QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz,12 June 2018

Solution: d.

India and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Sunday adopted a Joint Appeal to Youth under which they would organise comprehensive educational work as well as spiritual and moral education to counter attempts to involve young people in the activities of terrorist, separatist and extremist groups.

TH;

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Solution: d.

In between the islands of Java and Borneo lies the Java Sea. The island of Borneo is made up of three countries – Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Improvisation: TH;

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Solution: c.

Later this month, the Navies of India and Indonesia will hold their first bilateral exercise in the Java Sea. The bilateral with Indonesia is in addition to the CORPAT that the two sides conduct. The 31st edition of CORPAT concluded recently in which India had deployed INS Kulish, a Kora class missile corvette, and one Dornier maritime patrol aircraft.

Apart from securing the trade sea route, the Coordinated Patrol also serves to enhance mutual understanding and inter–operability between the two navies. The CORPAT thus reflects the shared concerns between the two countries for a peaceful Indian Ocean for the benefit of international community.

The bilateral exercise with Indonesia will be held after the conclusion of the Malabar trilateral naval war games between India, Japan and the U.S. which is underway off the coast of Guam. Interestingly, two of the ships participating in Malabar will head to the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), the world’s largest multilateral exercise, hosted by the U.S. biennially off the Hawaii islands.

PIB; TH;

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Solution: b.

Baṅgadarśan, Bankim Chandra’s epochmaking newspaper, commenced publication in 1872, and in it some of his (Bankim Chandra’s) later novels were serialized.

Some of Bankim Chandra’s youthful compositions appeared in the newspaper Sambad Prabhakar, and in 1858 he published a volume of poems entitled Lalita O Manas. For a while he wrote in English, and his novel Rajmohan’s Wife appeared serially in Indian Field in 1864. His first notable Bengali work was the novel Durgeśnandinī, which features a Rajput hero and a Bengali heroine. In itself it is of indifferent quality, but in the philosopher Debendranath Tagore’s words, it took “the Bengali heart by storm,” and with it the Bengali novel was full born. Kapālkuṇḍalā, a love story against a gruesome background of Tantric rites, was published in 1866; and Mṛṇālinī, which was set at the time of the first Muslim invasion of Bengal, in 1869.

To his contemporaries his voice was that of a prophet; his valiant Hindu heroes aroused their patriotism and pride of race. In him nationalism and Hinduism merged as one; and his creed was epitomized in the song “Bande Mātaram” (“Hail to thee, Mother”)—from his novel Ānandamaṭh (Set in the background of the Sannyasi Rebellion in the late 18th century)—which later became the mantra (“hymn”) and slogan of Hindu India in its struggle for independence.

Britannica; Ready Reference Data, Spectrum;

Improvisation: TH;

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Solution: c.

The idea of a ‘bad bank’ is not new. Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian had suggested the creation of a Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency (PARA) to deal with what he described as India’s “festering twin balance sheet problem”. By this he meant over-leveraged corporates unable to service debt or invest afresh, and banks hit by non-performing assets (NPAs) cagey about fresh lending. This overhang hurts new investments and continues to dent India’s medium-term growth and job creation prospects. A professionally-run PARA, or the so-called ‘bad bank’, could assume custody of the largest and most difficult-to-resolve NPAs from lenders’ balance sheets. This would allow banks to focus on extending fresh credit and supporting the pick-up in growth. More importantly, a bad bank taking tough decisions on borrowers-gone-bad, it was argued, could free bankers from the risks entailed in large loan write-downs.

TH;

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Solution: a.

Data Point, Oped Page, June 11^th, The Hindu;

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