Current Affairs Quiz , 21 May 2019

1) Which of the following is the first Indian state to tap into masala bond market?

a) Kerala
b) Maharashtra
c) Gujarat
d) Telangana

Answer: a
• Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan opened trading on the London Stock Exchange by ringing the iconic bell after the state-owned Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) debuted its ‘masala bond’ issue of Rs 2,150 crore on the bourse.
• While Kerala is the first Indian state to tap into the market for masala bonds — debt papers sold overseas by an Indian entity that are denominated in rupees — to raise development funds, the move is rarer still for a communist government.

2) The city of Bishkek is the capital of

a) Kenya
b) Kyrgyzstan
c) Tajikistan
d) Cyprus

Answer: b
• Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj will attend the foreign ministers’ meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to be held in Bishkek
• The meeting is expected to bring Swaraj face to face with her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi but whether it will lead to any kind of engagement between the two countries is as yet unclear. Speculation has been rife though that the SCO meet could provide an opportunity for India and Pakistan to explore the possibility of engagement.
• Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, borders Central Asia’s Tian Shan range

3) Which of the following has been recently ranked as the biggest Indian company by revenue?

a) Tata Steels
b) Reliance Industries
c) Indian Oil Corporation
d) Flipkart

Answer: b
• Reliance Industries overtakes IOC: Mukesh Ambani’s conglomerate is biggest Indian company by revenue
• Reliance in the 2018-19 fiscal year that ended March 31, reported a turnover of Rs 6.23 lakh crore. In comparison, IOC posted a turnover of Rs 6.17 lakh crore for the fiscal, according to regulatory filings by the two companies.

4) Who among the following has recently been elected as Indonesia’s president?

a) Bujar Nishani
b) Abdelaziz Bouteflika
c) Joko Widodo
d) Ilham Aliyev

Answer: c
• Indonesian president Joko Widodo has won a second term as leader of the world’s third largest democracy, official results confirmed, beating a former general who has claimed widespread ballot-rigging.

5) Ultima Thule, the farthest world ever explored by mankind, was surveyed by which spacecraft?

a) InSight
b) Mangalyaan
c) Galileo
d) New Horizon

Answer: d
• NASA has found evidence for a unique mixture of methanol, water ice, and organic molecules on Ultima Thule’s surface — the farthest world ever explored by mankind. The US space agency has published the first profile of Ultima Thule — an ancient relic from the era of planet formation — revealing details about the complex space object.
• Analysing just the first sets of data gathered during the New Horizons Spacecraft’s New Year’s 2019 flyby of the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 — nicknamed Ultima Thule — unveil much about the object’s development, geology and composition.