General Knowledge (CDS-Solved Paper)

The 2019 Indian general election was held in 7 phases from 11th April to 19th May, 2019 to constitute the 17th Lok Sabha. The votes were counted and result was declared on 23rd May, 2019.

The voting turnout was over 67% the highest ever as well as the highest participation by women voters. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 353 seats whereas Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won 91 seats.

Since, no party was able to secure at least 10% of seats of total strength of Lok Sabha i.e. 55, there is no opposition leader in 17th Lok Sabha.

Karolina Pliskova won the Italian Open Women’s Tennis Singles Title 2019, defeating Johanna Konta in the final. Naomi Osaka lost the tennis US Open Women’s single title.

SIMBEX (Singapore India Maritime Bilateral Exercise) is an annual bilateral naval exercise between India and Singapore. On the Indian side, two vessels ‘INS Kolkata’ and ‘INS Shakti’ participated in the exercise.

Meanwhile, Singapore was represented by ‘RSN Steadfast’ and ‘RSN Valiant’. INS Vikrant is an Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 1 which is expected to enter the service in 2023.

The world body governing badminton, BFA has launched two new formats of the game-‘Air Badminton’ and ‘Triples’ with new dimension of the court and an innovative shuttlecock called Airshuttle.

In triples format, the match will be played between a team of three players each with presence of at least one female. Traditional competitive badminton has been an indoor game. But in the new format launched Air Badminton will be outdoor sports.

The Reserve Bank of India had constituted a high-level committee on Deepening of Digital Payments under the Chairmanship of ‘Nandan Nilekani’, former Chairman, UIDAI, in January, 2019.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) conferred ‘The Sasakawa Award 2019’ for Disaster Reduction to Dr. Pramod Kumar Mishra, Additional Principal Secretary to Prime Minister of India.

The award was announced at the 6th session of global platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2019 at Geneva. The award was given in recognition of his long-term dedication to improve the resilience of communities most exposed to disasters.

The UN Sasakawa Award is the most prestigious international award for disaster risk management.

The ICC appointed India’s GS Lakshmi as first ever female match referee. Lakshmi was a match referee in domestic women’s cricket in 2008-09 and has also overseen three women’s ODI matches and three women’s T-20 matches in capacity of a match referee.

Joko Widodo (better known as Jokowi) won a second term in office as Indonesian President. He got 55% of votes against his opponent Prabowo Subianto. In 2014, also Jokowi won by a slightly narrower margin. Voters enduring support for Jokowi can be partly explained his sensible policies.

‘Make in India’ initiative was lunched by Prime Minister Modi in September, 2014 as part of a wider set of nation building initiatives. It’s aim to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub. It covers twenty five sectors of the economy. Hence, option (d) is correct.

National Cadet Corps (NCC) is youth wing of armed forces with its headquarters at New Delhi (India). It is open to school and college students on voluntary basis.

The discussion for motto of NCC was started in 11th Central Advisory Meeting (CAD) held on 11th August, 1978, at that time there were many motto in mind like ‘duty and discipline’, ‘duty, unity and discipline’, ‘duty and unity’. Later, at the 12th CAD meeting ‘unity and discipline’ was selected as the motto of NCC.