Aviation stocks were in heavy demand on Aug 11 , a day after the Civil Aviation Ministry said that domestic airfare caps will be removed.

The Union Aviation Ministry on  Aug 10 said that limits imposed on domestic airfares will be removed from August 31, after a span of approximately 27 months.

Shares of InterGlobe Aviation opened at Rs 2,070.05, then gained further to touch 2,080.80, registering a jump of 2.09 per cent over its last close.

SpiceJet Ltd opened at Rs 46.05, then jumped as much as 6.80 per cent to Rs 47.90 a share.

The ministry had imposed lower and upper limits on domestic airfares based on flight durations when services were resumed on May 25, 2020, after a two-month lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Income taxpayers will not be allowed to enrol in the government's social security scheme Atal Pension Yojana (APY) from October 1, according to a notification.

The government introduced APY on June 1, 2015, to provide social security to workers mainly in the unorganised sector.

Subscribers of the scheme get a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per month after attaining 60 years of age depending on their contributions.

The ministry has modified its earlier notification on APY. The new notification, issued on Aug 10, will not apply to subscribers who have joined or joined the scheme before October 1, 2022.

In case a subscriber, who joined on or after October 1, 2022, is subsequently found to have been an income tax payer on or before the date of application, the APY account shall be closed and the accumulated pension wealth to date would be given to the subscriber, the notification said.

Under the income tax law, people having taxable income of up to Rs 2.5 lakh are not required to pay income tax.

Currently, all Indian citizens between the age group of 18-40 years can join APY through bank or post office branches where one has a savings bank account.

The government had co-contributed 50 per cent of the total contribution or Rs 1,000 per annum, whichever is lower, to each eligible subscriber, who joined the scheme during the period from June 2015 to March 2016.

It was also subject to the condition that the subscriber was not a beneficiary of any social security scheme and also not an income taxpayer.

Those APY subscribers received the government's co-contribution for a five-year period from 2015-16 to 2019-20. More than 99 lakh APY accounts were opened during the last fiscal, taking the total number of subscribers to 4.01 crore at the end of March 2022.

Star Indian wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was appointed as the brand ambassador of Uttarakhand by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in a programme organised at Uttarakhand Sadan in New Delhi.

CM Dhami said that honouring cricketer Rishabh Pant as Uttarakhand brand ambassador would inspire youth in the field of sports in the state.

Q1. According to the UN trade and development body UNCTAD  what percent of  Indian   population owned digital currency in 2021 ?

1. 5   per cent
2. 6 .5 per cent
3. 7.3 per cent
4. 8.2 per cent
5. None of These

Q2. The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on  Aug 10  has approved the proposal of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for the continuation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) up to

1. December 31, 2022
2. December 31, 2023
3. December 31, 2024
4. December 31, 2025
5. None of These 

Q3. The star Indian wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was appointed as the brand ambassador of

1. Uttar Pradesh
2. Madhya Pradesh
3. Uttarakhand
4. Delhi
5. None of These

Q4. The Sri Lanka's ousted president Gotabaya Rajapaksa arrived in Thailand on  Aug 11 on a charter flight for a temporary stay before seeking permanent asylum in another country after his short-term visit pass expired in

1. Singapore
2. Maldives
3. UAE
4. India
5. None of These

Q5. Name the country which will  provide USD 118 million assistance to Nepal and  promised  to expedite work on BRI projects ?

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

Answers

1----------------3   7.3 per cent

2----------------3   December 31, 2024

3------------------3   Uttarakhand

4------------------1   Singapore

5-------------------4    China 

Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar was on  Aug 10 sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bihar for a record eighth time. He was administered the oath of office by Governor Phagu Chauhan at a simple ceremony inside the Raj Bhavan.

Tejashwi Yadav, whose RJD helms the Grand Alliance that elected Kumar as its leader on Aug 9 , was also sworn in as the Deputy Chief Minister for the second time.

Left parties CPIML(L), CPI and CPI(M) have expressed their intention to support the new government from outside.

The 71-year-old JD(U) leader first took oath as chief minister in 2000, when he headed an NDA government that lasted only a week.

He was back in 2005, this time with his coalition having won an absolute majority in the assembly polls.

The NDA won a landslide victory under his leadership in the assembly polls five years later.

Kumar stepped down in 2014, owning moral responsibility for the drubbing of JD(U) in the Lok Sabha polls, but returned less than a year later when he was sworn in for the fourth time.

In 2015, Kumar was back as CM, with the Grand Alliance then comprising the JD(U), RJD and Congress winning a comfortable majority.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on  Aug 10 granted bail to Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a drugs case.

Majithia had surrendered after the February 20 state assembly polls and is currently lodged in a Patiala jail.

The division bench had reserved the order on the plea of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader on July 29.

Majithia had approached the high court on May 23, seeking bail in the case registered against him under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in December 2021.

The former minister was booked under the NDPS Act on December 20 last year during the previous Congress government.

Majithia is the brother-in-law of SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

The Supreme Court on  Aug 10 granted regular bail to Bhima Koregaon case accused Varavara Rao on medical grounds.

The 83-year-old poet and activist, who has challenged the Bombay High Court's April 13 order rejecting his plea for permanent bail on medical grounds, is currently on interim bail on medical grounds and he was to surrender on July 12.

On July 19, the top court observed that the interim protection granted to Rao would continue. The apex court on July 12 had extended Rao's interim protection till further orders.

The case relates to alleged inflammatory speeches made at the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017, which the police claimed triggered violence the next day near the Koregaon-Bhima war memorial on the outskirts of the western Maharashtra city.

      The Pune Police had also claimed that the conclave was organised by people with alleged Maoist links.

The NIA later took over the probe in the matter.

Controversial godman Swami Vairagyanand Giri alias Mirchi Baba, who campaigned for the opposition Congress in the 2018 assembly polls and 2019 general elections in Madhya Pradesh has been arrested from Gwalior, for allegedly raping a young woman on the pretext of helping her conceive a child.

Importantly, Mirchi Baba has been in news since the 2018 assembly polls and 2019 LS polls, when he campaigned for the Congress in the state. He had performed a major ritual with one quintal red chillies for victory of ex-CM Digvijaya Singh over BJP candidate Pragya Thakur in the 2019 LS polls in Bhopal and had announced to take Jal Samadhi if Singh lost the electoral contest. Singh ultimately lost the LS polls against Thakur by huge margin, after which he had sought permission from Bhopal district administration to take Jal Samadhi.

Recently, he had created a scene at a local body polls rally of MP Congress president Kamal Nath in Gwalior, when he was not given a place to sit on the stage.