Q1.  Name the holy city  which has been endorsed by the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)   as the first ever tourist and cultural capital of the grouping for the year 2022-23 ?

1. Varanasi
2. Prayagraj
3. Ayodhya
4. Amritsar
5. None of These

Q2. In which of the following year Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)   was founded ?

1. 1996
2. 2001
3. 2006
4. 2016
5. None of These

Q3. In which of the following year India and Pakistan became  permanent members  of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)  

1. 2001
2. 2006
3. 2011
4. 2017
5. None of These

Q4. The Uzbekistan  has handed over the rotating presidency of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)  for the year 2022-23 to

1. China
2. Russia
3. India
4. Pakistan
5. None of These

Q5. Which among the following have been given permanent membership of SCO  recently ?

1. Belarus and Iran
2. Azerbaijan and Armenia
3. Turkey and Syria
4. Myanmar and Bangladesh
5. None of These

Answers

1------------------------------ 1  Varanasi

2------------------------------2  2001

3------------------------------4  2017

4------------------------------3  India

5------------------------------1   Belarus and Iran

India and Egypt will ink an agreement to expand defence and security cooperation during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's three-day visit to the Arab country beginning on Sep 18 .

The defence ministry said Singh's visit is aimed at further consolidating defence cooperation and the "special friendship" between India and Egypt.

Singh's trip to Egypt comes nearly two-and-half months after Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhary, visited the country to enhance cooperation between the two air forces.

Egypt has also evinced interest in procurement of India's Tejas aircraft.

In a tweet, Singh said he will be in the Egyptian capital Cairo on September 18 as part of a three-day visit to that country.

Ten years after a peace process began with eight Assam rebel Adivasi groups, the Centre signed a tripartite agreement with the outfits, including the Birsa Commando Force (BCF), Adivasi People’s Army (APA) and All Adivasi National Liberation Army (AANLA) in New Delhi on Sep 15 in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

The pact was signed “to end the decades-old crisis of Adivasi and tea garden workers in Assam”, the ministry said. The accord was followed by the laying down of arms by 1,182 cadres of the tribal groups who will now join the mainstream. The Adivasi Cobra Military of Assam (AMA), the Santhal Tiger Force and the other three outfits are splinter groups of the BCF, AANLA and the ACMA.

Pointing out that 8,000 militants in the northeast have laid down their weapons since 2014, Shah said that the Centre aimed to end “disputes related to armed groups” in the region before 2024. The pact not only provides for the establishment of an Adivasi Welfare and Development Council that will “ensure speedy and focused development of tea gardens” but also work to rehabilitate and resettle the armed cadre and tea plantation workers.

The former home minister of state and ex-chairman of Mehsana District Cooperative Producers Union Ltd (Dudhsagar Dairy) Vipul Chaudhary was arrested by the Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in a case of alleged financial irregularities worth over Rs  750 crore. He was arrested from his Gandhinagar residence on  Sep 14 Night.

Vipul Chaudhary, along with his supporters, was running a campaign for the Dudhsagar dairy in the upcoming elections. Chaudhary, a prominent face of Gujarat’s cooperative sector, was home minister in the Shankarsinh Vaghela government in 1996. Chaudhary is also a BJP leader.

A day after actor Jacqueline Fernandez was interrogated in an extortion case linked to conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar, Delhi Police questioned another Bollywood actor Nora Fatehi, her relative Mehboob Khan and Pinky Irani, who introduced her to conman Chandrasekhar, on  Sep 14 in the capital in the same case. The police also seized a Ducati motorcycle from Jacqueline’s manager.

The investigators have found that the con man gifted a BMW car to the actress in December 2020. The BMW S Series car was purchased from Infinity Cars Pvt Ltd for Rs 63.94 lakh and was registered in Khan’s name.

During questioning, Fatehi told investigators that Chandrasekhar offered her a car to which she refused as she already had several vehicles. When insisted, Fatehi told Chandrasekhar to give the car to his relative Mehboob. All three – Mehboob, Fatehi and Irani – were confronted during the questioning.

It is further alleged that Irani also introduced TV actress Nikita Tamboli, Chahat Khanna, Sophia Singh, and Arusha Patil to Chandrasekhar in Tihar Prisons. All of them had gone to Delhi’s Tihar Jail to meet him via his associate Irani. The case was busted by the Crime Branch of Delhi Police, which was later handed over to the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) because of huge amount of funds exchanging hands on the behest of multimillionaire conman were hundreds of crores.

Berlin on  Sep 16 took control of the German operations of Russian oil firm Rosneft to secure energy supplies which have been disrupted after Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Rosneft's German subsidiaries, which account for about 12 percent of oil refining capacity in the country, were placed under trusteeship of the Federal Network Agency, the economy ministry said in a statement.

The seizures come as Germany is scrambling to wean itself off its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Moscow has stopped natural gas deliveries to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

The move covers the companies Rosneft Deutschland GmbH (RDG) and RN Refining & Marketing GmbH (RNRM) and thereby their corresponding stakes in three refineries: PCK Schwedt, MiRo and Bayernoil.

Fears had been running high particularly for PCK Schwedt, which is close to the Polish border and supplies around 90 percent of the oil used in Berlin and the surrounding region, including Berlin-Brandenburg international airport.

The refineries' operations had been disrupted as the German government decided to slash Russian oil imports, with an aim to halt them completely by year's end.

Amsterdam's Schiphol airport chief executive Dick Benschop announced  on Sep 15 that he was stepping down following months of continual chaos at one of Europe's largest transport hubs, plagued by long queues and baggage handling issues.

Benschop's announcement comes as the continent's second-largest airport again on  Sep 12 asked airlines to cancel flights and passengers had to stand in line for hours before catching flights.

Benschop, a former top manager at Shell and deputy minister announced his resignation at a meeting of the airport's supervisory board on  on Sep 14 night.

Benschop last month blamed the long queues over the summer, which saw numerous passengers miss flights despite arriving hours ahead of departure -- on staff shortages as the airline industry struggles to recover in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.

Baggage handlers earlier this year walked off the job in a wildcat strike and lost and unclaimed luggage remains a problem.

The airport reduced passenger numbers since July in an effort to bring down waiting times.

The book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi titled 'Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery' can be used as a management textbook, said Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman while speaking at a BJP party event on  Sep 14 in Mumbai.

She made the remarks while addressing an event on the book 'Modi@20: Dreams Meet Delivery' organised by the party's Mumbai unit.

Speaking about PM Modi's leadership, she said all the schemes for the poor were made available with transparency to the last mile beneficiaries.

The book about prime minister Modi was launched in early May by former Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

It may be noted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed 20 years in 2021 as the head of government from becoming Chief Minister to Prime Minister of India. First, he became Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001 and remained in that post till he became the Prime Minister of India in 2014 and was re-elected in 2019.

Published by Rupa Publications India, the book is written by eminent intellectuals and writers like Nandan Nilekani, Sudha Murty, Sadguru, P.V. Sindhu, and Amish Tripathi, among others.