Most asked General Knowledge Questions & in January and February 2015

New Ministers –
(1) Manohar Parrikar – Defence Ministry
(2) Suresh Prabhu – Railways Ministry
(3) Jagat Prakash Nadda – Health Ministry
(4) Chaudhary Birender Singh – RuralDevelopment Minister
(5) Bandaru Dattatreya – Labour
(6) Rajiv Pratap Rudy – Skill Development
(7) Dr. Mahesh Sharma – Tourism

Sutirtha Bhattacharya will be the new Chairman and Managing Director of Coal India Limited.

Bollywood Actor Farhan Akhtar was appointed as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for South
Asia. Farhan is the first male ever to be chosen as a Goodwill Ambassador in the organization’s
history.

Former Indian Police Service Officer K C Reddy was appointed as the member of United Nations probe panel on Gaza.
The Union Government appointed GS Sandhu as Chairman of National Chemical Weapon Convention.
Senior IRS officer Anita Kapur was appointed as the new chairperson of the Central Board of Direct Taxes.
The Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti was appointed as first woman chief of CERN particle physics research centre.
Rajiv Mehrishi took charge as Union Finance Secretary under the Union Ministry of Finance.
He succeeded Arvind Mayaram.

Former Indian cricket captain Dilip Vengsarkar received the prestigious BCCI-instituted Colonel
C K Nayudu Lifetime achievement award.

Tamil superstar Rajinikanth was honoured withthe centenary award for Indian Film Personality of the year 2014 at the 45th International Film Festival of India.
Chintan, a non-government organisation was conferred the Deutsche Bank Urban Age
Award, 2014.

Steel Authority of India Chairman CS Verma was conferred with the IIM- JRD Tata Award for
Excellence in Corporate leadership in Metallurgical Industries for the year 2014.
Veteran classical vocalist Pandit Jasraj wasconferred with the Sumitra Charat Ram Award
2014 for Lifetime Achievement.

The Indian Space Research Organisation was chosen for the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace,
Disarmament and Development for 2014.

President Pranab Mukherjee conferred the 49th Jnanpith Award on eminent Hindi poet Kedarnath Singh.
The Hockey India chief Narinder Batra was awarded the prestigious President’s Award by
the International Hockey Federation at Morocco.

Former Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh received the Japan’s top national award
The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers 2014.
Union Government nominated Dr. Hasmukh Adhia as a Director on the Central Board of
Directors of the Reserve Bank of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited to Fiji. He is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the
Pacific countries after Indira Gandhi who visited in 1981.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Australia as part of G-20 summit and bilateral summit
with Australia. He became the first Indian Prime Minister to address the Australian Parliament.
He also addressed the Indian diasporas in Australia.

President Pranab Mukherjee visited Bhutan. During his visit, the two countries signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Nalanda University.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar resigned to take up the post of
Defence minister in the Union Cabinet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopted Jayapur village in Varanasi under Saansad Adarsh Gram
Yojana (SAGY).

Wagah border was in news due to suicide bomb blast that occurred in Pakistani side. The blast
claimed lives of at least 61 people including 11 women and three security personnel

Child Rights and You (CRY) launched Project Unlearn with an aim to end child labour and
encourage children to go to school on 14 November 2014 on eve of Children’s Day.

12th ASEAN-India Summit was held in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar. The summit was held on the
sidelines of 25th ASEAN Summit. The Next ASEAN-India Summit will be held in Cambodia
in 2015.

9th East Asia Summit was held in Nay Pyi Taw,Myanmar. The summit was held on the sidelines
of the 25th ASEAN Summit.

India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological
and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) was held in New Delhi. The next session of the IRIGC-TEC
will be held in Moscow in 2015.

Mr. Modi said the PIO (Persons of Indian Origin) and OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) status would
be merged ahead of the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas to be held from January 7 in Ahmedabad.

Three-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator, Laxmikant Parsekar who was Health Minister in the Manohar Parrikar Government, was sworn in as the eleventh Chief Minister of Goa.
India’s second mission to Mars could belaunched between 2018 and 2020.
Continuing the effort to fight “persisting inflation” and inflationary pressures, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan maintained the policy rates at the current levels in 4th Monetary Policy. The RBI also retained the growth projection for the currentfiscal at 5.5 per cent.
RepoRate 8% (Unchanged)
Rev. Repo 7% (Unchanged)
CRR 4% (Unchanged)
SLR 22% (Unchanged)
MSF 9% (Unchanged)
Bank Rate 9% (Unchanged)
1. HSBC Bank sold its Swiss private banking assets to for 12.5 billion dollar. LGT Bank
2. Gujarat Chief Minister announced 33 percent quota for women in in Gujarat . Police Force

3. The Indian Patent Office refused to grant a patent on anti-cancer drug of US firm Abraxis BioSciences. Abraxane

4. Air India has joined the global airlines group. Star Alliance

5. Founder of Himalayan Natural Mineral Water Brand died at 81. Dadi Balsara

6. Botswana?s Okavango Delta became ??. site inscribed on World Heritage Site List 1000th

7. UK firm East India Company issued legal tender gold coin in honour of Sachin Tendulkar

8. Union Government decided to provide interest free loans of to cash-starved sugar .4400 Crores

9. Project Maritime Routes and Cultural Landscapes presented by Secretary of Culture, Ravindra Singh at 38th session of World Heritage Committee. Mausam

1O. United Nations Public Service Day celebrated on 23 June

11. Union Home Ministry decided not to allow visa free entry to nationals. Bangladeshi

12. Conservation area inscrived in World Heritage List. Great Himalayan National Park

13. World,s first Android Newcaster unveiled in.Tokyo, Japan

14. The Union Government granted ???status to Engineers India Ltd (EIL) and National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC). Navratna

15. Appointed as Chairman of Coal India Limited 16. Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa launched which will sell quality medicines at a fair price. A.K.Dubey
Rajiv Mehrishi took charge as Union Finance Secretary. He succeeded Arvind Mayaram.
Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) candidate Devendra Gangadharrao Fadnavis sworn-in as the Chief
Minister of Maharashtra. He is the first BJP candidate to become CM of Maharashtra.

First-time legislator from BJP Manohar LalKhattar, 61, is the 21st Chief Minister of Haryana.
Vice President of Zambia Guy Scott was appointed as acting President by the Zambia government
Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar was elected Vice-President of Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union
in Macau.

Surya Prakash was appointed as the Chairman of Prasar Bharti Board for a term of three years.
The former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh was designated as the head of Future Earth
Engagement Committee, a global research platform panel on sustainable development.

Union Government appointed US-based economist Arvind Subramanian as Chief
Economic Advisor (CEA) in the Union Finance Ministry for three years.

President Pranab Mukherjee authorised Vigilance Commissioner Rajiv to act as chief of Central
Vigilance Commission until the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner.

Justice H L Dattu was sworn-in as the 42nd Chief Justice of India. He succeeded Chief Justice RM
Lodha.

Malala Yousafzai won the 2014 World’s Children Prize after a global vote involving
millions of children. Malala Yousafzai was conferred with the 2014 Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia.

Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor of Reserve Bank of India was conferred with Euromoney’s
Central Bank Governor of the Year Award 2014 in Washington.

Indian-origin Singaporean poet and writer KTM Iqbal was named for the 2014 Cultural Medallion, the highest cultural award of Singapore.
An eminent Indian scientist Dr Sanjaya Rajaram received the World Food Prize 2014 for his
scientific research that led to a prodigious increase in world wheat production.

French economist Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics. Jean Tirole was
awarded for his analysis of market power and regulation.

French author Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize for literature for the year 2014. The Nobel
Prize for Literature is granted by the Swedish Academy.

Pakistani child education activist Malala Yousafzai and Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize 2014. Kailash Satyarthi is an Indian children’s rights activist born in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh. His organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan has been active in the Indian movement against child labour.

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani school pupil, education activist who is known for her activism
for right to education for women.

Eric Betzig, Stefan W Hell and William E. Moerner won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.

Three Japanese-born researchers Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Physics. They were honoured for inventing efficient blue LightEmitting Diodes (LED) lamps that worked as a bright and energy-saving white light sources.

Saiyid Hamid was conferred with Sir Ross Masood Lifetime Achievement Award 2014 for
Excellence in Leadership, Education, community & Public Service.

The Nobel Assembly decided to award the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to John
O´Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser. The award was given for their discoveries of cells
that constitute a GPS in the brain.

The President of India Pranab Mukherjee presented the Lal Bahadur Shastri National
Award 2014 to Dr Apathukatha Sivathanu Pillai.

Former New York Mayor and philanthropist billionaire Michael Rubens Bloomberg was
granted an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in Britain.

Anoop Jain won 2014 Waislitz Global Citizen Award.

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan received Global Diversity Award 2014 at the Britain’s
House of Commons.

Warren M Anderson, the former Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation who was blamed for the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy died.

South Africa’s football captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa died after being shot.

India became the world’s fourth largest steel producer by delivering 62.41 Million Tonnes
(MT) output from January 2014 to September 2014. India was preceded by China, Japan and the
United States.

President Pranab Mukherjee released a commemorative postage stamp on Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Anagarika Dharmapala.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the countrymen over radio for the first time in his
programme Mann Ki Baat.

Tropical Storm Trudy struck Mexico.

Hudhud is a cyclone which struck Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Hudhud name derives from the Hoopoe bird, a colorful bird found across Afro-Eurasia suggested by Oman. The novel Half Girlfriend authored by Chetan Bhagat was released.

Biography of Allama Muhammad Iqbal was released. The biography is titled Iqbal: The Life of
a Poet, Philosopher and Politician. The biography is written by Zafar Anjum, the editor of Kitaab

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a novel of Australian author Richard Flanagan. The book
was in news after it won the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

O. Panneerselvam will be the next Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

Days after it published an offensive cartoon mocking India’s successful Mars mission, The
New York Times apologized, saying it was not trying to “impugn” India.

Kerala would become the first State to have high-speed Internet connecting all the panchayats in the State by March next year.

European Union leaders have reached a deal on a comprehensive package of climate targets,
including a binding 40 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the level of 1990
by 2030.

President Pranab Mukherjee authorized Vigilance Commissioner Rajiv to act as chief of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) until the appointment of the Central Vigilance Commissioner.

Justice Handyala Lakshminarayanaswamy Dattu was sworn-in as the 42nd Chief Justice of India on 28 September 2014. He succeeded Chief Justice RM Lodha who demitted office on 27 September 2014.

AIADMK Treasurer O Panneerselvam was sworn-in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. He
replaced the former AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa.

Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai was sworn in as president of Afghanistan.

The Bangladesh government appointed Syed Muazzem Ali as the new Bangladesh High
Commissioner to India.

Suresh Prabhu was appointed as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Sherpa for the Group of 20 annual Summit 2014. The G-20 annual summit will be held in Brisbane from 15 November to 16 November 2014. Sherpa is a senior official responsible for preparing the agenda for leaders to consider during the summit.

India TV chairman and editor-in-chief Rajat Sharma was appointed as the new president
of the News Broadcasting Association (NBA) for the year 2014-2015.

Lieutenant General Rizwan Akhtar was appointed as the new head of the Pakistan’s
spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

US President Barack Obama nominated IndianAmerican Richard Rahul Verma as the next US
Ambassador to India.

Lalitha Kumaramangalam was appointed as chairperson of National Commission for Women.
Chinese President Xi Jinping appointed Le Yucheng as China’s new Ambassador to India.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was appointed as United Nations Messenger of Peace with a special focus on climate change.

The International Economic Association appointed Kaushik Basu as president-elect of the association beginning September 2014However, he will continue to serve as Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of World Bank.

Meghalaya Governor, Dr. Krishan Kant Paul was sworn–in as the Governor of Manipur.
Senior IAS officer Subhash Chandra Garg was appointed as the Executive Director (ED) of
World Bank.

Former Chief Justice of India, Palaniswamy Sathasivam was appointed as the new Governor
of Kerala. He will replace Sheila Dikshit.

Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden and Alan Rusbridger, editor of The
Guardian won Right Livelihood Award.

Cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and Steve Waugh of Australia were selected as Bradman
Honouree 2014.

Hindi-language feature film Liar’s Dice was selected for India’s official entry in the 2015 Oscars Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film category. The film is directed by Geethu Mohandas. The 87th Oscar Awards event will take place in the US on 22 February 2015.

Govind Mishra, the renowned Hindi author was given the Saraswati Samman in New
Delhi. He was given the Samman for his novel Dhool Paudhon Par that was published in 2008.

The World Health Organisation honoured Bangladesh and Timor-Leste with South East
Asia Regional Award for Excellence in Public Health.

Court, an Indian movie written and directed by Indian writer Chaitanya Tamhane won the Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis award for a Debut Feature at the 71st Venice Film Festival.

J Jayalalithaa, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu was found guilty in the disproportionate assets case by the Special Court in Bangalore. The Court pronounced a jail term of 4 years and fined 100 crore rupees to her.

The 41st Chief Justice of India (CJI), Rajendra Mal Lodha retired.

South Africa denied visa to Dalai Lama for Nobel Summit. He was scheduled to attend the 14th
world summit of Nobel peace laureates in Cape Town in October 2014.

Taslima Nasreen, the controversial writer of Bangladesh in first week of September was in India till August 2015.
The President Pranab Mukherjee was on a visit to Vietnam from 14 to 17 September 2014.
Sushma Swaraj, the Union Minister of External Affairs and Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs
visited Bahrain.

Former International cricket umpire Mohammad Ghouse died following a brief illness
The British aid worker, David Haines was in news as he was beheaded by Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants.

Prominent Bangladeshi Nazrul Sangeet singer Firoza Begum died in Dhaka due to heart and
kidney problems.

Legendary US comedian and talk-show host Joan Rivers died.
The world`s oldest test cricketer Norman Gordon died in Johannesburg. He was a former
South African international fast bowler.

Former Attorney General of India Goolam Essaji Vahanvati died of a heart attack in Mumbai.
The G-20 Labour and Employment Ministerial meet was held at Melbourne, Australia.
The two brothers, Achin and Sarthak Narula of Delhi became the first ever contestants to win
7 crore rupees in the television show, Kaun Banega Crorepati, hosted by Amitabh Bachchan.

The revived Nalanda University started its first session with 15 students in its makeshift
campus at the Buddhist pilgrim town of Rajgir, about 100 km from Patna.

Bollywood actor Naseeruddin Shah released his autobiography And then One Day: A
Memoir.

50 years of man in space was authoured by Garik Israelien, Brian May and David J Eicher.
Union Government declared 25 September as Antyodya Diwas. Antyodya diwas was
observed to mark the 98th birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.

India will get $35 billion from Japan over the next five years for development projects,
including building of smart cities and next generation infrastructure.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to turn Varanasi into a ‘smart city’ with help from Kyoto.

The much-awaited minimum monthly pension of Rs.1,000 and a higher wage ceiling of Rs.15,000 for social security schemes run by retirement fund manager Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will be implemented from September 1.

China will set up two industrial parks in India,one each in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Tata Consultancy Services has reappointed N Chandrasekaran as Chief Executive Officer and
Managing Director for a five year term.

ICICI Bank launched Instant Money Transfer. In which customer can now transfer money
from their account to anyone in India with a mobile number.

Meghalaya Governor Krishan Kant Paul has been given additional charge of Manipur and Mizoram.
India and Vietnam signed seven agreements, including one for enhanced cooperation in the oil sector. ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) and Vietnam Oil signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) for jointly exploring two more blocks.