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1. The Dhando Investor is
written by Californiabased Indian investor Mohnish
Pabrai who paid up $650,100 (Rs 2.6 crore) for a charity
lunch with legendary investment guru Warren Buffett. The
secret to investment success, Pabrai argues, is not to
confuse activity with productivity.
2. Gandhiji's Birthday, October 2, has been
designated by the UN as the International Day of
Nonviolence.
3. BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile,
jointly developed by India and Russia. BrahMos is the
third missile to be inducted into the land forces. The
army has raised missile groups equipped with the Prithvi
surface-to-surface missile with a range of 150 to 250
km, and the 700-km medium range Agni missile.
4. Nalanda, one of the world's oldest
universities, is being revived by the Bihar government.
Ancient Nalanda's pre-eminence in Buddhist studies has
got the governments of Japan, China and Singapore
interested in the project. Nalanda University was an
ancient seat of Buddhist learning, set up around 450 AD.
It was one of the world's first residential
universities, accommodating 10,000 students and 2000
teachers in its heyday. It was destroyed in 1193 by
invaders led by Bakhtiar Khilji.
5. The Union Cabinet has allowed steel tycoon L.N.
Mittal to acquire a 49 per cent stake in Hindustan
Petroleum Corporation's (HPCL's) nine million tonne Guru
Gobind Singh refinery in Bathinda, Punjab. The project
also involves a 1000 km pipeline from the Mundra port
in Gujarat to Bathinda and a crude oil terminal at
Mundra.
6. Cherrapunjee, the old colonial name by which
this quaint Meghalaya town attained international fame
as the place with the highest recorded rainfall, will
now be known as Sohra.
7. The Red Fort, Delhi's defining monument and a
symbol of India's sovereign nationhood, is now a world
heritage site. Humayun's Tomb and the Qutub Minar
complex are two Delhi sites that made it to the list in
1993. There are 24 other UNESCO World Heritage sites in
India, among them being the Taj, The Ajanta, Ellora and
Elephanta caves, the Kaziranga, Keoladeo and Sundarban
National Parks, the Darjeeling mountain railway, and
Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.
8. The new seven wonders of the World: Taj Mahal
(1630 A.D.) Agra, India; Pyramid At Chichen Itza,
Mexico; Machu Picchu (1460-1470), Peru; Christ Redeemer
(1931), Brazil; Great Wall of China; Petra (9 B.C.-40
A.D.), Jordan.
9. Brazilian scientists say they have established
that the Amazon, not the Nile, is the longest river in
the world. The claim followed an expedition to Peru that
is said to have established a new starting point further
south. It puts the Amazon at 6,800 km, compared to the
Nile's 6,695 km.
10. On June 22, 2007, Indian-American astronaut
Sunita Williams back to earth after a record I95-day
stay in space. She surpassed the 188-day four-hour mark
set by US astronaut Shannon Lucid in 1996.
11. National Film Awards, 2005: Best feature
Film: Kaalpurush (Bengali), directed by Buddhadeb
Dasgupta. Best Director: Rahul Dholakia, Parzania
(English). Best Actor: Amitabh Bachchan, Black. Best
Actress: Sarika,
Parzania. Best Playback singer (Male): Naresh Iyer, Roo
ba roo, (Rang De Basanti). Best Playback singer (Female) Shreya Ghoshal, Apne aansoo peene ke liye, (Paheli).
Best Music Direction: Lalgudi Jayaraman, Sringaram.
Best
Popular Film: Rang De Basanti (Hindi).
12. Filmmaker Shyam Benegal has won the
prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke award for 2005.
13. Everybody Loves a Good Drought is written by
renowned journalist P. Sainath, winner of the 2007 Ramon
Magsaysay Award, Asia's equivalent of the
Nobel Prize, in the category for Journalism, Literature.
and Communication.
14. The Union government has cleared a gigantic
Rs 10,000 crore project with Israel to develop an
advanced medium-range surface-to-air (MR-SAM) missile system capable of detecting and destroying hostile
aircraft, missiles and spy drones at a range of 70 km.
15. Gen Deepak Kapoor is the Army Chief of India.
16. Phoenix is a robotic spacecraft on a space
exploration mission to Mars. The scientists will use
instruments aboard the Phoenix lander to search for
environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to
research the history of water there. Phoenix landed on
Mars in May 2008.
17. An Automated Transfer Vehicle or ATV is an
unmanned re-supply spacecraft developed by the European
Space Agency (ESA). ATVs are designed to supply the
International Space Station with propellant, water, air,
payload and experiments.
18. Ashoka Chakra, 2007 award, the country's
highest peacetime award, has been posthumously awarded
to Col Vasanth Venugopal of 9 Maratha Light Infantry,
Capt Harshan R. of 2 Para (Special Forces) and Naib
Subedar Chunni Lal of 8 Jammu and Kashmir Light
Infantry.
19. Ace shooter Manavjit Singh Sandhu is the
recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, 2006,
India's highest sporting honour.
20. Guru Nanak Dev University has won Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, 2005-06—the highest award for
excellence in university sports.
21. The 15th century Maitreya Temple in Ladakh
has won the Award of Excellence at the 2007 UNESCO
Asia-Pacific Heritage awards. Mumbai University's
132—year old grand Cowasjee Jehangir Convocation Hall has
been conferred an Award of Distinction.
22. Scientists have for the first time found uranium in
"exceptionally high concentration" in Ladakh, the icy
Himalayan region in J&K that has strategic significance
for India.
23. Wing Commanders Rahul Monga and Anil Kumar of
Indian Air Force covered in 80 days record time a
distance of 40,497 km over 19 countries—from the lofty
Rockies in the western North America to the frozen
waters of the North Atlantic, with dense forests and
arid deserts thrown in between. They beat the world
record of 99 days set by Colin Bodil of UK in 2001.
24. The ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial
Corridor (DMIC) project would include six mega
investment regions of 200 square kilometres each and
will run through Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana,
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The investment
regions are: Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh;
ManesarBawal in Haryana, Khushkhera-Bhiwadi-Neemra in
Rajasthan, Pitampura-Dhar-Mhow in Madhya Pradesh,
Bharuch-Dahej in Gujarat and Igatpuri-Nashik-Sinnar in
Maharashtra.
25. The first individual genome ever sequenced—a
complete DNA blueprint of celebrity scientist Craig
Venter—has revealed genetic variation among humans far
richer than previously imagined. The 2.8 billion
contiguous bits of genetic code will also hasten
advances in preventative medicine.
26. On September 2, 2007, India successfully
placed into orbit its latest communication satellite,
INSAT-4CR, using the GSLV-F04 rocket.
27. Central Bank of India has been awarded the
Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Shield for excellent
implementation of official language policy of government
of India for in 2005-06.
28. The Tale of Genjt : The Sacred Tree is the
second of the six volumes of the first novel written in
human history—and by a woman.
29. Two of India's big money minting sites—Vapi
in Gujarat and Sukinda in Orissa—are among the world's
top 10 most polluted areas, according to a report
prepared by a US environmental group. The top ten in the
list are: Sumgayit, Azerbaijan; Linfen, China; Tianying,
China; Sukinda, India; Vapi, India; La Oroya, Peru;
Dzerzhinsk, Russia; Norilsk, Russia; Chernobyl, Ukraine;
and Kabwe, Zambia.
30. Russia has tested the world's most powerful
non-nuclear bomb—an air delivered thermobaric bomb to
use the technical jargon. The Russian designers dubbed
it as the "father of all bombs" because it is four times
more powerful than the US-built Massive Ordnance Air
Blast Bomb (MOAB), which is also known as the "mother of
all bombs".
31. Twenty five years ago, Carnegie Mellon
University 'professor Scott E. Fahiman was the first to
use three keystrokes— a colon followed by a hyphen and a
parenthesis—as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer
message.
32. Burj Dubai is the world's tallest building
since July 2007, and has also become the tallest free
standing structure on earth, reaching 1,822 feet. Still
under construction, the Burj Dubai has surpassed
Canada's Toronto-based CN Tower, which at 1822 feet had
been the world's tallest free standing structure since
1976. In July 2007, the Dubai Tower as it is known in
English, moved past Taiwan's 1667 foot Taipei 101, the
highest skyscraper in the world since 2004.
33. Tamll Nadu will, as of now, is the only State
to have two Ultra-Mega Power Projects (UMPP) of 4,000
megawatts capacity each. Cheyur district in Tamil Nadu
has been identified as place for setting up of the first
project. The Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu is
likely to be chosen for the second UMPP in the State.
Sasan in Madhya Pradesh and Mundra in Rajasthan are two
of the ten UMPPs that have already been awarded to the
winning bidders.
34. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
is developing an India-specific navigation system in the
lines of the Global Positioning System (GPS). The Indian
Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), comprising
seven satellites, will be ready in 2011-12. At present,
the Global Positioning System (GPS) is controlled by the
US defence department. Russia is also in the process of
restoring its own navigation system of 24 satellites,
Glossnass, by 2009. Besides, Europe is building a
satellite navigation system, Galileo, which would be
ready in 2012-13.
35. UK is the first country in the world to allow
human-animal embryos for research. The embryos or 'cybrids'
as they are known, are banned elsewhere, including in
the US, Australia and Canada. The cybrids
will be more than 90% human and less than 1% animal.
36. Japan launched its first lunar probe on
September 14, 2007. The probe is nicknamed Kaguya after
a fairy tale princess.
37. Nobel Prize for Peace, 2007, has been won by
IPCC, UN climate panel, headed by Indian environmental
warrior Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, and former
Vice-President of USA and climate campaigner Al Gore.
38. Anne Enright's The Gathering has won the
Booker Prize, 2007. She became only the second Irish
woman to win the Booker in its 38 years.
39. The Golden Notebook was the breakthrough
novel written by Doris Lessing, winner of the 2007 Nobel
Prize for literature. Published in 1962, the book
tracked the story of Anna Wulf, a woman who wanted to
live freely and was in some ways Lessing's alter ego.
Lessing inspired a generation of feminists with this
novel.
40. On October 24, 2007, China launched its first
moon orbiter, Chang'e one, named after a mythical
Chinese goddess who flew to the moon. Chang'e 1's goal
was to analyze the chemical and mineral composition of
the lunar surface.
41. Carbon trading is part of the larger emission
trading, which is a method worked out to control
pollution by using economic incentives.
42. Participatory Notes (PNs) are instruments
used by foreign funds not registered in India, for
trading in the domestic market. They are a derivative
instrument issued against an underlying security that
permits the holder to get a share in the income from the
underlying security.
43. The first two Hawks, the Advanced Jet Trainer
(AJT) aircraft, landed at the Bidar Air force station in
Karnataka in November 2007, paving the way for the
gradual replacement of the MiG 21s. Of the 66 Hawks to
be inducted into the IAF, 24 are being built and
supplied by BAE systems, while Hindustan Aeronautics
Limited (HAL), Bangalore, will manufacture the remaining
42
aircraft in India.
44. On December 6, 2007, India unleashed a new
"interceptor" missile to "kill" an incoming "hostile"
missile over the Bay of Bengal. During the test, a
Prithvi missile, modified to "mimic" a hostile ballistic
missile with a 300-1,000 km range, was first fired from
the Balasore interim test range in Orissa. The incoming
missile was then tracked by Long-Range Tracking Radars (LRTRs)
developed with Israeli help and is a part of the
automated command and control network. LRTRs in turn
conveyed the "threat" to the "endo" (taking the "enemy"
missile at an 15-20 km altitude above the earth) missile
battery in far away Wheeler Island. Finally, the
interceptor missile blasted off to eventually destroy
the "enemy" missile in fireworks over the Bay of Bengal.
45. Indian Railways has signed an agreement with
NTPC for setting up a 1,000 mw power plant in Nabinagar
(Bihar) with a total investment of about Rs 4,000 crore.
The project will be implemented by a joint venture
company-Bharatiya Rail Bijlee. The project will
primarily be a captive power plant for the Railways.
46. Tata Motors and the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) have teamed-up to launch a vehicle
that will run on hydrogen, leaving behind only water
vapour as exhaust. While Indian Space Research
Organisation will handle the technological aspects, like
storage and handling of fuels, Tata will manufacture the
cars.
47. The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, a
brainchild of MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, is in
talks with several State governments to provide these
laptops, which cost around $180 or Rs 7,160 in schools.
The OLPC Foundation, along with Reliance Communications
(RCom), did a pilot project with a school in Khairat
village in Raigadh, Maharashtra in the month of October
2007.
48. Indians have joined an exclusive league of
scientists—from the US, Russia and Europe—who have the
capability to design and build cryogenic engines which
are critical for hoisting communication satellites as
well as manned missions to space.
49. National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) will
now combat possible chemical, biological, radiological
and nuclear casualties and pandemics in the country.
Eight battalions, each consisting of 1158 personnel on
deputation for five years from CRPF, ITBP, BSF and CISF
have been trained to counter any emergency, be it a
poisonous gas leak or damage due to radiation, in any
part of the country. While one battalion each has
already been put in position at Guwahati, Kolkata,
Bhubaneswar, Anakonam (Chennai), Pune, Baroda and
Chandigarh, the eighth battalion will be stationed at
Greater Noida.
50. The breath-taking Akshardham Temple in Delhi
has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as
the 'World's Largest Comprehensive Hindu Temple'.
51. Norway has drawn up plans to build the
world's first shipping tunnel.
52. Eminent Hindi author Krishna Sobti has been
awarded the Vyas Samman, 2007, for her novel, Samay
Sargam. Instituted by the K.K. Birla Foundation and
given to an outstanding literary work in Hindi, the
award carries a prize of Rs 2.50 lakh.
53. Masdar City is a nearly self-contained
mini-municipality designed for up to 50,000 people,
rising from the desert next to Abu Dhabi's international
airport and intended as a hub for academic and corporate
research on non-polluting energy technologies.
54. On February 4, 2008, NASA broadcast the
Beatles' song "Across the Universe" across the galaxy to
Polaris, the North Star. This first-ever beaming of a
radio song by the space agency directly into deep space
celebrated the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th
anniversary of NASA's Deep Space Network, which
communicates with its distant probes, and the 50th
anniversary of NASA. It will take 431 years along a long
and winding road, travelling at the speed of light, for
the song to reach its final destination.
55. On January 21, 2008, India successfully launched an
Israeli spy satellite from Sriharikota space station
using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C10). The
TECSAR is the first satellite of its kind developed in
Israel, and ranks among the world's most advanced space
system.
56. A collection of short stories in Urdu, Taos Chaman ki Myna, by noted litterateur Dr Naiyer Masud has
been named for the Saraswati Samman, 2007.
57. Billed as a green fuel break-through in the
aviation sector, the world's first flight by a
commercial airline partly powered by bio-fuel touched
down in Amsterdam on February 24, 2008, after a
three-hour journey from the Heathrow airport. Virgin
Atlantic's Boeing 747 had one of its four engines
connected to an independent bio-fuel tank that provided
20 per cent of the engine's power. The flight did not
carry passengers.
58. On February 26, 2008, India successfully
testfired its first-ever undersea nuclear capable
ballistic missile off the eastern coastal city of
Vishakhapatnam, catapulting it to the select band of
five countries equipped with the technology. The
missile, K-15, with a range of 700 km, was test fired
from a pontoon immersed in the sea. The test was
undertaken from a submerged pontoon as India does not
have a submarine capable to undertake firing of such
missiles.
59. In a first attempt of its kind in India,
State-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) plans to start a pilot
project in Assam to convert the gas used for flaring
into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The pilot project
hopes to not only reduce carbon emission levels but also
help in saving an increasingly scarce commodity, gas.
The technology used for the pilot project is called
small LNG technology.
60. The Central government has declared 14 water
resources projects as National Projects. The projects
are: Teesta Barrage (West Bengal), Shahpur Kandi
(Punjab), Bursar (Jammu and Kashmir), 2nd Ravi-Beas Vyas
Link (Punjab), Ujh multipurpose project (Jammu and
Kashmir), Gyspa project (Himachal Pradesh), Lakhvar
Vyasi (Uttaranchal)' Kishau (Himachal Pradesh/Uttaranchal),
Renuka (Himachal Pradesh), Noa Dehang Dam Project (Arunachal
Pradesh), Kulsi Dam Project (Assam), Upper Siang (Arunachal
Pradesh), Gisikhurd (Maharashtra) and Ken Betwa (Madhya
Pradesh).
61. Delimitation is the exercise of redrawing
boundaries of Lok Sabha or Assembly constituencies to
maintain an equitable distribution of population across
constituencies. Article 82 of the Constitution directs
the Parliament to enact a Delimitation Act after every
census. India has in the past witnessed four such
commissions-1952, 1963, 1973 and 2002.
62. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has won
the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and
Development, 2007.
63. Arthur C. Clarke was a famous science fiction
writer. His most famous novel was 2001: A Space Odyssey,
written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick,
a collaboration which led also to the film of the same
name.
64. The world's largest tidal turbine, weighing
1000 tonnes, has been installed in Northern Ireland's
Strangford Lough. The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2
megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local
homes.
65. Information and Broadcasting Minister
Priyaranjan Dasmunshi was selected for the best
parliamentarian for 2007 award. Past recipients of the
award include: Chandra Shekhar, Sonmath Chatterjee,
Pranab Mukherjee, Jaipal Reddy, L.K. Advani, Arjun
Singh, Manmohan Singh, Sharad Pawar, Sushma Swaraj, P.
Chidambaram and Mani Shankar Aiyar.
66. Nirmala Deshpande was noted Gandhian and
Rajya Sabha MP. She died on May 1, 2008. Daughter of
famous Marathi litterateur P.Y. Deshpande, she started
her tryst with destiny in 1952 when she joined Acharya
Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan yatra, walking more than 40,000
km to propagate the ideology of non-violent revolution
and gram swaraj.
67. Tabla wizard Pandit Kishan Maharaj died on
May 4, 2008. He was considered to be one of the finest
players of the tabla in the country. He would be
remembered for his rare ability to play cross rhythms
and produce complex calculations, particularly in tihai
patterns.
68. India and Sri Lanka are working on a plan to
lay a transmission line under the sea to connect the
power distribution networks of the two countries so that
electricity can be supplied by one when the other is
running short. The report projects laying a power cable
under the Gulf of Mannar, between Rameshwaram in Tamil
Nadu and Talaimannar on the left flank of the Mannar
islands in Sri Lanka.
69. On April 19, 2008, India created a record of
sorts in space history as scientists of the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully put 10
satellites in orbit in a single mission launched from
Sriharikota. The 230-tonne PSLV-C9 carried the
satellites, which included an Indian mini-satellite and
eight foreign nano satellites and the Cartosat-2A remote sensing satellite.
70. World Father's day is celebrated on June 17.
71. Mumbai has been ranked 10th among the world's
biggest financial centres in terms of financial flow
volumes, in a global survey by MasterCard Worldwide. The
list, led by London and New York in the first two slots,
includes two other Asian cities—Tokyo at number five and
Seoul at number six.
72. GIS is a system for capturing, storing,
analysing and managing data and associated attributes
which are spatially referenced to the earth.
73. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA)
has revised the royalty rates on coal and lignite to
about 14 per cent. The revision in royalty rates would
increase the revenues of the coal producing States to Rs
3,718 crore, from the current Rs 3,000 crore.
74. Exports from India to Pakistan have more than
doubled to top $1 billion during FY07, with Indian
traders weighing in to help Pakistan tide over supply
shortages to many essential items. India's export basket
to Pakistan features mainly agri-based products like
sugar, vegetables, meal and related products.
75. American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS
Nimitz paid an unprecedented port call at Chennai in
July 2007
76. India's trade deficit widened by $8 billion
to $64.9 billion in 2006-07 after revision of the trade
data for the first three quarters of the fiscal. The
imports, which were earlier stated to be $181.3 billion,
are now shown by the RBI data to be much higher at
$191.99 billion. Exports have been revised to $127.09
billion, as against $124.6 billion announced by the
government in May.
77. The first-ever train service between India
and Bangladesh began in July 2007 with the inter-country
Moitree Express that runs between Dhaka and Kolkata.
78. A record-breaking performance by Life
Insurance Corporation in 2006-07 pushed up India's share
of the world life insurance market from 1.02% to 1.68%.
Indian insurance companies recorded a 19.9% growth in
premium in dollar terms after adjusting for inflation.
79. "India Now" was a three-month festival of
1500 events showcasing Indian art, film, theatre, music,
fashion, food and business. The festival was aimed at
cementing Britain's age-old ties with the 'emerging
economic superpower'.
80. Monks and nuns from monasteries across the
Himalayas gathered in Ladakh in August 2007 to mark 800
years of the Drukpa, or 'dragon' sect of Tibetan
Buddhism.
81. Banaras is one of the oldest living cities of
the world, that has been continually inhabited. It is
believed to be the city of Lord Shiva, who resides here
along with his consort, Parvati.
82. State Bank of India, Life Insurance
Corporation of India (LIC) and UTI Asset Management
Company have been designated pension fund managers for
government employees under the new pension system.
83. Israeli Arabs have entered into the Guinness
Book of World Records for largest and longest group
performance of the "Debke" dance, a mainstay of weddings and communal celebrations in the West Asia. A
record 2743 Israeli Arabs danced holding hands in a
human chain in the famed Old City of Acre, breaking the
previous record of 1700 set in Toronto a few years ago.
84. Pratibha Patil is the 12th person and the
first woman to occupy the post of President of India.
K.R. Narayanan was the first Dalit to become President
of India and Zakir Hussain was the first Muslim to
become President of India.
85. Punhana town in Mewat district of Haryana has
the distinction to have India's first mobile court which
would function as a regular court on wheels so as to
provide inexpensive justice and that too at the
doorsteps of the people.
86. The 85th Constitution amendment provides for
giving consequential seniority in promotion to scheduled
caste candidates.
87. Time magazine's August 13, 2007 issue was a
special issue that commemorated 60 years of India's
independence.
88. Raj Patel, an Indian American character, has
made his debut as the new character in the famous
Archies Comics. Digest No. 21, "Out-Raj-ous Behaviour",
features the new comic character for the first time.
89. The 90-minute animation film, titled Goal,
which is based on life of Brazilian football player Ronaldo, is the first Hollywood animation film that is
completely outsourced from India.
90. Snow leopard will be the new State animal of
Himachal Pradesh, western tragopan the new State bird
and the pink rhododendron the new State flower.
91. The funding pattern of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,
the flagship programme for universalisation of
elementary education, is set to change to 65:35 between
the Centre and States, from 50:50 as envisaged earlier.
The funding formula would work out like this: 65:35 in
2007-09, 60:40 in 2009-10, 55:45 in 2010-11 and 50:50 in
2011-12.
92. The Sirsa district of Haryana has achieved
the remarkable distinction of becoming the first 100%
Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFL) district of the country.
93. The Union Social Justice & Empowerment
Ministry has accepted the long-standing demand of Rai
Sikhs in Punjab for inclusion in Scheduled Castes list.
94. MALABAR CY 07-2 was the largest-ever war game
hosted by the Indian Navy. It was held in the Bay of
Bengal on September 4-9, 2007. Close to 30 warships from
five countries—India, US, Japan, Singapore and
Australia—besides fighter aircraft from the Indian Air
Force participated in the war game exercise.
95. India recorded a GDP growth rate of 9.4 per
cent for 2006-07.
96. "Incredible India@60" was a four-day
celebration that was held in New York to take India's
extraordinary energy and cultural diversity right to the
US market. It was jointly organised by Union Ministry of
Tourism and Culture and the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII).
97. As per the Securities Contracts (Regulation)
Act, 1956, every recognised stock exchange has to sell
51% of its stake to non-brokers, a move called
demutualisation, within a stipulated time after such a
scheme has been approved by the regulator.
98. India was by far the largest borrower from
two World Bank institutions, accounting for $3.75
billion, or 15 per cent of their total lending as the
bank group globally committed $34.3 billion in fiscal
year 2007.
99. Wagah border (with Pakistan, near Amritsar,
Punjab) will now be called Attari border. The name of
the border should have been changed immediately after
the partition, but somehow, India continued using the
names of the places which are now in Pakistan.
100. India's software and services export is
estimated to have grown at a robust 32% to $31.3 billion
or Rs 1.41 lakh crore for 2006-07, as per the official
figures of Department of Information Technology. During
2006-07 electronics and IT exports are estimated to be
Rs 1,53,300 crore, compared to Rs 1,13,725 crore in FY
05-06, a growth of about 35%. |
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Quick Revision Notes on Current Affairs