Correct Answer :   India

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In Football, India have lifted the SAFF Championships trophy 2023 for the ninth time, beating Kuwait 5-4 in the penalty shoot-out in the final after a 1-1 stalemate at the end of regulation time at Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru 4th July 2023.

* A thrilling penalty shootout saw the game go down the wire after Udanta Singh missed his kick. Goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh again turned out as the hero for the Indian side, saving the final kick from the Kuwaiti captain.
 
* The Indian team made it to the final after beating Lebanon in a semi-final while Kuwait defeated Bangladesh 1-0 in the other last-four clash.

* This was the second meeting of India and Kuwait in this tournament with the earlier Group stage meeting ending in a 1-1 draw..

Source : AIR

Correct Answer :   Manna Patel

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It was a record-breaking day two of the National Swimming Championships being held in Hyderabad as Olympian Maana Patel was among the swimmers who established new records on Sunday (2nd July 2023).

Maana Patel made a new national record in women's 100 m backstroke event. Lineysha AK also set a new record in the women's 200m breaststroke event.

"It's a Record Breaking Sunday at the National Swimming Championships Ace swimmer @MaanaPatel

creates a New NR of 1:03.48 in the Women's 100m Backstroke Event. Meanwhile, Lineysha A.K. also sets a new NR of 2:37.35 in Women's 200m Breaststroke Event! Well done GIRLS!," tweeted Sports Authority of India (SAI) Media.

It's a Record Breaking Sunday at the National Swimming Championships🏊

Ace swimmer @MaanaPatel creates a New NR of 1:03.48 in Women's 100m Backstroke Event🥳

Meanwhile, Lineysha A.K. also sets a new NR of 2:37.35 in Women's 200m Breaststroke Event!

Well done GIRLS! pic.twitter.com/2HxaXO81Ex

— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) July 2, 2023

Swimmer Nina Venkatesh also bettered her national record twice a day in the women's 50m butterfly event.

"New National Record at National Swimming Championships 2023, being held in Hyderabad Nina Venkatesh clocks a time of 28.01 in Women's 50m Butterfly Event heats, thereby creating a new NR," tweeted SAI Media..

source : ANI

Correct Answer :   SpaceX

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A European space telescope blasted off Saturday (1st July 2023) on a quest to explore the mysterious and invisible realm known as the dark universe.

* SpaceX launched the European Space Agency’s Euclid observatory towards its ultimate destination 1.5 million km away, the Webb Space Telescope’s neighbourhood.

* It will take a month to get there and another two months before it starts its ambitious six-year survey this autumn.

* Named after the ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid will scour billions of galaxies covering more than one-third of the sky.

* By pinpointing the location and shape of galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away — almost all the way back to the cosmos-creating Big Bang — scientists hope to glean insight into the dark energy and dark matter that make up most of the universe and keep it expanding.

* The telescope’s highly anticipated 3D map of the cosmos will span both space and time in a bid to explain how the dark universe evolved and why its expansion is speeding up.

* The lead scientist for the $1.5 billion mission (€1.4 billion) said Euclid will measure dark energy and dark matter with unprecedented precision.

* Four metres tall and almost as wide, Euclid sports a 1.2-metre telescope and two scientific instruments capable of observing the cosmos in both visible light and near-infrared..

Source : Telegraph India

Correct Answer :   Uma Chetry

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20-year-old Uma Chetry of Assam’s Golaghat district has scripted history by becoming the first cricketer from this northeastern state to be named in the country’s national squad.

Uma will be a part of the Indian women’s cricket team that will tour Bangladesh this month (July 2023).

Congratulating her on the achievement, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma wrote on Twitter on Monday (2nd July 2023): “Cricketing in Assam enters a glorious new chapter as we proudly witness our first-ever representation in the Indian Women’s National Cricket Team. Congratulations to Uma Chetry for her remarkable achievement, becoming the trailblazer from our state to don the Blue jersey! “We support Uma and the team in their upcoming tour to Bangladesh, wishing them resounding success on the field.” Speaking to PTI over phone from her residence at Kandulimari village of Bokakhat, Uma’s brother Bijoy Chetri said, “We got the news late last night. We could speak to her this morning once. We all are extremely happy and proud of her.” The only girl among her five siblings and the youngest of them, Uma’s love for cricket started from the days when she first lifted a plastic bat..

Source : The Print

Correct Answer :   Indian Bank

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Public sector lender Indian Bank has unveiled new services under its digital transformation initiative -- Project WAVE -- the bank said on Sunday (2nd July 2023).

Accordingly, the city-headquartered bank in collaboration with National E-Governance Services Ltd, has introduced an electronic bank guarantee (e-BG) service to ease traditional paper-based processes.

This move will also reduce the turn-around time of the bank guarantee issuance and delivery to the beneficiary from an industry average of 3-4 working days to a few minutes, a bank statement said.

Besides, the facility would replace the need for physical stamp paper and physical signatures of customers by replacing them with digital stamping and e-signing making the entire process digital.

Indian Bank has launched a facility to avail pre-approved business loans, an end-to-end digital journey, for eligible individuals and proprietor firms to cater to their respective businesses.

"The newly launched digital vehicle loan product enables individual customers of the bank to get their dream vehicle with hassle-free loan processes. This facility would be available for loan value up to Rs 25 lakh" the bank said..

Source : Business Standard

Correct Answer :   State Bank of India

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State Bank of India, on Saturday (1st July 2023), launched 34 Transaction Banking Hubs at 21 district centres across the country with an aim to provide quick and efficient Transaction Banking solutions to customers.

Dinesh Khara, the chairman of the SBI, inaugurated the hubs, on the occasion of the 68th foundation day of the bank.

As part of the transformational journey of Transaction Banking services and Current Account-related offerings, the bank's goal is to meet all customers' needs and provide comprehensive solutions for their transaction, payment, and collection requirements under one roof, read SBI press release.

The newly launched hubs will be staffed by product specialists who will also assist business customers with their other financial service needs by leveraging the 'Power of One' within the SBI Group by enabling seamless connectivity with different business verticals and subsidiary companies.

On the occasion, Chairman Khara acknowledged the successful turnaround by onboarding over 2000 Current Account (CA) customers on revamped CA variants. These variants offer attractive concessions on bundled Transaction Banking services..

Source : Business Standard

Correct Answer :   State Bank of India

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The State Bank of India board has appointed Kameshwar Kodavanti as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective from July 1, 2023.

* He has replaced Charanjit Surinder Singh Attra, who has resigned from his post.

* He has an extensive career in banking, with over 31 years of experience at SBI, starting from August 1, 1991.

* He brings expertise in banking, forex, finance, and accounting to his new position.

* Kodavanti holds the qualification of a Chartered Accountant..

Source : Times Now News

Correct Answer :   $624.7 billion

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* India's external debt has increased marginally to $624.7 billion annually in end-March 2023, although the debt-GDP ratio declined.

* The external debt increased by $5.6 billion from $619.1 billion at end-March 2022.

* Valuation gains due to the appreciation of the US dollar compared to the Indian rupee and major currencies were placed at $20.6 billion.

* Excluding the valuation effect, external debt would have increased by $26.2 billion instead of $5.6 billion in March 2023.

Source : Moneycontrol

Correct Answer :   Michael Rosen

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British children’s writer and performance poet Michael Rosen, 77, has been awarded the prestigious PEN Pinter Prize 2023, given to a writer from the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth whose work is committed to a fearless exposition of truth about contemporary life.

Chair of English PEN, Ruth Borthwick, said, “Michael Rosen is one of our most tenacious and fearless writers. He is one of our most significant contemporary poets writing for young people. In over 140 books, he has championed a way of writing for children which reflects their everyday worlds, using humour and wordplay to validate their imaginative ways of thinking and being, and which has informed his succinct interventions into the lifeless way that children are taught literacy in schools…”

Who is Michael Rosen?
Rosen was the sixth British Children’s Laureate between 2007 and 2009 and is known for making poetry accessible to children through his work and performances. His themes are often social, political and ethical. In On the Move: Poems about Migration (2020), for instance, a book of poems divided into four segments, Rosen explores contemporary and historical migrations through his family’s personal experience and from a global perspective on the ongoing migration drive across Europe.

He is among the first poets who visited schools extensively across the UK and even overseas, talking about poetry and literature and the ways it can help us see the world around us with humour and empathy. “Michael Rosen has a rare, invaluable gift: the ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope. Fearless in holding power to account, his work is nevertheless a lesson in humanity, and how in times of vulnerability we may discover the best version of ourselves,” said Amber Massie-Blomfield, another jury member of this year’s PEN Pinter prize.

Born to an educationalist father and a teacher mother, Rosen grew up around books. His parents’ activism and their eclectic circle of friends that included literary figures such as the critic Wayne Clayson Booth and poet and theosophist Beatrice Hastings (pen name of Emily Alice Haigh) had a profound influence on him. Rosen knew early on that he wanted to write — his first attempt at writing satirical poems about people he knew came when he was merely 12.

Afterwards, a year at Middlesex Hospital Medical School later, he moved to Wadham College in Oxford to study English. It was there that he realised that he also had a flair for acting. It would be the stepping stone towards a career in performance poetry. After starting off his career as a playwright with the play Backbone, Rosen worked at the BBC for a while till his left-leaning socialist views led him to go freelance in 1972.

Rosen’s first book of children’s poems, Mind Your Own Business, came out in 1974. At present, he is a professor of children’s literature at Goldsmiths, University of London..

Source : Indian Express

Correct Answer :   Max Verstappen

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Max Verstappen completed a clean sweep of pole positions and race wins at the Austrian Grand Prix 2023 with another dominant display in Sunday’s (July 2nd, 2023) main event, leading home Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez.

Max Verstappen, the reigning Formula One champion, continued his impressive performance by securing a commanding victory at the Austrian Grand Prix 2023.

This win further solidified his pursuit of a third consecutive world title. Starting from the pole position for the fourth consecutive race, Verstappen demonstrated his dominance by achieving his fifth consecutive win and seventh win out of nine races in the current season.

With this remarkable performance, Verstappen extended his lead in the championship standings to 81 points over his teammate Sergio Perez, who also drives for the Red Bull team.

Charles Leclerc, the previous year’s winner at this circuit, finished in second place, crossing the finish line 5.2 seconds after Verstappen. Meanwhile, Sergio Perez secured the third position, finishing 17.2 seconds behind the leader.

Source : Formula1