State-owned largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) to be listed on the bourses on May 17, and it has already generated huge interest among policyholders, as close to 1.21 crore demat accounts have been opened by LIC policyholders.

Rahul Jain, director of the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), told  that over 6.48 crore policyholders have linked PAN numbers with their LIC policies before the last cut-off date - February 28, 2022.

LIC has over 28 crore policyholders and life funds of worth Rs 34.3 lakh crore. Policyholders will get a discount of Rs 60 per share, and LIC is expecting a huge participation from them.

The government expects to grant approvals to electronic chip makers in the next 6-8 months as it looks to encourage domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said.

Speaking at the Semicon India-2022 conference , Vaishnaw said it will be done in "the next 6-8 months".

Minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said at the conference that the Indian Semiconductor Mission is evaluating the process and the approvals will come after the due diligence is done.

The government has received proposals from five companies for setting up the electronic chip and display manufacturing plants with an investment of Rs 1.53 lakh crore.

Vedanta Foxconn JV, IGSS Ventures, ISMC propose to set-up electronic chip manufacturing plants with USD 13.6 billion investment and have sought support of USD 5.6 billion from the Centre under the Rs 76,000 crore Semicon India Programme.

Vedanta and Elest have proposed to set up display manufacturing units -- used in mobile phones, laptops etc -- with a projected investment of USD 6.7 billion. They have sought the support of USD 2.7 billion from the Centre under the scheme for setting up display fabs in India.

The government expects investments of around Rs 1.7 lakh crore and 1.35 lakh jobs to be created in the next four years under the incentive scheme for semiconductors approved by the Cabinet.

Besides electronic chip and display plants, four companies -- SPEL Semiconductor, HCL, Syrma Technology and Velankani Electronics -- have registered for semiconductor packaging.

Ruttonsha International Rectifier has registered for compound semiconductors.

Three companies -- Terminus Circuits, Trispace Technologies and Curie Microelectronics -- have submitted applications under the Design-Linked Incentive Scheme.

The government will negotiate the structure and quantum of fiscal support with the applicants.

The fiscal support under the scheme shall be provided on a pari-passu basis for a period of six years from the date of approval.

Apart from fiscal support, semiconductor fabs set up in India will be supported through purchase preference in the procurement of electronic products by the government under the Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) Order.

Double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu eked out a thrilling win over China's He Bing Jiao to enter the women's singles semifinals of the Badminton Asia Championships  in Manila on April 29 . With this win, Sindhu assured herself of a medal in the continental individual championships, which is making a return after a gap of two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The fourth-seeded Sindhu, who had claimed a bronze in the 2014 Gimcheon edition, got the better of the fifth seeded Chinese 21-9 13-21 21-19 in a quarterfinal match that lasted an hour and 16 minutes. The 26-year-old from Hyderabad, who won two super 300 titles at Syed Modi International and Swiss Open, will face top seeded Japanese Akane Yamaguchi in the semifinals.

Q1.  Name the country which ranks third globally in international student intake after the US and UK ?

1. Ukraine
2. Germany
3. China
4. France
5. None of These

Q2. Semicon India-2022 conference was held in

1. Mumbai
2. Chennai
3. Bengaluru
4. Hyderabad
5. None of These

Q3. The double Olympic medallist PV Sindhu eked out a thrilling win over China's He Bing Jiao to enter the women's singles semifinals of the Badminton Asia Championships  in

1. Manila
2. Jakarta
3. Kuala Lumpur
4. Bangkok
5. None of These

Q4. Who among the following will take over as the next vice chief of the Army Staff on May 1 ?

1. Lt Gen Manoj Pande
2. Lt Gen B S Raju
3. Lt Gen S K Sharma
4. Lt Gen  A Singh Bhinde
5. None of These

Q5. Name the India's first indigenous aircraft carrier which will  be handed over to Navy in May ?

1. INS Virat
2. INS Vaibhav
3. INS Vikrant
4. INS Garud
5. None of These

Answers

1-----------------------3 China

2-----------------------3    Bengaluru

3----------------------1   Manila

4----------------------2     Lt Gen B S Raju

5-----------------------3     INS Vikrant

Q1. The state-run Bank of Maharashtra is based in

1. Nagpur
2. Pune
3. Mumbai
4. Aurangabad
5. None of These

Q2. Name the first country which  will be visited by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2022?

1. Germany
2. Denmark
3. France
4. Sweden
5. None of These

Q3. Which among the following has became the first airline in the country to land aircraft using the indigenous navigation system GAGAN?

1.  Air India
2.  AirAsia India
3.  IndiGo
4.  Vistara
5. None of These

Q4. The Cabinet has approved upgradation of 2G mobile sites to 4G in naxal-hit areas at a cost of

1. Rs 2,426 crore
2. Rs 4,426 crore
3. Rs 6 ,126 crore
4. Rs 8 ,426 crore
5. None of These

Q5. Following the Centre's footsteps, name the state government  which has issued an advisory to all its departments, boards, and corporation besides field offices to promote yoga by giving Yoga Break (Y-Break) for 15 to 20 minutes daily in workplaces to refresh and de-stress employees?

1. Punjab
2. Himachal Pradesh
3. Uttarakhand
4. Haryana                  
5. None of These

Answers

1------------------Pune

2------------------Germany

3------------------ IndiGo

4-------------------Rs 2,426 crore

5-------------------Haryana

Following the Centre's footsteps, the Haryana government has issued an advisory to all its departments, boards, and corporation besides field offices to promote yoga by giving Yoga Break (Y-Break) for 15 to 20 minutes daily in workplaces to refresh and de-stress employees.

Y-Break was formally launched on September 1, 2021, in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi in presence of five central ministers as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav."

The Cabinet has approved upgradation of 2G mobile sites to 4G in naxal-hit areas at a cost of Rs 2,426 crore, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said.

The project is spread across naxal-affected area in 10 states and the task has been assigned to the state-owned telecom firm BSNL.

He said that indigenously developed core network, radio network and telecom equipment will be used to upgrade the mobile towers to 4G.  The 2,542 mobile towers are spread across 10 states.

This includes 346 sites in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar 16, Chattisgarh 971, Jharkhand 450, Madhya Pradesh 23, Maharashtra 125, Odisha 483, West Bengal 33, Uttar Pradesh 42 and Telangana 53.

IndiGo became the first airline in the country to land aircraft using the indigenous navigation system GAGAN.

The flight was conducted using an ATR-72 aircraft and landed at the Kishangarh airport in Rajasthan, using GPS-aided geo-augmented navigation (GAGAN), which has been jointly developed by the Centre-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

GAGAN is used to provide lateral and vertical guidance when an aircraft is approaching a runway for landing. Its precision is especially useful at small airports where the instrument landing system (ILS) has not been installed.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a mandate for all aircraft registered in India after July 1, 2021 to be fitted with GAGAN equipment.