Guidance 2 Bank Exams

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• M.S. Gopalakrishnan — legendary violinist known for his mastery of both the Carnatic and Hindustani systems of classical music — passed away on 03 January 2013 in Chennai.In his career spanning 75 years, he not only broke new ground as an accompanist, but also rose to become one of the best solo violinists in the country, along with Lalgudi G. Jayaraman and T.N. Krishnan. The three are considered the ‘violin trinity’ of south Indian classical music.Despite enviable success and accolades that came in the form of national honours such as the Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri, and innumerable titles, including the ‘Sangita Kalanidhi’ title awarded by The Music Academy, Chennai.

• A court in Seoul (South Korean) had delivered the country’s first ever ruling on chemical castration. A 31-year-old pedophile has been sentenced to 15 years in prison and 3 years of chemical castration.South Korea has become the first Asian country to approve a bill imposing chemical castration in 2011.In Poland and in some US states chemical castration of pedophiles is mandatory.Canada, Israel, Britain, Denmark and Sweden offer chemical castration drugs to sex offenders on a voluntary basis.

• Switzerland has been called the best place in the world to be born in 2013 according to the The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist.  India 66th.
                          The worst place for a baby to start life was violence-hit African country Nigeria. The survey included 80 nations and Australia ranked second followed by Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Singapore, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Canada and New Zealand were also ranked among top 10. India was ranked 66th place.The survey included significant parameters to judge the best country to be born and these factors included demography, geography, cultural and social characteristics, state of economy, future income per head as well as public policy.
  
  

• On 02 January 2013 former RBI governor YV Reddy was appointed chairman of the 14th finance commission to suggest principles of sharing of revenues between the Centre and the states and insulate pricing of public utilities like electricity, water and public transport from policy fluctuations.

• Astronomers had captured one of the flattest galaxies known in the universe, sitting like a silver needle in the haystack of space. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope produced a beautiful image of the spiral galaxy IC 2233, one of the flattest galaxies. The IC 2233 is located about 40 million light-years away from Earth. This galaxy was earlier discovered by British astronomer Isaac Roberts in 1894.

• Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) in the last week of December 2012 revealed that the Jewish population of Israel passed the crucial mark of 6 million for first time. This is equal to the Jews killed in Holocaust. According to the Israel’s CBS the overall population of Israel was 7.98 million out of which 75.4 percent were Jewish. The Arab population of Israel accounted for 20 percent and 4 percent were defined as others. Other figures were released by Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and it was found that the overall population of Arabs in Palestine and Israel would be equivalent to that of Jews by 2016. It was also revealed that the population of Arabs would exceed that of Jews by 2020.

• A “sin tax” on cigarettes and alcohol was introduced in the Philippines on 01 January 2013, as part of a government bid to boost finances.Many stores started selling tobacco and drink at inflated prices before midnight , ahead of the official implementation of the tax hikes on January 01, hitting partygoers in the pocket.Tax on cigarettes will gradually be raised to 30 pesos ($0.72) per pack by 2017, roughly doubling the current price to around 52 pesos.Duty on alcohol will also increase gradually until 2017, increasing the price of a bottle of beer by 23.50 pesos, with varying levels for other drinks including wine and spirits.

• Former India player and Railways captain Sanjay Bangar announced his retirement from first-class cricket after guiding his team to a 122-run victory over Bengal in the final league game of the Ranji Trophy on 01 January 2013 in Kolkata.He played 165 first class matches amassing 8342 runs at an average of 33.35 and has 300 wickets to his credit.

• Indian Police Service officer S Asif Ibrahim appointed as chief of the Intelligence Bureau on 01 January 2013 and he becoming the first from the country’s main minority community(Muslim Community) to hold the post. Ibrahim, an IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, has taken over as from Nehchal Sandhu who retired December 31. He will hold the post for two years.

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