Ba Awareness

Banking & Financial Awareness - 30
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1) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 15 July 2013

imposed fines totaling Rs. 49.5 crore on 22 public
and private sector banks for violating KYC/antimoney laundering norms. How many banks were
given cautionary letters following an expose
made by an online portal? Seven (These seven
banks are Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank,
Barclays Bank, BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of
Scotland, Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi and State
Bank of Patiala. A penalty of Rs. 3 crore each was
imposed on 7 banks which were - State Bank of
India (SBI), Bank of India, Canara Bank, Bank of
Baroda, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas
Bank and Federal Bank. The United Bank of India,
Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Punjab National Bank, Jammu
& Kashmir Bank and Andhra Bank were slapped a
penalty of Rs. 2.5 crore each. A penalty of Rs. 2
crore each was imposed on Yes Bank, Vijaya
Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and Dhanlaxmi
Bank. The other banks which were penalised by
the RBI include Deutsche Bank, Development
Credit Bank, ING Vysya Bank, Kotak Mahindra
Bank and Ratnakar Bank)
2) Which PSU bank became the first to take
unusual step of publishing photographs of loan
guarantors along with that of borrowers who
have failed to repay their loans? Allahabad
Bank (Allahabad Bank on 9 July 2013 published
photographs of three guarantors for a bank loan
worth Rs. 314 crore which had not been repaid.
PSU banks decided to apply pressure on loan
guarantors along-side the defaulters. The move
came on heels of 39 listed banks reporting a 36%
rise in NPAs (non-performing assets) to Rs.
1,79,431 crore as on 31 March 2013)
3) Union Govt. on 9 July 2013 hiked the import
duty on sugar to 15% in an effort to help the
sugar industry clear Rs. 9,000 crore cane arrears

to farmers. What was the import duty on sugar
before this move? 10% (The duty of both raw
and white (refined) sugar was raised to 15% as
sugar imports had been putting pressure on
domestic prices and have prevented millers from
clearing cane arrears to farmers. The hike in duty
was aimed at curbing import of sugar and
improving the bearish sentiment in domestic
market. This would, however, lead to rise in sugar
prices across the country)
4) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 8 July 2013
allowed NBFCs (non-banking finance companies)
to access the external commercial borrowing
(ECB) market. What was the category defined for
such NBFCs by the RBI? Asset Finance
Companies or AFCs (This name was given as
NBFCs involved in asset financing have been
allowed to access the ECB market. The access is
subject to certain conditions including availing of
ECB under the automatic route with minimum
average maturity of five years to finance import
of infrastructure equipment for leasing to
infrastructure projects)
5) Which country will become 18th member of
the Eurozone from 1 January 2014? Latvia
(Economy and finance ministers from the 28
European Union (EU) countries gave the final
green light to Latvia on 9 July 2013 to join the
eurozone on 1 January. Latvia emerged from a
crisis in 2008-09 to become the fastest-growing
economy of the EU, having posted GDP growth of
more than five percent year-on-year in both 2011
and 2012. 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 17 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))
6) In the biggest foreign investment pullout from
India, worlds largest steel maker ArcelorMittal
on 17 July 2013 scrapped its $12 billion (Rs.
50,000 crore) steel plant proposed to be set up in
an eastern state. Which state is this? Odisha
(ArcelorMittal blamed inordinate delays in
acquiring land and securing iron ore linkages for
scrapping this deal. This plant was proposed to be
set up in Keonjhar district of the state)
7) The govt. on 17 July 2013 approved a

proposal to amend SEBI Law for providing
more powers to crack down on ponzi
schemes. What specific additional powers
would be provided to SEBI after the
amendments comes into effect?
a) Direct powers to carry out search and
seizure operations and attachment of assets
b) Power to seek information, such as
telephone call data records, from any person
or entities in respect of any securities
transaction
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(Ponzi schemes are schemes which offer very

heavy or extraordinary returns to investors
and are generally not very transparent about
their business operations)
8) What will be the name of Indias first allwomen bank, announcement for which was
done in the Union Budget of 2013-14?
Bharatiya Mahila Bank BMB (The present
deadline for launch of this bank is 1
November 2013 and the bank is expected to
have 39 branches across the country in its

first year)
9) Market regulator, the Securities and
Exchange Board of India (SEBI), on 16 July
2013 said that PSUs (public sector
undertakings) not fulfilling the minimum
public holding, would face action. What are
the salient features of minimum public
holding norms of the SEBI?
a) All listed PSUs are required to fulfill the
minimum public shareholding norms, after
which the Government will hold a maximum
of 90% shares, while the remaining will be
owned by the general public, banks, financial
institutions or mutual funds.
b) Due date for this norm to be complied
with is 8 August 2013
c) All private sector listed companies were
required to achieve at least 25% public
shareholding by 3 June 2013 (SEBI had taken
action against the promoters and directors of 105
non-compliant companies)
10) First major economic reform was announced
in China on 19 July 2013 since Xi Jinping became
the President in March 2013. What is this major
economic reform? Decontrol of lending rates
for banks with which banks in China will be able
to set their own lending rates (This move was
seen as a step to address the problem of
economic slowdown and declining growth.
Competitive bank lending rates is expected to
result in lowering the cost of acquiring funds for
business)

1) All public sector banks have been asked to
set up ATMs in all branches to enable
customers in rural pockets to do banking roundthe-clock. What is the deadline for setting-up
branch-ATMs for these banks? March 2014

(Finance Minister P. Chidambaram reiterated
this while inaugurating the 5,999th branch of
Punjab National Bank in Tirupattur, Tamil Nadu
on 28 July, 2013)
2) Who was chosen as the head of the
Empowered Committee of State Finance
Ministers on the Goods and Services Tax (GST)
on 22 July, 2013? Abdul Rahim Rather, Jammu
& Kashmir Finance Minister (The post of
Chairman of the Finance Ministrys committee
on Goods and Services Tax (GST) has been lying
vacant since 17 June 2013 when Bihar Finance
Minister Sushil Kumar Modi resigned following
the JD(U)BJP split in the state. Rather, who is
also a senior National Conference leader, was
chosen to head the panel at a meeting of state
Finance Ministers held at New Delhi)
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3) What was the GDP projection for 2013-14 as

announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
on 30 July, 2013 while delivering the first
quarter review of its Annual Policy for 2013-14?
5.5%, which is lower than RBIs previous
projection of 5.7% (Weighed down by a weak
rupee, the RBI chose to keep all key interest
rates unchanged and asked the government to
take urgent steps to rein in the high current
account deficit. This was the last quarter review
for RBI Governor D. Subbarao, who is slated to
retire days before the next mid-quarter review
on 18 September 2013. RBIs second quarter
policy review will be made on 29 October 2013)
4) The Securities Law Amendment Ordnance,
2013, which was promulgated by President
Pranab Mukherjee on 18 July, 2013, provides
more powers to Indias market regulator SEBI to
crackdown ponzi schemes running in the
country. Under the promulgated ordnance,
what is the prescribed corpus size of pooled
public-funds, over which SEBI gets power to

carry out its crackdown for non-compliance?
Rs. 100 crore or more (The ordnance provides
SEBI the powers to regulate any pooling of
funds under an investment contract involving a
corpus of 100 crore rupees or more and attach
assets in case of non-compliance. The ordinance
was promulgated by the President following the
powers granted to him by Clause 1 of Article
123 of Constitution)
5) Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar
Mangalam Birla on 23 July, 2013 resigned from
the board of directors of the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) in view of conflict of interest over
the issue of fresh bank licenses, as one of the
companies of his group has applied to RBI for
banking license. Which company is this? - Aditya
Birla Nuvo, which is one of the 26 companies
who have applied for banking license
6) Union Minister for Commerce and

Industry Anand Sharma during July 2013
announced major liberalization in the upper
limits of foreign direct investment (FDI) in
sectors such as defence, telecom,
insurance, retail, etc. What were the major
announcements made in FDI limits?
New clause of raising FDI in Defence sector,
under which FDI in state-of-the-art segment
of defence manufacturing can be raised
from 26% through approval of the Cabinet
Committee on Security (CCS). However, for
the rest of the defence sector FDI upperlimit remains at 26%
In single-brand retail FDI upto 49% will be
through automatic route, while approval of
Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB)
will be required for FDI above 49%
In multi-brand retail also FDI upto 49%
made through direct route
49% FDI in insurance sector approved

through automatic route (Present limit for
FDI through automatic route was 26%)
FDI limit through automatic route in power
exchange sector set at 49%
100% FDI in telecom sector cleared by the
union govt.
The condition of divestment to Indian
partner in tea sector cancelled and now
stakes can be divested to third-parties also
FDI cap in asset reconstruction companies
(ARCs) through automatic route set at 49%
while FDI above it (till 100%) will be through
FIPB approval
7) Planning Commission on 23 July 2013
released a report on the trends in poverty
in India. The report dealt comprehensively
on impact on poverty reduction due to
measures taken by the governments,
especially the present UPA Govt. What
were the main highlights of this report?
Average decline in the poverty ratio
between 2005 and 2012 was 2.18% per year
as compared to 0.74% per year during
1993-2005
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The absolute number of people below the

poverty line declined from 407.1 million in
2004-05 to 269.3 million by 2011-12
Poverty in the country stood at 21.9% in
2011-12 as compared to 37.2% in 2004-05
In 2011-12 poverty in rural areas stood at
25.7% while it was 13.7% in urban areas
Highest poverty rate of 39.93% was
recorded in Chhattisgarh (2011-12)
Lowest poverty rate of 5.09% was recorded
in Goa (2011-12)
(This report drew its conclusions on the

Suresh Tendulkar poverty line formula.
Under this formula, the Planning
Commission drew the national poverty line
at Rs. 816 per capita per month in rural
areas and Rs. 1,000 per capita per month in
urban areas)
8) What is the name given to 5-Kg LPG cylinder
scheme, which was given approval by the
Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on 24
July, 2013? Free Trade LPG Scheme (Under
the Free Trade LPG Scheme, Company Owned
Retail Outlets (COCO) of oil marketing
companies will sell 5-kg LPG cylinders at Nondomestic (commercial) prices. Pilot project of
this scheme will be launched in Delhi, Mumbai,
Chennai, Kolkata and Bangalore. The
prospective customer at the time of first sale
would only be required to give a copy of Voter ICard, Driving license, Pan Card, Aadhaar Card,
Bank Pass book, Employees ID, Passport,
Student ID or any other such document that can
act as a proof of identity. This scheme has been
made especially for those citizens who are
always on the move due to their professional
requirements)
9) What is the name of the book written by Jean
Dreze and Indian Nobel winning economist
Amratya Sen, which has created a lot of
controversy of-late about what should be the
ideal model of governance? An Uncertain
Glory: India and its Contradictions (The book
created controversy with economists like
Jagdish Bhagwati expressing their displeasure
about economic policies advocated by Amartya
Sen in this book)
10) What is the name given to a newly
announced scheme under which a free mobile
handset will be provided to one member of
every rural household who has completed 100

days of work under MGNREGA? Bharat
Mobile Scheme (Under this scheme the handset
will be provided preferably to a woman
member of family. A brief of this proposed
scheme was made by the union govt. on 30 July,
2013. The provided handset will be nontransferable as it will later also be used in
customized transfer of benefits under the direct
transfer scheme of the central govt.)

1) Union Govt. on 2 August 2013 gave its
approval for setting up of a fund to help six
PSUs, to make them compliant with the
10% minimum public holding norm of
market regulator SEBI. What is the name
assigned of this fund? Special National
Investment Fund (SNIF). Six sick PSUs which
will be covered under this proposed fund
are - HMT, ITI, Scooters India Limited,
Andrew Yule, Fertilizer and Chemical
Limited (Travancore) and Hindustan Photo
Films Limited
1) Union Govt. relaxed the norms for
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the multibrand retail on 1 August 2013 with a view
to attract more investments and
transparency in the sector. What are the
major norms which were relaxed?
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Multi-brand retailers like Walmart are now

required to source 30% of their products
from the small and medium enterprises of
India only at the time of starting the
business
Now state governments will have the right
to grant permission to open a multi-brand
retail store in cities of their states (Earlier
53 urban centers with a minimum
population of 1 million were made eligible
for opening-up of multi-brand retail stores)
Now the norm of 50% investment in the backend infrastructure for the retailers will be
applicable, only during the first tranche of
investments (within three years) of up to 100
million dollars
7) The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs
(CCEA), on 1 August 2013, approved the
proposal for sale of 10% government stake in
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). This stake sale is
likely to fetch around Rs. 3,840 crore to the
exchequer at the current market price. What is
Union Govt.s disinvestment target through the
stake sale of public sector undertakings in the
current financial year (2013-14)? Rs. 40,000
crore
5) Who was appointed as the first woman

Managing Director (MD) of State Bank of
India (SBI) on 3 August 2013? - Arundhati
Bhattacharya (Prior to this she was the
managing director of SBI Capital, the
merchant banking arm of the bank)
6) Who took over as the Chairman and
Managing Director (CMD) of Central Bank of
India during August 2013? Rajeev Rishi (Rishi
was Executive Director of Indian Bank till now
and his tenure will be for 5 years)

1) Which body is the regulator of commodity
derivatives markets in India, which would be
given more teeth to ensure that National Spot
Exchange Ltd (NSEL) settles the Rs 5,600-crore
dues to investors, as announced by the Union
Govt. on 7 August 2013? Forward Markets
Commission FMC (NSEL is facing the problem
of settlement after it suspended trade in oneday forward contracts on 31 July 2013 following
the government direction. On 6 August 2013,
NSEL stopped trading in e-series contracts in
gold in anticipation of the notification to this
effect)
2) Union Govt. on 2 August 2013 gave its
approval for setting up of a fund to help six
PSUs, to make them compliant with the 10%
minimum public holding norm of market
regulator SEBI. What is the name assigned of
this newly approved fund? Special National
Investment Fund (SNIF). Six sick PSUs which will
be covered under this proposed fund are - HMT,
ITI, Scooters India Limited, Andrew Yule,
Fertilizer and Chemical Limited (Travancore)
and Hindustan Photo Films Limited
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3) Union Govt. on 6 August 2013 disclosed that

six Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)
have been closed in the country in the last 5
years. Which six CPSEs are these? - Bihar Drugs
& Organic Chemicals Ltd. (in Bihar), Indian Oil
Technologies Ltd. (in Delhi), Brushware Ltd. (in
UP), Pyrites Phosphastes& Chemicals Ltd. (in
Bihar), National Instruments Ltd. (in Bihar) and
Bharat Yantra Nigam Ltd. (in UP))
4) Union Govt. on 2 August 2013 unveiled the
long awaited Unified License norms for the
telecom sector. What are the main features of
this new norm?
The new norm provides for delinking of
spectrum from operational permits and allows
companies to offer services using any
technology. Telecom companies would be
allowed to offer mobile and fixed-line services

using any technology. They can also provide
Internet TV services.
It allows companies to offer intra and intercircle roaming, but bars operations from
acquiring subscribers in areas where they dont
own a license
The licenses acquired under this new norm will
be valid for 20 years, and will be renewable for
another ten years
Telecom companies will have to pay a license
fee of eight per cent of annual revenues from
telecom services.
All telecom companies will have to migrate to
the new licensing regime upon expiry of their
current permits
5) Union Govt. relaxed the norms for Foreign
Direct Investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail
on 1 August 2013 with a view to attract more
investments and transparency in the sector.
What are the major norms which were relaxed?
Multi-brand retailers like Walmart are now

required to source 30% of their products from
the small and medium enterprises of India only
at the time of starting the business
Now state governments will have the right to
grant permission to open a multi-brand retail
store in cities of their states (Earlier 53 urban
centers with a minimum population of 1 million
were made eligible for opening-up of multibrand retail stores)
Now the norm of 50% investment in the backend infrastructure for the retailers will be
applicable, only during the first tranche of
investments (within three years) of up to 100
million dollars
6) Who will be the new Governor of the Reserve

Bank of India (RBI), as announced by the
Finance Ministry on 6 August 2013? Raghuram
Rajan, who is at present the Chief Economic
Advisor to the Govt. of India (Rajan will succeed
the current RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao
whose 5-year term ends on 4 September 2013.
He has formerly worked as the chief economist
at the International Monetary Fund. Rajan has
been a gold medalist at IIT-Delhi and IIMAhmedabad and he will be the 23rd Governor of
Indias central bank)
7) Who was appointed as the first woman
Managing Director (MD) of State Bank of India
(SBI) on 3 August 2013? - Arundhati
Bhattacharya (Prior to this she was the
managing director of SBI Capital, the merchant
banking arm of the bank)
8) Who took over as the Chairman and
Managing Director (CMD) of Central Bank of
India during August, 2013? Rajeev Rishi (Rishi
was Executive Director of Indian Bank till now
and his tenure will be for 5 years)
9) The first arrest for default in paying which tax

was made during August, 2013 after union
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram finalized and
approved applicable provisions of CrPC (criminal
procedure code) to arrest such offenders?
Service Tax (A courier company owner at
Kolkata was arrested for allegedly evading
service tax of about Rs. 70 lakh in the first such
case)
10) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 7 August
2013 disclosed that it had imposed a penalty of
Rs. 5,62,555 on the State Bank of India (SBI) on
12 July 2013 for violation of currency chest
norms. Which currency chest of SBI was found
deficient in following these norms?
Secunderabad Branch of SBI, in Andhra Pradesh
(The penalty was levied in connection with
deficiencies and lapses in the operation and
maintenance of the currency chest at the
Secunderabad branch of SBI)
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1) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) transferred
its surplus profit to the government for the year
ended June 2013, which is the highest amount
to be transferred by the RBI to the government,
except year 2007. How much amount was
transferred as surplus profit to the govt.? Rs.
33,010 crore (This is more than a 100% jump
over Rs 16,010 crore that the RBI transferred in
the previous year. In 2007, gave Rs 45,719 crore
as surplus profit. However, out of this, Rs
34,308 crore was accounted by the money
generated by its stake sale in State Bank of
India. The RBI transferred Rs 15,009 crore in
2010-11, Rs 18,759 crore in 2009-10 and Rs
25,009 crore in 2008-09)
2) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 14 August,

2013 cut down the amount of foreign exchange
an Indian may use to invest or spend abroad
from the current annual limit of $2,00,000 to $75,000 (This means Indian citizens would not
be able to take out more than $75,000 in a year
by way of travel or investment. In addition to
this RBI imposed a restriction on Indians from
making an investment in a property abroad.
These measures were announced in a bid to
check the drain on foreign exchange reserves in
the country)
3) State Bank of India (SBI) on 17 August, 2013
achieved another milestone by opening its
.branch. 15,000th (The 15,000th
Branch of the SBI was inaugurated by Union
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram at Tamil

Nadus Sooranam, a Christian dominated area,
and the 15,001st branch of the bank at
Kalayarkovil, a Hindu dominated area nearby)
4) State Bank of Indias (SBIs) net profits for the
quarter ended 30 June, 2013 stood at Rs. 3,241
crore against Rs. 3,752 crore in the last year for
the same quarter, thus recording a 14% dip.
What was the main reason for this fall in profits
as disclosed by the bank? Huge increase in
bad loans (SBIs bad loans increased by Rs 9,702
crore to Rs 60,891 crore as of 30 June, 2013)
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5) An inter-ministerial committee constituted to

suggest steps to contain the rising current
account deficit (CAD) suggested higher taxes for
non-essential imports with a view to curbing
inward shipments and containing the current
account deficit CAD. These suggestions form
part of the recommendations made by the
committee set up by Finance Minister P
Chidambaram. Who is the Chairman of this
committee? - Rajat Bhargava, Joint Secretary
(Budget Division) This committee has
suggested higher taxes on those non-essential
items which do not add to inflationary
pressures. The Committee has also suggested a
list of non-essential items the import of which
could be compressed, with a view to bridge the
trade gap. Trade gap in the first quarter of the
current financial year stood at over $ 50 billion)
6) Indian Parliament on 8 August 2013 passed
the Companies Bill, 2012, which replaced the
58-year old legislation with radical changes.
What is the name of the old bill which was
replaced by this legislation? Companies Act,
1956 (The new Companies Bill was passed after
a wait of almost two decades and it seeks more
transparency in corporate functioning in India.
The bill is also a lot less bulky than the existing
1956 Act, with 470 sections as against the
current 658 sections)
7) Union Govt. on 7 August 2013 allowed
import of steel for major industrial projects
without quality certification. The objective
behind this exemption is to give a push to the

infrastructure sector of the country. The
exemption will be available for projects in the
field of infrastructure, petroleum,
manufacturing products involving high end
technologies, nuclear reactors, defence,
chemical and petro-chemicals and fertiliser
sectors. What is the prescribed investment limit
for the projects to get this exemption? Not
less than Rs. 1,000 crore (This announcement
was made in a notification made by Directorate
General of Foreign Trade (DGFT). The easing
import norms came amidst domestic steel
manufacturers demanding government to hike
duty on imports to prevent steel dumping in the
country)
8) The Finance Ministry on 14 August, 2013
announced that public sector insurance
company Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) can
increase its investments in companies up to
25% under special circumstances. What is the
present investment limit of LIC in companies?
20% (LICs investment norm at present is settled
at 20% but in special circumstances it can now
go up to 25%. LIC for long has been perceived as
the last resort for the govt. to meet its
disinvestment target, though the Centre denies
it)
9) What is the name of a proposed commission
that will look into removing ambiguity and
establishing a stable and non-adversarial tax
administration in the country and establishment
of which was approved by the union govt.
during August, 2013? - Tax Administration
Reform Commission TARC (Union Govt. has
approved setting up of TARC on 13 August,
2013. TARC will be a seven member commission
including a Chairman. The main objective of
TARC will be to review the application of tax
policies and tax laws in India in the context of
best global practices and recommend measures
to strengthen the capacity of the tax system in

India)
10) On 15 August 2013 the visa-on-arrival
facility for tourists visiting India was extended
to four more cities. Which are these four cities
which have been extended this facility?
Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi and
Thiruvananthapuram (The visa-on-arrival facility
was earlier available only for the four metro
cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai). At
present visitors from 11 countries (Japan,
Singapore, Finland, Luxembourg, New Zealand,

Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Myanmar
and Indonesia) are eligible to get this facility.
The visa-on-arrival scheme has contributed to
an increase in the number of tourists from
these countries and the government was in the
final stages of consultations on allowing the
facility to citizens of another 10 countries,
including Germany, France and Russia)
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9 CURRENT AFFAIRS

1) Which bank of Andhra Pradesh came into
news during August, 2013 for having opened
about 1.5 lakh no-frills accounts in eight
districts on a single day as part of Direct Benefit
Transfer (DBT) scheme of the Union Govt.? Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank APGVB
(The 638 branches of the bank together opened
72,122 accounts while the banks financial
inclusion machinery under branch-less banking
business correspondents model opened 75,320
no-frills accounts at 64 villages in Warangal
district. These accounts, opened with zero
balance and seeded with Aadhar Cards, will be
uploaded on NPCI Mapper along with other
banks to join Aadhar Payment Bridge to
facilitate electronic fund transfer like subsidies,
scholarships etc., from the government
departments concerned)
2) On 23 August 2013 the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) announced the auction of two 48-days
Government of India Cash Management Bills
(CMBs). What is the primary benefit of issuing
ICMBs? CMBs allow the RBI to meet the
temporary cash flow mismatches of the

Government of India (CMBs are flexible
instruments for the RBI as they are issued at
times of requirement. They allow the RBI to
have lower cash balances and issue fewer longterm notes)
3) Who is heading the seven-member Tax
Administration Reform Commission (TARC),
which was constituted by the Union Govt. on 26
August, 2013 to have a comprehensive review
of existing tax laws and suggest a stable tax
administration? Parthasarathy Shome (Apart
from Shome, the commission will have Y G
Parande and Sunita Kaila as full-time members
while M K Zutshi, S S N Moorthy, M R Diwakar
and S Mahalingam will be part-time members.
TARCs tenure will be of 18-months. Setting-up
of this commission was announced by Union
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the Union
Budget 2013-14 with an objective of reviewing
the application of tax policies and tax laws)
4) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 23 August,
2013 announced imposition of a total of Rs.
6.50 crore monetary penalty on six public sector

banks for violation of rules relating to know
your customer and anti-money laundering.
Which 6 public sector banks are these?
Allahabad Bank (Rs. 50 lakh), Bank of
Maharashtra (Rs. 50.1 lakh), Corporation Bank
(Rs. 1.50 crore), Dena Bank (Rs. 2 crore), IDBI
Bank (Rs. 1 crore) and Indian Bank (Rs. 1 crore)
This penalty was imposed after the RBI carried
out a scrutiny of books of accounts, internal
controls, compliance systems and processes at
these banks
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5) Which private sector bank claimed to have

opened its 500th branch during August, 2013?
Yes Bank (Yes Bank, which is the fourth largest
private sector bank of India, also claimed that it
has achieved its presence in all 28 states and 7
union territories of the country)
6) As per information furnished by Insurance
Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA),
what was the life insurance penetration rate in
India in the year 2012? 3.17% (The
penetration of life insurance sector in India has
increased from 2.15% in 2001 to 3.17% in 2012
which is above that of Brazil, Russia, Malaysia,
Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka, Australia, Germany
but below France, Switzerland, United Kingdom,
United States of America, Japan, Singapore,
South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Insurance
coverage in a country is generally measured by
insurance penetration, which is the ratio of
premium underwritten in a given year to the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP))
7) Cheraman Financial Services Limited (CFSL),
which became the first Islamic financial services
company to be launched in India, started its
operations in which Indian state during August,
2013? Kerala (The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
had given its approval to CFSL to launch banking
operations based on the concept of Islamic

banking in Kerala. CFSL, a Sharia-compliant nonbanking financial company (NBFC), has been
formed by a group of Gulf-based NRI
businessmen led by P Muhamed Ali and the
Kerala State Industrial Development
Corporation (KSIDC) has a 11% stake in it)
8) Nishi Vasudevas name came to news during
August, 2013 when she was selected by the
Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) to
head a Navratna category PSU and thus is on
the way to become the first-ever woman to
head a Navratna PSU. She is expected to take
over as the Chairman and Managing Director of
which PSU in March, 2014? - Hindustan
Petroleum Corporation Ltd HPCL (PESB
selected her name after interviewing seven
other candidates for top post at HPCL. The
PESBs recommendation will now go to the
Petroleum & Natural Gas Ministry, which after
getting the mandatory clearances, including
those from Central Vigilance Commission and
CBI will send it to the Appointments Committee
of the Cabinet for necessary clearance and
approval)
9) According to the latest data released by the
Planning Commission on 17 August, 2013 more
than 40 crore 29 lakh Aadhaar numbers have
been issued till 31st July, 2013 in the country.
Which state is leading in issuing Aadhaar
numbers, as stated in this data? Andhra
Pradesh (With 65,941,390 Aadhaar numbers
issued till 31st July Andhra Pradesh is the
leading state as far as issue of Aadhaar numbers
is concerned. It is followed by Maharashtra with
62,697,942 and Madhya Pradesh with
27,773,394 Aadhaar numbers. Only 1,848
Aadhaar numbers were issued in Arunachal
Pradesh by 31st July. Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIDAI) has reiterated that
the target of 60 crore Aadhaar enrolments will

be achieved by 2014)
10) Which state on 20 August, 2013 became the
first to launch the food security scheme for its
citizens? Delhi (UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi

launched the scheme in Delhi by giving away
food security ration cards to beneficiaries along
with a 5-kg packet of rice. Delhi was the first
State to clear the scheme)
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11 CURRENT AFFAIRS
1) What instruction pertaining to home loans

was issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on
3 September, 2013 to banks? The RBI asked
banks to link the disbursal of home loans to
stages of construction (This instruction was
issued with an objective to protect the interests
of buyers and contain the fallout of some
innovative housing finance schemes. RBI in its
instruction mentioned that upfront disbursal
should not be made in cases of
incomplete/under-construction/green field
housing projects. The notification follows the
introduction by some banks of innovative
housing loan schemes in association with
developers/builders, where upfront disbursal of
housing loans is made to builders without being
linked to the various stages of construction)
2) How much loan amount was written-off by
the public sector banks of India during the
January-March quarter of 2012-13 as
announced by the Union Govt. in Parliament on
30 August, 2013? Rs. 14,549 crore (The public
sector banks made recovery of bad assets to the
tune of Rs 16,464 crore during this period.
Banks resort to write off bad loans only after
exhausting all other possible avenues for
recovery or when the asset coverage is not
enough)
2) From 1 September, 2013 a new radiation
norm put in place by Telecom Ministry came
into effect for companies manufacturing or
importing mobile phones for sale in India.
According to this norm what is the maximum
prescribed SAR (specific absorption rate) for
mobile phones in India? - 1.6 watt over a gram

of human tissue, if a consumer uses it for six
minutes (With the new SAR norm, India would
become one of few countries that are following
the most stringent norm of 1.6 watt a kg
average over six minutes period on 1 gram of
human tissue. Old stock of handsets available in
Indian market can be sold but no fresh stock of
non-compliant mobile phones will be allowed to
be sold from 1 September)
4) What was the growth rate of GDP (gross

domestic product) for Indian economy for the
first quarter of the final year (April-June 2013)?
4.4% (This growth rate of GDP was slowest
since the 2008 global financial crisis. It is lower
than the 5.4% growth logged in April-June last
year and 4.8% in January-March this year. Main
reason for slow growth rate has been attributed
to poor performance registered by countrys
manufacturing and mining sector. While
manufacturing output fell 1.2 per cent, mining
declined 2.8 per cent during this period)
5) What are the important features of the Land
Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement
Bill, 2012 that was passed by the Lok Sabha on
29 August, 2013?
The bill proposes that land cannot be acquired
for any private projects unless they fall in the
following categories: infrastructure projects,
industrial corridors, mining, investment and
manufacturing zones, sports, healthcare,
transport projects, and space programme
The bill proposes that farmers and landowners

be paid up to four times the market value for
land acquired in rural areas, and two times the
market value in urban areas
The consent of 80% of land owners is needed
for acquiring land for private projects and of
70% landowners for public-private projects
The Bill only sets a bottom line for fair
compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement
in the case of land acquisition and State
governments are free to further improve upon
it
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12 CURRENT AFFAIRS
6) In view of continuous decline in the value of

Indian Rupee, what step was taken by the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for helping three
state-owned oil marketing companies (IOC,
HPCL and BPCL) who require a large amount of
foreign exchange for meeting their import bills?
A special window was opened for meeting
their daily foreign exchange requirement (This
special window will provide forex swap facility
to these 3 companies which require $8-8.5
billion every month for the import of an average
7.5 million tonnes of crude oil. The RBI decision
is aimed at curbing volatility in the forex
market. Under the swap facility the RBI will
sell/buy USD-INR forex swaps for fixed tenor
with the oil marketing companies through a
designated bank)
7) In an effort to boost forex inflows, the
Finance Ministry has worked out a strategy for
as many as 10 public sector entities to tap
Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) to raise at least
Rs 15,000 crore in foreign currency. This will be
part of a tax-free bond issue. Which 10 public
sector entities are these? NHB, IIFCL, Indian
Railway Finance Corporation, HUDCO, Rural
Electrification Corporation, Power Finance
Corporation, National Highway Authority of

India, NTPC, NHPC and Indian Renewable
Energy Development Agency (This is the first
time that such funds have been allowed to be
part of a tax-free bond issue. SWFs are normally
state-owned, with funds collected from budget
and trade surpluses. The money is normally
invested in real and financial assets at home
and abroad. Oil-rich West Asian nations own
many of the worlds largest SWFs. A tax-free
bond is an instrument where investors do not
have to pay tax on interest. Such an instrument
is normally a long-term one, and the money
raised is deployed in long-term infrastructure
projects)
8) Which mutual fund company during August
2013 launched an auto premium payment
system in collaboration with Life Insurance
Corporation to enable its mutual fund investors
to pay their insurance premium? - LIC Nomura
Mutual Fund (Under the scheme, mutual fund
investors will have a facility of paying their
premium on time without any hassles. Through
the facility, the premium amount of the
investor on due date will be remitted to LIC by
LIC Nomura Mutual Fund, out of the investors
fund. No additional charge will be levied for
availing this facility)
9) The Indian Rupee fell sharply on 28 August,
2013 to hit a record low of 68.80 to the dollar.
This was its biggest single-day percentage fall
since how many years? 18 years (This was the
largest single-day percentage fall of the Indian
Rupee since October 1995. The partially
convertible rupee closed at 68.80 per dollar,
compared to its close of 66.24 on 27 August.
The unit also posted its biggest fall in absolute
terms ever, dropping 256 basis points on the
day)
10) Leading mobile phone manufacturer Nokia

Corporation of Finland on 3 September, 2013
announced signing an agreement to sell
substantially all of its Devices & Services
business, license and patents in an all-cash deal
of 5.44 billion. The company expects to gain
3.2 billion from this deal. To which company is
Nokia selling its business? Microsoft
Corporation (The transaction is expected to

close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to
approval by Nokia shareholders, regulatory
approvals and other customary closing
conditions. After the deal closure Nokia Chief
Executive Stephen Elop, will move to Microsoft
Corp.)
Page
13 CURRENT AFFAIRS
1) State Bank of India (SBI) during September

2013 tightened its eligibility conditions for its
four-wheeler loan scheme with a view to
minimising possible defaults. From now on
persons with an annual income of Rs. 6 lakh or
more will get SBIs car loans. What was SBIs
eligibility condition for availing car loan till now?
An annual income of Rs. 2.5 lakh or more (For
SBI account holders, the limit has been raised to
Rs 4.5 lakh per annum. The rationale for
increase in the eligibility criteria is to revise the
gross income limit upwards in view of
moderation in the economy)
2) The Forward Markets Commission (FMC),
chief regulator of forwards and futures
commodity markets in India, will, henceforth,
be overseen by the Ministry of Finance. FMC
was under which ministry/department till now?
- Department of Consumer Affairs under the
Ministry of Food (This decision was taken at the
highest level, and notified in the wake of
alleged scam in National Spot Exchange Limited
(NSEL). The decision has been approved by
President Pranab Mukherjee)
3) Which private sector bank during September,
2013 launched Branch on Wheels, an initiative
to offer basic banking services in remote areas
which have so far been devoid of banking

facilities? ICICI Bank (Branch on Wheels is a
mobile branch of the bank, which will offer
basic banking products and services such as
savings accounts, loans, cash
deposit/withdrawal, account balance enquiries,
statement printing and funds transfer/DD/PO
collection, among others. It will also have an
ATM. Banks first Branch on Wheels was
launched in Kolhapur, Maharashtra and it will
cover four unbanked villages)
4) Newly appointed RBI Governor on 4
September, 2013 announced constitution of a
committee to take a close look at rising NPAs
and suggest steps to improve the recovery of
bad debts. Who has been appointed as the
head of this committee? - K C Chakrabarty,
Deputy Governor of the RBI
5) BRICS nations on 5 September, 2013 gave
further impetus to the proposed formation of a
$100-billion Currency Reserve Fund (CRF) by
announcing individual contributions to the
fund. What is the agreed individual contribution
of the 5 BRICS countries to this fund? China
$41 billion, Brazil, India and Russia - $18 billion
each and South Africa - $5 billion (The fund
would eventually allow the five nations to
access the fund to deal with short-term
volatility in their capital flows, which might

negatively impact their currencies. The idea of
such a fund found traction in the last BRICS
summit in Durban, South Africa, earlier this
year)
6) What were the main highlights of the
Economic Outlook 2013-14 released by Prime
Ministers Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC)
Chairman C. Rangarajan on 13 September,
2013?
GDP growth for 2013-14 lowered to 5.3%, from
6.4% in April, 2013
Current Account Deficit (CAD) highlighted as
main concern, estimated to come down to $70
billion or 3.8% of GDP
Agriculture growth pegged at 4.8%
Industrial growth pegged at 2.7%
Services growth to decelerate to 6.6%, from 7.1
% in 2012-13
Trade deficit projected at $185 billion
Gold imports seen at $38 billion
Page
14 CURRENT AFFAIRS
Net capital inflows to come down to $61.4

billion from $89.4 billion
7) President Pranab Mukherjee during
September, 2013 gave his approval to the
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development
Authority Bill (PFRDA), 2011. The bill seeks to
establish, develop and regulate pension funds
to protect the interests of subscribers to
schemes of pension funds and assures
minimum returns to subscribers. This bill seeks
to grant statutory status to which entity to
empower it to regulate National Pension
Scheme (NPS)? - Pension Fund Regulatory and
Development Authority PFRDA (The bill would
also provide subscribers a wide choice to invest
their funds for assured returns, like opting for
government bonds as well as in other funds
depending on their capacity to take risk)
8) Raghuram Govind Rajan took over as the

23th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) on 4 September, 2013. On this day itself
he came out with a slew of measures, including
more trade settlement in rupees to rescue the
battered financial markets and hinted at a shift
in focus from inflation control, pursued by his
predecessor D. Subbarao, to boosting growth.
He announced setting up of an outside panel of
experts to screen applications for new bank
licenses. Who was appointed as the head of this
expert panel? Bimal Jalan, Former Governor
of the RBI
9) Which company came to news for raising a
bond issue of $49 billion on 11 September,
2013, which is the largest corporate bond deal
in the world till date? Verizon (Verizon is an
American telecommunications and broadband
company. The sale dwarfs the previous record,
Apples sale of $17 billion in bonds in April.
Proceeds from the sale will help Verizon buy the
rest of its U.S. wireless business from partner
Vodafone. On September 2, 2013, it was
announced that Verizon would buy the
remaining stake that Vodafone owns in their
join venture Verizon Wireless for $130 billion.
This deal is the third largest in corporate
history)
10) What is the name given to Googles next
version of Android-based operating system
(Android 4.4) for smartphones and tabs?
KitKat (Android 4.4 KitKat was announced as the
name for companys upcoming new Androidbased operating system for mobile devices. This
name is in keeping with Googles penchant for
giving tasty names to its software for powering
mobile devices. The list of Android software
names over the years includes Cupcake, Donut,
Froyo, Gingerbread, Ice Cream Sandwich, and
Jelly Bean. KitKat is a chocolate-covered wafer
created by British-based Rowntrees, now

produced worldwide by Nestle. Google claims
that Android software powers more than a

billion smartphones or tablets worldwide)
Page
15 CURRENT AFFAIRS
1) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 23

September, 2013 announced a 13-member
committee to frame a clear and detailed vision
for financial inclusion/deepening across the
country. This committee named The
Committee on Comprehensive Financial
Services for Small Businesses and Low-Income
Households is being headed by - Nachiket Mor,
member on the RBIs Central Board of Directors
(The committee members are: Bindu Ananth
(President, IFMR Trust); Prakash Bakshi
(Chairman, Nabard); Bharat Doshi (Chairman,
Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services); A. P.
Hota (Managing Director and CEO, National
Payments Corporation of India); Sunil Kaushal
(CEO, Standard Chartered Bank India); Roopa
Kudva (MD and CEO, Crisil); Zia Mody
(Managing Partner, AZB & Partners); S. S.
Mundra (CMD, Bank of Baroda); Vikram Pandit
(former CEO, Citigroup); Ramesh Ramanathan
(Chairman, Janalakshmi Financial Services) and
Shikha Sharma (MD & CEO, Axis Bank))
2) In what seemed like an unexpected move
Reserve Bank of Indias (RBIs) newly appointed
Governor Raghuram Rajan in his maiden
Monetary Policy Review on 20 September, 2013
raised the repo rate under the liquidity
adjustment facility (LAF). He thus kept RBIs
focus on controlling inflation, which it felt
would be above the expected levels in the
current fiscal. What is the new Repo Rate?
7.5% (Repo Rate was increased by 25 basis
points from its earlier level of 7.25%)
3) What were the main highlights of RBI
Governor Raghuram Rajans first monetary
policy review presented on 20 September, 2013
since taking office on 4 September?
Following are the main highlights of Raghuram

Rajans first monetary policy review
Repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility
(LAF) increased by 25 basis points from 7.25%
to 7.5% with immediate effect (This move
clearly reiterated the fact that RBI is still
keeping its focus on bringing down the inflation.
Consequently, the Reverse Repo Rate under the
LAF stands adjusted to 6.5%, and the bank rate
stands reduced to 9.5% with immediate effect)
Marginal standing facility (MSF) rate reduced by
75 basis points from 10.25% to 9.5% with
immediate effect
The minimum daily maintenance of the cash
reserve ratio (CRR) reduced from 99% of the
requirement to 95% effective from the fortnight
beginning 21 September, 2013 (This move was
aimed at inducing liquidity into the system)
Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) kept unchanged at
4.0% (CRR is the portion of deposits that banks
are required to maintain with the RBI in cash)
(With these changes, the MSF rate and the bank
rate are re-calibrated to 200 basis points above
the repo rate)
4) A high-level panel on 23 September, 2013
submitted to Finance Minister P. Chidambaram
its report on the alleged irregularities at the
National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). The panel in
its report recommended two sets of measures
to deal with the NSEL issue and also the
problem of regulatory gaps in oversight of spot
exchanges. Enforcement action has been
recommended against NSEL and the persons
behind the company. Who headed this panel on
NSEL? - Arvind Mayaram, Economic Affairs

Secretary
Investments under angel investing restricted

between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 5 crore
5) Air India tied up with which public-sector

bank to launch a co-branded credit card that
provides numerous privileges to the holder?
SBI (This newly launched credit card has been
named Air India SBI Credit Card and it allows a
customer spending Rs 5 lakh in a year to earn
up to three Delhi-Mumbai return tickets on Air
India. The launch of this credit card marks the
beginning of a new collaboration between the
two major public sector entities (Air India and
SBI). State Bank of India is also the leader of a
consortium of banks that have helped Air India
in its financial restructuring exercise. SBI Cards
is a joint venture between SBI and GE Capital)
Angel funds can make investments only in those

companies which are incorporated in India
Page
16 CURRENT AFFAIRS
6) Insurance Regulatory and Development

Authoritys (IRDAs) insurance repository system
was launched by Union Finance Minister P.
Chidambaram on 16 September, 2013. This
repository system, which is claimed by IRDA as
the first-of-its-kind in the world is situated in
Hyderabad (The objective of creating an
insurance repository is to provide policyholders
the facility to keep insurance policies in
electronic form (like shares are kept in Demat
account). Five companies have been given the
status of insurance repositories and have been
provided with a licence that will be valid till 31
July, 2014. Insurers can enter into agreements
with one or more repositories)
7) SEBI on 16 September, 2013 notified new
norms for angel investors, who provide funding
to companies at their initial stages. This has
been done with an objective of giving
encouragement to entrepreneurship in the
country by financing small start-ups. What are
the important points under this notification?
Angel investors have been allowed to be
registered as Alternative Investment Funds
(AIFs), which is a newly created class of pooledin investment vehicles for real estate, private
equity and hedge funds
Angel funds needs to be invested in a firm for at

least three years
Angel funds can be availed for companies not
older than 3 years
Angel funds are required to have a corpus of at
least Rs 10 crore and minimum investment by
an investor should be Rs 25 lakh
8) How much advance tax for second quarter of
present financial year was paid by countrys
largest commercial bank State Bank of India
(SBI), as announced by it on 15 September,
2013? Rs. 1,120 crore (This was about 40%
less than that paid during the corresponding
period last year when it paid Rs. 1,820 crore.
The advance tax pay-out decline from SBI
comes amid a period of gloom on the economic
front, with the quarterly GDP growth falling to a
four-year low of 4.4 per cent for the April-June
period)
9) An advanced universal banking solution
named Finacle 11E was launched on 18
September, 2013 by a leading IT company of
India. This banking solution has been developed
to enable banks of all sizes to rapidly modernize
their operations. Which company launched this
solution? Infosys (Finacle is a range of CBS
banking solutions developed by Infosys for
Indian banks)
10) The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
opened its tour programme in India at Delhi
under the aegis of the Department of
Electronics & Information Technology on 17
September, 2013 to promote the features of a
new standard for application developers. Which
new standard is this which is expected to meet

the goal of Open Web Platform? HTML 5
(HTML 5 is the next evolution of web
development standards by which application
developers create end-user experience. One of
the most important benefits of HTML 5 is that it
is capable of making the Web useful on mobile
and wireless devices, which will be next
paradigm shift for internet growth in India.

HTML 5 is intended to subsume not
only HTML 4, but also XHTML 1 and DOM Level
2 HTML. W3W also held its tours programmes
to promote HTML 5 at Bangalore, Hyderabad,
Kolkota and Pune)
Page
17 CURRENT AFFAIRS
1) What is the per employee business

generation of all Indian banks for 2012-13
according to the latest data on Indian banking
sector released by the RBI during October,
2013? - 12.13 crore (RBI released A Profile of
Banks: 2012-13, which mentions statistics
pertaining to per employee business generation
of Indian banks for year 2012-13. However, the
business per employee of Indias largest bank
SBI was Rs. 9.43 crore, which is much below the
aggregate of all banks)
2) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 4 October,
2013 set up a four-member committee under
former Governor Bimal Jalan to scrutinize
applications for new bank licences. These
licenses are expected to be awarded by
January, 2014. Who are the other three
members of this committee? - Usha Thorat
(former RBI Deputy Governor), C B Bhave
(former SEBI Chairman) and Nachiket Mor
(financial sector expert) - The committee will
make its recommendations to the Governor and
Deputy Governors, who will make the final
proposals to the committee of the RBI central
board. There are 26 applicants from the public
and private sector for bank licences, including
Tata Sons, Indias biggest business group, and
firms controlled by billionaires Anil Ambani and
Kumar Mangalam Birla.

September 2013 announced imposition of ban
on a very popular scheme for consumers to
purchase consumer goods. Which scheme is
this? Scheme of 0% interest on EMIs (RBI
imposed ban as banks were reluctant to
disclose the hidden charges charged by them on
purchases done through these schemes. RBI
maintained that the very concept of zero per
cent interest is non-existent and fair practice
demands that the processing charge and
interest charged should be kept uniform
product or segment wise, irrespective of the
sourcing channel, as such schemes only serve
the purpose of exploiting vulnerable customers.
RBI also issued guidelines that no additional
charges can be levied on payment through debit
cards. In the zero per cent EMI schemes offered
on credit cards, the interest element is often
camouflaged and passed on to customers in the
form of processing fee)
September, 2013 came up with a report titled
A Profile of Banks: 2012-13, which among
other data, reported statistics pertaining to net
non-performing assets (NPA) of the banking
sector. What are the important NPA figures
mentioned in this report?
The net NPA of all banks increased to 1.68% of

the total loan at the end of 2012-13 (The net
NPA of all banks was 1.28% at the end of 201112. Increase in net NPA reflects deterioration in
economic activities)
Net NPA of the 26 public sector banks, including
State Bank of India (SBI), rose to 2.02% during
the year as compared to 1.53% in the previous
fiscal
SBI and its five associates recorded a net NPA of
2.04% against 1.76% in the comparable period
Net NPA of new private sector bank rose
marginally to 0.45% as compared to 0.42%
Tight liquidity situation resulted in increase in
cost of funds of all commercial banks to 6.12%
as against 5.90% in 2011-12
The cost of funds for state-owned banks rose to
6.27% from 6.06% in 2011-12
5) What was Indias Current Account Deficit
(CAD) for the April-June quarter of the current
fiscal as declared by the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) on 30 September, 2013? - $21.8 billion
(CAD is the difference between inflow and
outflow of foreign exchange)
Other important facts pertaining to CAD during
April-June quarter of 2013
Page
18 CURRENT AFFAIRS
CAD for the quarter was 4.9% of the GDP (CAD

was 4.4% or $16.9 billion in the same quarter of
last fiscal, 2012-13)
High imports of gold and oil were the main
reasons responsible for pushing up the CAD.
Gold imports increased by $7.3 billion in the
first quarter of current fiscal. Excluding the
increase in gold imports of $7.3 billion in Q1 of
2013-14 over the corresponding quarter of the
preceding year, CAD would work out to $14.5
billion, which translates into 3.2% cent of GDP
CAD had declined to 3.6% in the January-March
quarter after touching a record high of 6.5% in
the October-December quarter
The government plans to bring down CAD to

3.7% or $70 billion in the 2013-14 fiscal, from
4.8% or $88.2 billion in 2012-13
6) Which public-sector bank during August,
2013 launched a unique Own Your NPA (nonperforming asset) campaign to focus its
managers energies on making recoveries from
the top 20 bad loan accounts at the zonal,
regional and branch levels? IDBI Bank (As part
of the Own Your NPA campaign, each zonal,
regional and branch manager will personally go
and meet the customers. IDBI Bank has
identified a total number of 1,522 cases under
the campaign involving an aggregate principal
outstanding of Rs 5,805 crore. The campaign
ends on 31 December, 2013)
7) Which public-sector bank has installed 2,000
Cash Deposit Machines (CDMs) at marketplaces
across the country in the last one year to give
facility of depositing money round the clock to
its customers? State Bank of India (In order to
tap currency in the hands of the public, Indias
largest bank SBI has been installing CDMs at
marketplaces across the country. Traders,
shopkeepers and vegetable vendors can deposit
cash into these CDMs anytime of the day (24x7)
and 365 days of the year just by swiping their
SBI ATM-cum-debit card. The money gets
instantly credited to their account and they get
a receipt for their transaction. The average cash
collection per machine a day is Rs 4 lakh. SBI
plans to install 1,000 more machines this year)
8) Indian capital market regulator SEBI on 12
September, 2013 issued new guidelines which
make the KYC (know your customer) norm
easier for foreign investors. SEBI has classified
foreign investors into how many categories in
this new guideline? Three Categories Category I, Category II and Category III (The
issued guidelines relate to registration and

disclosure norms for low risk foreign investors.
Category I includes Government and
Government related foreign investors such as
Foreign Central Banks, Governmental Agencies,
Sovereign Wealth Funds, International,
Multilateral Organizations and Agencies.
Category II broad-based regulated funds such as
mutual funds, investment\reinvestment
companies and investment trusts. Category III
includes foreign investors such as charitable
trusts/societies, Endowments, trusts, corporate
bodies, families, etc which do not invest in India
through the PIS route)
9) Life insurance policies of Life Insurance
Corporation of India (LIC) became costlier from
1 October, 2013 due to an IRDA guideline that
came into effect from this date. What guideline
is this? Levy of 3% service-tax on all non-unitlinked products beginning 1 October 2013
(While private insurers add a service tax
component to the premium paid by customers,
LIC has not been levying the tax on its popular
endowment and money-back plans. From 1
October, however, all LIC policies will attract a
separate service tax. In an announcement,

insurance watchdog IRDA (Insurance Regulatory
and Development Authority) mandated that
service tax shall not be included in the
contractual premium, but collected from
policyholder separately. LIC is the largest lifeinsurance provider in India with a market share
of around 83%)
10) Who was awarded the 5th Deutsche Bank
Prize for Financial Economics 2013 on 26
September, 2013? Dr. Raghuram Rajan, the
Governor of the RBI (The academic prize is
sponsored by the Deutsche Bank Donation Fund
and carries an endowment of euro 50,000. The
Centre for Financial Studies (CFS) awards the
prize bi-annually in partnership with Goethe
University Frankfurt. Dr. Rajan had in 2005
warned about the dangers of building up
unsustainable imbalances in the financial
system, three years ahead of global financial
crisis. Dr. Rajan was picked up for the prize from
more than 260 nominations from top
universities, central banks and research centres
in 37 countries. More than half of the
nominations came from the U.S.)
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19 CURRENT AFFAIRS

1) Who is poised to become the first woman to
head the US Federal Reserve, which is the
central bank of the United States? - Janet Yellen
(Yellen was nominated to head US Federal
Reserve by President Barack Obama on 9
October, 2013. Yellen has been the deputy
Chairman of Federal Reserve since 2010. She
will succeed Ben S. Bernanke, whose term
expires on 31 January, 2014)
2) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during

October, 2013 constituted a committee to
examine the feasibility of encrypted SMS-based
fund transfers so as to boost mobile banking in
the country. Who will head this committee? - B.
Sambamurthy, Director, Institute for
Development and Research in Banking
Technology (IDRBT) - The committee will study
challenges faced by banks in mobile banking. It
will consider the advantages/ challenges of
having a single application across all handsets in

an SMS-encrypted environment. The committee
will also look at any other solution to expand
the reach of mobile banking and accordingly,
draw a roadmap to implement those solutions)
3) The Union Government on 7 October, 2013
cleared the elevation of Arundhati Bhattacharya
as the new Chairperson of SBI. Consequently
she became the first woman to head SBI, which
is Indias largest commercial bank of India.
Bhattacharya became the head of SBI
24th (She succeeded Pratip Chaudhuri, who
retired on 30 September, 2013. Her tenure will
be of around two and a half years)
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20 CURRENT AFFAIRS
4) Which corporate company on 14 October,

2013 became the first Indian corporate to
achieve sales of more than Rs 1,00,000 crore in
a quarter? Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) RILs turnover or sales soared 14.2% to Rs
1,06,523 crore during the second quarter (JulySeptember) of 2013-14. Companys net profit
for the quarter stood at Rs. Rs 5,490 crore, up
1.5% from Rs. 5,409 crore a year earlier)
5) Three American economists - Eugene Fama,
Lars Peter Hansen (both with the University of
Chicago) and Robert Shiller (Yale University)
won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Economics. This
announcement was made by the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences on 14 October, 2013.
What was the area of research of these three
economists for which they were selected for
this prestigious award? For developing new
methods to study trends in asset markets
(Fama, Hansen and Shiller had laid the
foundation of the current understanding of
asset prices. The economics award is not a
Nobel Prize in the same sense as the medicine,
chemistry, physics, literature and peace prizes,
which were created by Swedish industrialist
Alfred Nobel in 1895. Swedens central bank
added the economics prize in 1968 as a
memorial to Nobel)
6) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 7 October,

2013 eased more money into the system to
help banks offer affordable lending options to
retail customers. For this, which two steps were
taken by the RBI :
Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) was brought
down to 9% by cutting it down by 50 basis
points from 9.5% (MSF is the rate at which
banks borrow funds overnight from RBI against
approved government securities)
Banks were allowed to borrow money from RBI
for one-week and two-weeks (This new offer of
extended period loans is also expected to
further ease liquidity in the system)
(These measures came in the wake of a gradual
stability in the rupee and point towards a
seemingly combined effort by both the central
bank and the government to pep up demand
during the festive season of 2013)
7) What is the name of a new class of investors,
which was announced by Indian capital market
regulator SEBI during October, 2013 and which
would encompass all FIIs (Foreign Institutional
Investors), their sub-accounts and Qualified
Foreign Investors (QFIs)? - Foreign Portfolio
Investor (FPIs) - With the announcement of FPI,
a new regime for overseas investments in
Indian capital markets was ushered. The KYC
(Know Your Client) requirements and other
registration procedures would be much simpler
for FPIs compared to current practices. The SEBI
also decided to grant them a permanent
registration, as against the current practice of
granting approvals for one year or five years to
the overseas entities seeking to invest in Indian
markets. The SEBI board approved the new Sebi
(Foreign Portfolio Investors) Regulations, 2013
to bring about these wide-ranging changes)
8) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during
September 2013 gave his approval for setting
up of a new Central Pay Commission which is

expected to give its recommendations in about
two years. This will be Central Pay
Commission 7th (The recommendations of the
7th Central Pay Commission are likely to be
implemented with effect from 1 January, 2016.
The recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay
Commission were implemented from 1 January,
2006. The recommendations of this Pay
Commission will benefit about 50 lakh central
government employees, including those in
defence and railways, and about 30 lakh
pensioners)
9) Which African country on 2 October, 2013
announced its decision to quit Commonwealth?
Gambia (Gambia is a Western African country
and was a member of the Commonwealth since
1965, when it gained independence from
Britain. The Gambian government did not give a
reason for the decision to leave the
Commonwealth. However, it comes amid a
greater emphasis by Britain on human rights
and increasing pressure to promote equality

based on sexuality. Commonwealth is a group
of over 50 countries made up largely of former
British colonies. Gambia called Commonwealth
a neo-colonial institution while announcing its
withdrawal from this group headed by British
monarch Queen Elizabeth)
10) The Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 as announced on 12
October, 2013. This award was given to the
organization for its extensive efforts to rid the
world of chemical arsenals. The 189-member
OPCW has its headquarters in The Hague, the
Netherlands (OPCW was founded in 1997 to
enforce the Chemical Weapons Convention, the
first international treaty to outlaw an entire
class of weapons. The OPCW has conducted
more than 5,000 inspections in 86 countries. It
says 100 percent of the declared chemical
weapons stockpiles have been inventoried and
verified)
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21 CURRENT AFFAIRS

1) Indian security market regulator Securities
and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on 28
October, 2013 asked mutual funds to adopt
different districts to increase their penetration.
SEBI gave reference of a CRISIL report on
mutual funds, which quotes data from
Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) to
disclose the fact that Indian mutual fund market
has been dominated by investors belonging to
large cities of the country. According to this
report what percentage of the gross mutual
fund market has been captured by investors of
Indias five largest cities? 74% (Another
problem effecting Indian mutual fund market is
the fact that mutual funds lost 8% or nearly 35
lakh retail folios over past six months ended

September, 2013 according to the latest data
released by AMFI. Therefore SEBI is pushing to
increase mutual fund penetration in small
districts of the country for which mutual funds
can also adopt some districts)
2) What is the name of a panel constituted by
the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) during October
2013, which would give its recommendations
for implementing a national Indian Bill Payment
System so that households will be able to use
bank accounts to pay school fees, utilities,
medical bills and make remittances
electronically? - GIRO Advisory Group (GAG)

GAG is headed by Prof. Umesh Bellur, Professor,
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. The
panel would submit its report by the end of
December, 2013
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22 CURRENT AFFAIRS
3) The Finance Ministry on 23 October, 2013

finalised the bank-wise capital allocation, which
is part of the capital infusion plan for 20 public
sector banks which altogether will get Rs 14,000
crore. How much capital will be infused into the
State Bank of India (SBI)? Rs. 2000 crore (SBI
has got the largest share in this capital infusion
initiative. The capital infusion is done with the
twin objective of adequately meeting the credit
requirement of the productive sectors of the
economy as well as to maintain regulatory
capital adequacy ratios. Banks can raise Rs
10,000 crore from markets against the Rs
14,000 crore infusion)
4) The Planning Commission during October
2013 decided that the Raghuram Rajan
committee report on the development index for
states will not work for distribution of all central
funds. The commission's move was in response
to protests made by several states at the new
ordering of backwardness that has been drawn
up by the committee headed by Rajan. The
Planning Commission instead set up for a new
two-member plan panel for a fresh look at the
issues involved in transferring money to state
governments from plan budget. Who are the
two members of this newly set up committee? Mihir Shah and Abhijit Sen
5) Which four NBFC-Microfinance Institutions
(MFIs) during October 2013 became the first
MFIs to be given the mfR1 grading by CRISIL,
which is the highest grading under its eightpoint scale specially designed for evaluating the
operations of MFIs?- Bandhan Financial
Services, Kolkata, Equitas Microfinance,

Chennai, Janalakshmi Financial Services and
Ujjivan Financial Services headquartered in
Bangalore
6) The first meeting of the seven-member Tax
Administration Reforms Commission (TARC) led
by Parthasarathi Shome was held on 21
October, 2013 at Delhi. What is the tenure of
TARC, which will act as an advisory body to the
Finance Ministry? 18 months (TARC is
expected to submit its first report in six months,
suggesting measures to prevent economic
offences among other things)
October, 2013 launched the new Real Time
Gross Settlement (RTGS) system for large-value
funds transfer. This new RTGS system provides
new functionalities like advance liquidity
features, gridlock resolution mechanism and
hybrid settlement facility, facility to accept
future value-dated transactions and options to
process multi-currency transactions. It complies
with which latest ISO standard system? - ISO
20022 (The RTGS system is used to settle
interbank fund transfers by banks and their
customers and is critical in facilitating orderly
settlement of payment obligations. With the
implementation of the new RTGS system, new
regulations replaced the operating guidelines
and regulations of 2004)
8) During October, 2013 it was reported that
the public sector banks, which were required to
install onsite ATMs at 34,668 branches by
March 31, 2013 had set up 5,726 ATMs at the
end of August 2013. Hence In the remaining
days of the financial year, the 26 public sector
banks will together have to set up 28,942 ATMs,
or an average of 137 every day to achieve the
target of ATM at every branch by 31 March,
2014. Under which drive the Finance Ministry

had asked the public-sector banks to have
onsite ATMs or ATMs at branches by the end of
March 2014? Financial Inclusion Drive (The
government had directed public sector banks to
have ATMs at all their branches as part of its
financial inclusion drive)
9) The Union Cabinet on 17 October, 2013 gave
its approval for setting up six additional
benches of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax
Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), including three at
the existing locations in New Delhi, Mumbai and
Chennai. In which three cities new bench of
CESTAT would be established? - Chandigarh,
Allahabad and Hyderabad (At present, CESTAT
has three benches each in Delhi and Mumbai
and one bench each at Kolkata, Chennai,
Bangalore and Ahmedabad. CESTAT was set up
in 1982 to provide an independent and
impartial forum to hear the appeal against
orders and decisions passed by the
Commissioners of Customs and Excise under
the Customs Act 1962, Central Excise Act 1944
and Gold (Control) Act, 1968)
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23 CURRENT AFFAIRS
10) Three American economists - Eugene Fama,

Lars Peter Hansen (both with the University of
Chicago) and Robert Shiller (Yale University)
won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Economics. This
announcement was made by the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences on 14 October, 2013.
What was the area of research of these three
economists for which they were selected for

this prestigious award? For developing new
methods to study trends in asset markets
(Fama, Hansen and Shiller had laid the
foundation of the current understanding of
asset prices. The economics award is not a
Nobel Prize in the same sense as the medicine,
chemistry, physics, literature and peace prizes,
which were created by Swedish industrialist
Alfred Nobel in 1895. Swedens central bank
added the economics prize in 1968 as a
memorial to Nobel)
11) HDFC Bank, Indias third largest bank,
posted a 27.1% increase in profit to Rs. 1,982
crore for the quarter ended September 2013,
announcement about which was made on 15
October, 2013. What was an important fact
associated with this announcement? This was
HDFC Banks slowest quarterly growth in a
decade and it was for the first time in a decade
that banks profit growth fell below 30%)
12) Which European country announced its
decision to exit the international bailout
programme by December 2013 and seek funds
from other outside sources? - The Republic of
Ireland (The 85bn euro (73bn) bailout was
forced on the country after its biggest banks
collapsed in 2010. Ireland sought help after a
property crash left its banks under-capitalised)

1) Who on 12 November, 2013 was appointed
as the first Chairperson and Managing Director
of Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB), the first allwomen bank of India? Usha
Anathasubramaniam (Usha assumed her charge

on the same day. Prior to her appointment she
was the Executive Director with Punjab National
Bank (PNB))
2) What was the guideline issued by the RBI on

29 October, 2013 pertaining to transactionbased SMSes by banks? - The RBI asked banks
to charge customers for transaction SMS alerts
on the basis of usage, instead of imposing a
fixed fee, to ensure equity and be reasonable
(In its guideline the RBI said that fees based on
actual usage are necessary to ensure
reasonableness and equity in charges levied by
banks. In March 2011, the RBI had set
guidelines for banks to send online alerts to
customers for all types of transactions,
irrespective of the amount. However, the
central bank had not issued rules on charging
customers for these alerts)
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24 CURRENT AFFAIRS
3) The RBI on 29 October, 2013 allowed the

commercial banks to revise the periodicity of
interest payments. This guideline was
announced under RBIs Second Quarter Review
of Monetary Policy 2013-14 by Governor
Raghram Rajan. The guideline will now enable
savings bank account and term deposit holders
to earn interest at shorter intervals. What is
present practice of interest payment adopted
by banks? At present banks pay interest on
savings and term deposits at quarterly or longer
intervals (RBI had deregulated the savings
interest rates of banks in 2011)
4) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor
Raghuram Rajan on 29 October, 2013 hiked the
repo rate by 25 basis points in the October
monetary policy review. The repo rate is now at
7.75%. What was the main reason for increasing
the repo rate? Increase in inflation during the
past few months (Wholesale price index (WPI)
inflation touched 6.46% in September while
consumer price index inflation was at 9.84%.
Both these measures have been way beyond
the comfort level of the RBI. Repo rate is the
rate at which banks borrow short term funds
from RBI)
5) RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan on 29
October, 2013 cut the marginal standing facility
(MSF) rate by 25 bps to 8.75% in the October
monetary policy review. What was the
significance of this move from the view of repo

rate? The gap between the repo rate and the
MSF rate is now back to 100 bps, which signals
the return to normalcy in currency markets. The
MSF is an emergency window that banks
borrow from when faced with a funds crunch)
6) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), on 6
November, 2013, permitted wholly-owned
subsidiary (WOS) of foreign banks to acquire
domestic private sector banks as well as set up
branches anywhere in the country. It also
allowed foreign bank subsidiary to list on local
stock exchanges. What is the maximum holding
above which foreign bank subsidiaries would
not be able to hold in domestic private sector
banks? 74% (It is the sectoral cap for overall
foreign investment and would apply in this case
too)
7) What was Indias unemployment rate during
the five year period ending 2009-10, data
pertaining to which was released by the
National Sample Survey Organisation on 26
October, 2013? 2.8% (This displayed fall of 1%
in unemployment rate from 3.8% during
previous 5-year period. The data pertaining to
unemployment rate was based on NSSOs 8th
Quinquennial survey on employment and
unemployment conducted in the 66th round of
NSS during July 2009 to June 2010)
8) Which city witnessed maximum
unemployment rate during the five year period
ending 2009-10, as stated in the latest NSSO
report released on 26 October, 2013? Patna
(Patna witnessed unemployment rate of 13.2%
during this period and it was followed by
Kanpur which witnessed 7.7% unemployment)
9) Which city witnessed minimum
unemployment rate during the five year period
ending 2009-10, as stated in the latest NSSO
report released on 26 October, 2013? Bhopal
(Bhopal witnessed an unemployment rate of
just 0.1% during this period. Gujarats Surat was
in second place with unemployment rate of
0.6%)
10) Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries

Limited (RIL) retained his title as Indias
wealthiest person for sixth year in a row. His
networth stood at $21 billion. NRI steel tycoon
Lakshmi Mittal (USD 16 billion) also continues
to hold the second position in this list released
by the Forbes magazine. Who pushed IT czar
Azim Premji of Wipro to fourth position to
become third richest Indian? - Dilip Shanghvi
(Sun Pharmas Shanghvi jumped to third place
with about 50% surge in his wealth to $13.9

billion while Azim Premjis wealth stood at
$13.8 billion. Other people on this list include
Pallonji Mistry (5th position with $12.5 billion),
Hinduja brothers (6th position with $9 billion),
Shiv Nadar (7th position with $8.6 billion), Adi
Godrej (8th position with $8.3 billion), Kumar
Mangalam Birla (9th position with $7.6 billion)
and Sunil Mittal (10th position with ($6.6 billion)
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25 CURRENT AFFAIRS
1) Following the attack on a woman at an ATM

in Bangalore during November 2013, the Bank
Employees Federation of India (BEFI) urged the
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to drop which plan
associated with increasing the penetration of
ATMs in the country? - White-label ATMs
(Under the plan of White-label ATMs, it would
be the responsibility of the private agencies to
locate, install, and maintain these ATMs. Whitelabel ATMs can be opened by even those
entities which are not in banking operations.
BEFI is of the view that security is a major issue
with White-label ATMs. Indias first white-label
ATM IndiCash was started during 2013 by Tata
Communications Payment Solutions Ltd.
(TCPSL), a subsidiary of Tata Communications)
2) The first all-women Bharatiya Mahila Bank
(BMB) was launched by Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh on 19 November, 2013 with
the inauguration of the first branch of the bank.
This first branch of BMB was inaugurated at Air India building at Nariman Point in Mumbai
(The bank is being started with seven branches
(Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Guwahati,
Bangalore, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow) initially.
The bank plans to reach a branch size of 25 in
the next four months and thereafter add about
75 banks every year. The capital base for this

bank is Rs. 1,000 crore)
3) What is a special fact associated with the
Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB), which was
launched on 19 November, 2013 on the
occasion of the 96th birthday of late Indira
Gandhi? BMB is the first bank started in the
public sector space by an Act of Parliament
(Other banks in public sector were nationalised
in two tranches in 1969 and 1980)
4) What are the main points pertaining to nonperforming assets (NPAs) of Indian banking
sector mentioned in the RBI report Trends and
Progress of Banking Report 2012-13?
Gross NPAs as per cent of gross advances for
scheduled commercial banks stood at 3.6% as
at March 2013 as against 3.1% previous fiscal
Net NPAs as per cent of net advances for banks
stood at 1.7% in FY13 as against 1.3% previous
year
As the end of March 2013, the gross NPAs of
Indian banking industry stood Rs. 1,94,000
crore. Public sector banks had highest amount
of bad loans at Rs. 1,65,000 crore followed by
private sector banks at Rs. 21,000 crore and

foreign bank at Rs. 7,900 crore
to provide sustainable income to poor people

living in rural areas of the country)
The deterioration in asset quality was most

perceptible for the SBI group with its NPA ratio
reaching a high of 5 per cent at end March 2013
7) The net profit of Indias largest commercial

bank SBI stood at Rs 2,375 crore during the
second quarter of 2013-14 as against Rs 3,658
crore in the previous year period. What was the
main reason for this 35% slump in net profits?
The bank made higher provisions to hedge
against rising bad loans during the quarter (The
bank set aside Rs 2,645 crore during the quarter
as a cover against potential bad loans. In the
same period last year, the bank had set aside Rs
1,837 crore. The amount of the banks nonperforming loans rose by 30% to Rs 64,206
crore (Rs 49,202 crore, a year ago))
Deterioration in asset quality in 2012-13 was

primarily on account of the non-priority sector
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26 CURRENT AFFAIRS
5) Market regulator SEBI on 18 November, 2013

said that a single Self Regulatory Organisation
(SRO) would be put in place for the oversight of
for all mutual fund distributors. SRO is expected
to be selected from among which three
applicants? - Institute of Mutual Fund
Intermediaries (IMFI), Organisation of Financial
Distributors (OFD) and Financial Planning
Standards Board India (FPSB) (The proposal to
set up an SRO to regulate the mutual fund
distribution business was mooted in August
2012, while a detailed framework in this regard
was approved by the SEBI board in June 2013.
The deadline for submitting applications for
SRO was 31 July, 2013. The decision to set up an
SRO followed concerns about mutual fund
distributors not being regulated and complaints
against them for mis-selling products. The SRO
will assist SEBI and ensure a cordial relationship
between mutual fund houses and distributors)
November 2013 directed public sector banks
(PSBs) to provide loans to women self-help
groups (SHGs) at what rate of interest to avail
the benefit of interest rate subvention scheme
under the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar
Yojana-Aajeevika (SGSY) scheme? 7% per
annum (As per this RBI notification, all women
SHGs will be eligible for interest subvention to
avail the credit upto 3 lakh Rupees at 7% per
annum. SGSY is an initiative by the government
8) On 18 November, 2013 which banks were

designated by the RBI to collect advance
income tax payments? SBI, ICICI bank, HDFC
Bank, PNB, Oriental Bank of Commerce and
Bank of Baroda
9) The Rapid Metro in Gurgaon, which will
connect Delhi Metro commuters to six key
places within the city, was inaugurated on 14
November, 2013. This project is a public-private
partnership (PPP) project between which two
entities? HUDA (Haryana Urban Development
Authority) and IL&FS Rail Ltd. (Rapid Metro
timings will be in sync with Delhi Metro, so that
commuters won't have to wait for the local loop
train. While there are a total of six stations in
the network, the one at Shankar Chowk will
become operational later as work is still not
complete)
10) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 25 November
2013 widened the definition of infrastructure
lending sub category in a bid to swiftly expedite
these projects. Which sub-category was added
to the infrastructure lending sub category by
the RBI to widen its definition? Hotels, with

project cost of more than 200 crore rupees
being built anywhere in India and of any star
rating (The list will also include convention
centres with project cost of more than Rs. 300
crore. Various sub-sectors under the categories
such as Transport, Energy, Water & Sanitation,

Communication, Social and Commercial
Infrastructure come under infrastructure
lending)
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27 CURRENT AFFAIRS
1) The Standing Committee on Finance headed

by Yashwant Sinha has during December 2013
given what suggestion to the Union
Government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on
the issue of new bank licenses? It has
suggested to desist from giving new bank
licences to industrial houses (Banking being a
highly leveraged business involving public
money and public welfare, it will be more in the
fitness of things to keep industry and banking
separate, the Standing Committee on Finance
has suggested. It urged to ensure that no
recurrence of the pre-nationalised situation
happens, when the management of private
banks deployed their funds to extend undue
favour to their own industrial owners without
regard to social priorities determined by
Government)
2) According to the list of biggest bank
defaulters released by the All India Bank
Employees Association (AIBEA) during
December 2013, as much as 25% of the total
non-performing assets (NPAs) in public sector
banks (excluding SBI) are accounted by 50
corporates. Which is the corporate with largest
outstanding in this list? Kingfisher Airlines
(Vijay Mallya promoted Kingfisher Airlines owes
Rs. 2,673 crore as per the combined NPA list of
PSU banks. It is followed by Winsome Diamond
(Rs. 2,660 crore) and Electrotherm India Limited
(Rs. 2211 crore). The total NPAs of public sector
banks (excluding SBI) stood at Rs. 1,64,461
crore. Top 50 corporate defaulters have

defaulted Rs. 40,528 crore of bank loans.
According to AIBEA, it has released the name of
these defaulters as the RBI and the govt. are not
publishing them)
3) Which entity on 3 December, 2013
announced plans to set up a MFIs Credit
Information Bureau to enable Microfinance
Institutions (MFIs) to secure credit on faster and
better terms? - Credit Information Bureau
(India) Ltd. CIBIL (Under this initiative CIBIL is
planning to rope in MFIs as members. Currently,
CIBIL is operating four bureaus consumer,
retail, mortgage and fraud. Prior to approving
individual loans, public sector banks and
financial institutions seek CIBIL credit
information reports and credit score of an
applicant. An individual is given points by the
CIBIL TransUnion ranging from 300 to 900
(highest), based on his loan repayment pattern
for the last few months. The credit score is
updated every month. Individuals with 800
points are the most sought after by banks)
4) Which practice has been made compulsory
from 1 December, 2013 with regard to use of
debit card at retail outlets? Mandatory
punching of debit card PIN number after
swiping (This is intended to make bank debit
card transactions more secure. In June 2013,
the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had extended
the deadline for implementation of mandatory
PIN punching at Point-of-Sales (PoS) and

merchant outlets till 30 November, 2013
following representation of banks. According to
the report of a RBI working group early cases of
domestic counterfeit and skimming are being
observed as far as debit cards are concerned.
Card skimming is the illegal copying of
information from the magnetic strip of a
credit/debit card)
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28 CURRENT AFFAIRS
5) Insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation

(LIC) during November 2013 decided to stop
selling 34 policies, including popular policies like
Jeevan Anand, Jeevan Madhur and Jeevan Saral
during December 2013. What is the main
reason for this decision of LIC? - To comply with
new regulatory guidelines (These policies are
not in conformity with the provisions of new
regulations on non-linked insurance products,
linked insurance products and health insurance
products. The Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority (IRDA) had extended
the deadline for implementation of new
individual product regulations for the life
insurance industry by three months to 31
December 2014. The new guidelines are aimed
at making insurance policies more customerfriendly)
6) Which major industrial group of the country
on 27 November, 2013 withdrew its application
with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a
banking licence? Tata Sons, which is the
holding company of the Tata Group (It thus
became the second industrial group after
Videocon-promoted Value Industries to opt out
of the race for banking license that now has 25
entities in the fray. For Tata Sons, the
constraining factor was the RBI guideline for
new bank licences that required all financial

services entities in a group to be necessarily
owned by the non-operating financial holding
company (NOFHC). To comply, the Tatas would
have had to re-organise the existing financial
services structure of the Group. The Tata move
comes just two months before the final licences
for new banks are to be issued by the RBI)
7) Six financial institutions - Germanys
Deutsche Bank, Frances Societe Generale,
Britains RBS and RP Martin and United States
JP Morgan and Citigroup, were imposed fines
totalling 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) by the
European Union on 4 December, 2013. What is
the reason for imposition of this hefty penalty?
- For manipulating interest-rate benchmarks
(These banks were involved in manipulating
interest rate derivatives denominated in the
euro and the Japanese yen. There had been
suspicions about rate-rigging during the 2008
financial crisis, but the scandal reached full
force last year when Barclays bank became the
first to settle a fine for attempting to falsify the
Libor benchmark. Germanys Deutsche Bank
faces the stiffest penalty with a total fine of 725
million euros, followed by Frances Societe
Generale with 446 million euros and Britains
RBS with 391 million euros)
8) What ease in norms for non-banking finance
companies (NBFCs) involved in insurance jointventures was announced by the RBI on 28
November, 2013? They have been allowed to
hold more than 50% in such companies (As per
existing norms, an NBFC could not hold more
than 50% of the paid-up capital of an insurance
joint-venture)

1) National Stock Exchange (NSE) during
December 2013 completed how many years of
its establishment? 20 years (NSE was founded

in 1992 and started trading operations in 1993.
It was the first in India to start electronic

trading and was successful in bringing about a
paradigm shift in the way trading and
settlements were done. NSE has a market
capitalisation of more than US$989 billion and
1,635 companies listed as on July 2013 and is
the largest stock exchange in India)
2) Who was appointed as the new Chairman of
the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (NABARD) during December
2013? - Harsh Kumar Bhanwala (Bhanwala
succeeds Prakash Bakshi, who retired as
NABARD Chairman in September 2013. Before
this appointment Bhanwala was an Executive
Director at India Infrastructure Finance
Company Ltd (IIFCL), a state-owned
infrastructure lender. His term will be for 5
years)
Page
29 CURRENT AFFAIRS
3) Who was appointed as the new Finance

Secretary of India on 10 December, 2013?
Sumit Bose (Bose takes place of R.S. Gujral, who
retired during November 2013. Gujral was also
looking after the expenditure department.
Sumit Bose is an IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh
cadre (1976 batch) and was the senior-most
secretary in the Finance Ministry that has two
other secretaries- Arvind Mayaram (economic
affairs) and Ratan P Watal (expenditure). He is
due to retire in March 2014)
4) Top 30 loan defaulters of public sector banks
(PSBs) account for more than one-third of total
gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of state-run
lenders. This information was given in the
Parliament on 10 December, 2013. According to
this information what is the ratio of top 30
NPAs as a percentage of gross NPAs, in respect
of public sector banks, as on September 2013?
35.5% (This figure stands at 38.8% for all
banks in India. The gross non-performing assets
(GNPA) amount of top 30 accounts of public

sector banks (PSBs) stood at Rs. 72,174 crore,
while for all banks it was Rs. 91,667 crore at the
end of September 2013. In case of nationalised
banks, the top 30 defaulters contributed 43.8
per cent to the GNPA with Rs. 55,663 crore. The
GNPAs of the SBI Group, comprising SBI and its
five associates, were worth Rs. 71,620 crore at
the end of first quarter of the current fiscal)
5) Which private sector bank during December
2013 joined hands with the National Payments
Corporation of India (NPCIL) to introduce eKYC
(electronic Know Your Customer) norms in its
branches? HDFC Bank (The eKYC procedure
will enable a consumer to walk in with an
Aadhaar number and open an account by
getting his fingerprint scanned. HDFC Bank will
install biometric readers for scanning
fingerprints at most of its branches in a few
months. The banks systems will pull all data
stored online with the Unique Identification
Authority of India (UIAI) including name,
address, birth date and photograph)
6) The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), in
its memorandum given during December 2013
to the Finance Minister, has kept which demand
prominently which has huge support of bank
employees all over the country? Working for
five-days in a week (Trade unions in the banking
sector have raised this demand as part of their
bipartite wage negotiations with the Indian
Banks Association. With alternative channels
such as ATMs, Internet and mobile banking in
place, the unions feel that the time is ripe for
moving to a five-day week. Unions argue that
not only Central and State Government
ministries/departments but even the Reserve
Bank of India follows the five-day work
schedule. However, another section of bankers
were of the opinion that five-day week was not
advisable as it would come in the way of efforts

towards financial inclusion)
7) Which natural gas pipeline inaugurated by
the Prime Minister on 3 December, 2013 is the
first one to connect Southern India to the
national grid? - Dabhol Bangaluru Gas Pipeline
of GAIL (The Dabhol Bangaluru gas pipeline is
1,000 km long and has been put-up with an
investment of around Rs. 4,500 crore. The
pipeline starts at Dabhol in Maharashtra and
passes through Belgaum, Dharwad, Gadag,
Bellary, Devanagere, Chitradurga, Tumkur,
Ramanagaram, Bengaluru Rural and Bengaluru
Urban districts)
Page
30 CURRENT AFFAIRS
8) More than a year after allowing FDI in multibrand retail, the government on 17 December
2013 received the first application to open
stores under this category. Which company
gave this application to set-up multi-brand retail
stores in India with an Indian group? Tesco
Plc. (Tesco Plc. is a UK-based retailer and it has
sought approval to open retail stores in India
with an investment of $110 million in joint
venture with Tata Group. The joint-venture
Trent Hypermarket, will trade in products under
14 categories and plans to open three to five
stores every financial year. The government in
September 2012 had allowed 51% FDI in multibrand retail with certain riders)
9) Which public sector bank is the only Indian

bank to have a branch in Bangkok (Thailand)
and it during December 2013 received the
Reserve Bank of India (RBIs) approval for
opening a second branch here? - Indian
Overseas Bank (IOB) IOB will open the second
branch before the end of March 2014. IOB had
few years back roped in Deloitte to devise a
strategy for the banks overseas expansion)
10) State-run Indian Oil Corp has emerged as
the countrys biggest company in terms of
annual revenue, followed by Mukesh Ambaniled private sector giant Reliance Industries at
the second place, as per an annual list of
Fortune 500 companies in India in Fortune
magazines Indian edition released during
December 2013. Among the top ten companies
in this list, the highest number of companies is
from which sector? Energy Sector (There are
as many as seven energy companies in the top
10 list. Indian Oil Corp (IOC) was the biggest
with annual revenue of Rs 4,75,867 crore,
followed by Reliance Industries (RIL) with a fullyear revenue of Rs 4,09,883 crore. This is
followed by Bharat Petroleum (Rs 2,44,822
crore) at the third place and Hindustan
Petroleum (Rs 2,17,771 crore) at fourth. Other
entities in the list are State Bank of India (5th
rank), Tata Motors (6th), ONGC (7th), Tata Steel
(8th), Essar Oil (9th) and Coal India (10th))

1) The committee constituted by the Reserve
Bank of India (RBIs) 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)
Page
31 CURRENT AFFAIRS
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))
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)
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)
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)
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 corporations 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)
7) Indian financial markets were left surprised
by Reserve Bank of India (RBIs) 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 RBIs 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
Page
32 CURRENT AFFAIRS
- Outlook on global growth continues to remain

moderate
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. LICs 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)
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
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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Banking & Financial Awareness - 30

1) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on 15 July 2013

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Banking & Financial Awareness - 33

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