CURRENT AFFAIRS FOR BANK EXAM 2008
1. UNESCO’ recognizes Kalka-Shimla Railway as world heritage site .
2. Miss Venezuela Dayana Mendoza crowned Miss Universe 2008.
3.NREGA workers in rural poor category are to be included under Janashree Bima Yojana
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. Vice President of India, Shri Mohd. Hamid Ansari on 04 July, 2008 released a book I Believe: A Philosophy for the Global Society¡¦ written by Dr. Karan Singh
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 beenposthumously 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 magined. 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'sThe 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. President appointed New Governors in the follwing States of India in the month of July 2008 is as following :
Assam - Shiv Charan Mathur
Sikkim - Balmimiki Prasad Singh
Meghalaya - .R.S.Mushahari
Manipur - Gurbachan Singh Jagat
Himachal Pradesh - Prabha Rau
Maharashtra- S.C.Jamir
Goa- S.S.Sidhu
Kerala - R.S.Gavai
Bihar- R.L.Bhatia
52. 34th G-8 summit concluded between 7-9 July ,2008 at Toyako (Japan).
53. Tendulkar honoured with best Asian ODI batsman award by ACC
