South Korean mountaineer Oh Eun- Sun becomes the first woman to climb the worlds 14 highest mountains. • Jessica Watson of Australia- youngest person to circumnavigate the globe. • Agatha- tropical storm across Central America. • US president nominates Subra Suresh as director of US National Science Foundation. • Finland becomes the first country in the world to make broad band access a legal right. • UN General Assembly recognizes access to clean water and sanitation as a human right. • Miss Universe 2010- Jimena Navarrete of Mexico. • Miss World 2010- Alexandria Mills of US. • According to FAO, about 925 million people are under nourished in 2010. • "Top Kill" the operation to remove the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico • India ranked128th in the Global Peace Index Report-an annual publication by the Institute of Economics and Peace(IEP) FINANCE • Murali Manohar Joshi appointed as Public Accounts Committee chairman. • OP Bhatt (SBI Chairman) elected as Indian Banks Association (IBA) chairman. • India becomes a full fledged member of Financial Action Task Force (FATF). • IMF raises India's growth forecast to 9.5% for 2010. • United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report titled World Investment Report-2010 says India will be the third largest recipient of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). • PM's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) projects 8.5% growth for current fiscal. • Mukesh Ambani elected as member to the board of World Economic Forum (WEF). • Government launches new series of world price index with 2004-05 as base year (at present base year is 1993-94) and will have 676 items. • World Economic Outlopk- report by IMF. • Unique identity for Indian rupee was designed by Udayakumar, NT Bombay. Symbol is a blend of Devanagiri 'Ra' and Roman letter 'R". • Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulatory body for the investment market- Chairman C.B Bhave. • GDP( gross domestic product)- it the sum total of all goods and services produced in a country in a financial year. Current GDP growth is 8.9% • RBI was set up on the recommendations of Hilton Young Commission • Tarapore Committee - Capital account convertability OBITUARY • Arjun Sen Gupta development economist & Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal passed away on Sep 26 2010 • Bhairon Singh Shikawat former vice president & CM of Rajasthan passed away on May 15 2010 • Milon Kumar Banerjee former Attorney General of India passed away on July 20 2010 • John Shepherd-Barron inventor of ATM died on May 14 2010 • Jyoti Basu Marxist leader passed away on Jan 17 INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS • WTO (153 members): Director General Pascal Lamy Head Quarters- Geneva, Switzerland . • BRIC :Brazil, Russia, India & China . Summit was held on April 15, 2010 at Brazilia • IBSA: India , Brazil & South Africa,. Summit was held on April 15, 2010 at Brazilia • SAARC( South Asian Association For Regional Co-operation) 8 members Head Quartered at Katmandu • ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) 10 members Head Quarters Jakarta • IMF (International Monetary Fund) headquartered at Washington. Managing Director