27 January 2014 – Current Affairs

by Ravindra Agnihotri

1) Which city on 25 January 2014 became the first in India to offer free Wi-Fi spots for the public? – Bangalore (Karnataka Government’s Department of Information Technology, Biotechnology, Science & Technology launched the ‘Namma Wi-Fi’ hotspots across six spots in the city. Usage will be limited to three hours per day or up to 50 MB data. The total number of access points would be 23 in the coverage area which will accommodate 2,000 users at the same time. To use this service, users should have an authentication password which would be sent to their mobile after they register on the network) ..............................

.................................................................................................................................... 2) Switzerland's Stanislas Wawrinka claimed his first Grand Slam title in dramatic fashion on 26 January 2014 when he upset injury-troubled world number one Rafael Nadal of Spain in the Australian Open men’s singles final. He defeated Nadal by 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 to win his maiden Grand Slam tennis title. Stanislas Wawrinka has earlier in January 2014 won which ATP title in India? – Chennai Open (Wawarinka had won the men’s singles title of Chennai Open on 5 January 2014) .................................................................................................................................................................. 3) Vakrangee Ltd., which is engaged in providing e-governance solutions, recently came to news for banking related activities. Why? – It has received final authorization for operating White Label ATM (WLA) license from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) - Under, the RBI license, the company is entitled to set up and run minimum 15,000 ATMs across the country in next three years. White label ATMs are those which are not run by the Banks but by a non- banking entity in its own brand name (like Vakrangee ATM) after passing through all the stringent qualification and due-diligence process undertaken by RBI .................................................................................................................................................................. 4) The third one-day international (ODI) of the India-New Zealand series at Auckland on 25 January 2014 ended in a nail-biting tie with India scoring exactly 314 runs, the same scored by the Kiwis. It was India’s 7^th tie in an ODI match. What record was added to the name of Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni for this tied match? - MS Dhoni created history by becoming the first ODI captain to have participated in four tied matches (Richie Richardson (West Indies), Steve Waugh (Australia) and Shaun Pollock (South Africa) were involved in three ties each. The first tie for Dhoni was in the 2011 ICC World Cup against England in Bangalore. His second was also against England at Lord's on 11 September 2011. The third occasion was against Sri Lanka in Adelaide in February 2012) .................................................................................................................................................................. 5) Karl Slym, who passed away on 26 January 2014 in Bangkok, was the top executive associated with which Indian automobile company? – Tata Motors (He was the Managing Director of Tata Motors. He died in Bangkok on 26 January 2014 where he had gone to attend a board meeting of the company's Thailand arm. The UK-born Slym was brought to the company in 2012 to turn around the company’s domestic business as Tata Motors was fully dependent on profits generated by the company’s UK-based subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover till the end of the last quarter)