1)
The committee constituted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI’s) to
promote financial inclusion headed by Nachiket Mor in its report,
presented to the RBI on 7 January 2014, recommended universal electronic
bank accounts to all Indian citizens above the age of 18 years. What is
the deadline for opening these bank accounts as recommended by the
committee? – 1 January 2016 (The
committee has recommended that an instruction to open the bank account
should be initiated by the Unique Identification Authority of India
(UIAI) after the issue of an Aadhaar number to an individual over the
age of 18. It also recommended that the RBI should issue a circular
indicating that no bank can refuse to open an account for a customer who
has adequate KYC proof which specifically includes Aadhaar)
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2) Which country became the 18th member of Eurozone on 1 January 2014? – Latvia
(The former Soviet republic on the Baltic Sea recently emerged from the
financial crisis to become the EU's fastest-growing economy. Latvia was
given final clearance to join Eurozone on 9 July 2013 by finance
ministers of the 28-nation European Union. It should be noted that
28-member EU is a political entity and represents the interest of all of
Europe whereas Eurozone is a currency block of 18 nations that have
accepted Euro as a common currency. Not all countries of EU use Euro as
currency (Britain still uses Pound as its currency))
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3)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 31 December 2013 dismissed rumours
that it has stopped banks from accepting scribbled currency notes from 1
January 2014 and announced that banks will continue to accept currency
notes with scribbling. However, it reiterated that writing or scribbling
on banknotes works against its policy to keep currency notes clean and
sought co-operation from public, institutions and others in keeping the
banknotes clean by not writing anything on them. What is the name of
this policy which was released during 2013? – ‘Clean Note Policy’
(RBI in 2013 had said it has been noticed that at certain branches of
banks, the practice of writing/scribbling on the body of the bank notes
continues to remain in vogue. Under the present system of mechanised
processing of banknotes inscription or scribbling on any part of the
banknote would render it to be classified as unfit for reissue)
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4)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 23 December 2013 warned users,
holders and traders of virtual currencies, including bitcoins, of
financial, operational, legal, customer protection and security related
risks. Why was this warning given by the RBI for bitcoins type currency,
which is digital or virtual currency that uses peer-to-peer technology
to facilitate instant payments? – Because bitcoins as a medium for payments are presently not authorised by any central bank or monetary authority in India
(Bitcoin is an alternative currency, which uses cryptography for
security, making it difficult to counterfeit. Bitcoin issuance and
transactions are carried out collectively by the network, with no
central authority. The central bank said it was keeping watch at the
developments relating to certain electronic records claimed to be
decentralised digital currency such as bitcoins, litecoins, bbqcoins,
dogecoins and their usage or trading in the country)
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5)
Union government during December 2013 announced decision to covert the
National Institute for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (NIMSME) into
the National SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) University. NIMSME is
situated at – Hyderabad (This decision was announced at the golden jubilee celebrations of NIMSME held on 21 December 2013 at Hyderabad)
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6)
Who on 20 December 2013 was appointed as the first woman managing
director of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) by the
Government? - Usha Sangwan
(She became the first woman MD in corporation’s history since its
establishment in 1956. With this appointment, LIC is set to function at
its full strength of four MDs after almost two years. These would be S B
Mainak, Sushobhan Sarkar, Sangwan and V K Sharma)
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7)
Indian financial markets were left surprised by Reserve Bank of India
(RBI’s) mid-quarter monetary policy review released on 18 December 2013
as all key policy rates were left unchanged in this review presented by
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan. The short-term lending rate was kept
unchanged at 7.75%, while the cash reserve ratio (CRR) remained at 4%.
Why markets were left surprised with this move? – Because markets had
expected another 25 bps hike in the short-term lending rate due to
persistent high inflationary pressure (The RBI said it will take
calibrated action in the future, based on inflationary trends and action
by the US Federal Reserve)
Key highlights of RBI’s mid-quarter review of monetary policy
- - Key policy rate, cash reserve ratio unchanged
- - Repo rate unchanged at 7.75%; cash reserve ratio unchanged at 4%
- - RBI to wait for more data before taking policy action
- - Outlook on global growth continues to remain moderate
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8)
According to the statistics given by the Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority (IRDA) during December 2013, the average number of
policies sold by an agent of LIC was almost 10 times that of his
private sector counterpart. LIC’s agents managed their outperformance
last year too, when the life insurance business was on a slide. What was
the average policy sale figure for an LIC agent as disclosed by the
IRDA? – 29 Policies (LIC has an agency force of 11.72 lakh while private companies have 9.49 lakh agents working for them)
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9)
The much-anticipated inflation indexed bonds, linked to consumer prices
were made available for sale for a week beginning 23 December 2013.
What was the name of these bonds which sought to protect consumer
savings from price rise by offering returns over and above inflation at
the retail level? - Inflation Indexed National Savings Securities – Cumulative
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10)
The Ministry of Environment and Forests announced on 20 December 2013
that the ecologically-sensitive Western Ghats will remain off-bounds for
mining, quarrying, sand mining and other industrial activities. This
move comes after a high-level working group recommended that all
destructive industrial activities, that include mining and thermal power
plants, should be banned in the region. Who headed this group? - K. Kasturirangan,
Member (Science), Planning Commission (The group recognised about 37%
of the Western Ghats, covering about 60,000 square km, to be
ecologically sensitive)
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