87th Academy Awards (Oscar Awards 2015)

87th Academy Award, popularly called Oscar Awards, was conferred on 22 February 2015. The award ceremony was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

The Oscar Awards for the year 2015 were presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in 24 categories.

The awards were produced by Neil Meron and Craig Zadan and directed by Hamish Hamilton. Actor Neil Patrick Harris hosted the ceremony for the first time.

The list of winners of 87th Academy Awards

• Best Picture: Birdman
• Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Birdman
• Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything
• Best Actress: Julianne Moore for Still Alice
• Best Supporting Actor: JK Simmons for Whiplash
• Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
• Achievement in Costume Design: Milena Canonero for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling: Frances Hannon and Mark Coulier for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Best Foreign Language Film: Ida directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
• Best Live Action Short Film: The Phone Call
• Best Documentary Short Subject: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
• Original Screenplay: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo for Birdman
• Achievement in Sound Mixing: Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, Thomas Curley for Whiplash
• Achievement in Sound Editing: Alan Robert Murray Bub Asman for American Sniper
• Achievement in Visual Effects: Ian Hunter, Scott Fisher, Andrew Lockley and Paul Franklin for Interstellar
• Best Animated Short Film: Feast directed by Patrick Osborne and Kristina Reed
• Best Animated Movie: Big Hero Six 6
• Achievement in Production Design: Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Achievement in Cinematograph: Emannuel Lubezki for Birdman
• Achievement in Film Editing: Tom Cross for Whipalsh
• Best Documentary Feature: Citizen Four directed by Laura Poitras
• Best Original Song: John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn for Glory
• Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat for The Grand Budapest Hotel
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Graham Moore for The Imitation Game

Services Tax

NITI AAYOG

PRACTICE QUESTIONS ABOUT "NITI AAYOG"

1. Think - tank of Government of India that replaces Planning Commission of India is...

1) NITI Vakya

2) NITI Vajpayee

3) NITI Prasasthi

4) NITI Dharma

5) NITI Aayog

2. NITI Aayog stands for......

1) National Institution for Transition India

2) National Information for Transforming India

3) National Institution for Take India

4) National Institution for Transforming India

5) None

3. NITI Aayog come into effect from....

1) 1 April 2015

2) 1 April 2016

3) 1 March 2015

4) 1 January 2015

5) 25 Dec 2014

4. The NITI Aayog headed by....

1) President of India

2) Finance Minister

3) Minister for Planning

4) RBI Governor

5) Prime Minister

5. To reflect changes required in India's governance structures and provide a more active role for the state governments in achieving national objectives, NITI Aayog initiated. Its Vice Chairman appointed by .....

1) President of India

2) Vice President of India

3) Finance Minister

4) Home Minister

5) Prime Minister

6. Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog is...

1) Montek Singh Ahluwalia

2) Arvind Panagariya

3) Abhijith Sen

4) Amartya Sen

5) None

7. NITI Aayog has been tasked with a role of formulating policies and direction for the government and serving as a think-tank, which will have Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Present CEO is....

1) Arvind Mayaram

2) Rajiv Meharshi

3) Sudha Pillai

4) Sindhushree Khullar

5) None

8. NITI Aayog will have full time members. It will have how many part time members selected from leading universities research organizations and other relevant institutions in an exofficio capacity?

1) 4

2) 6

3) 8

4) 2

5) None

9. An Economist Bibek Debroy and V.K.Saraswat were appointed as full-time members of NITI Aayog. Who is V.K.Saraswat ?

1) former DRDO Chief

2) former ISRO Chairman

3) former Finance Secretary

4) former Defence Minister

5) None of above

10. Maximum of how many Ex-officio members selected from the Union Council of Ministers to be nominated by the Prime Minister in NITI Ayog?

1) 12

2) 7

3) 4

4) 10

5) None

11. Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu and ........... were made ex-officio members of NITI ayog.

1) Tribal Affaris Minister Jula Oram

2) Rural Development Minister Chaudary Birender Singh

3) Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh

4) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj

5) None

12. Roads and National Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani and ...... were made Special invitees to the NITI Aayog?

1) Law and Justice Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda

2) Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar

3) Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot

4) Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu

5) None

13. Planning Commission was the centre-tostate one-way flow of policy, where as NITI Ayog is a genuine and continuing partnership of states. NITI Ayog depends on how many pillars of Effective governance?

1) 7

2) 5

3) 10

4) 8

5) 12

14. NITI Ayog will have .......... comprising the Chief Ministers of all the States and Lt. Governors of Union Territories.

1) Presidium

2) Co-ordination committee

3) General Committee

4) Governing Council

5) Administrative Council

15. Regional Councils will be formed to address specific issues and contingencies impacting more than one state or a region. They are headed by......

1) Governor of the state or Finance Minister of India

2) Chief Minister

3) Chairperson of the NITI Aayog or his nominee

4) President of India and Governor of state

5) None of above

ANSWERS:

1-5, 2-4, 3-4, 4-5, 5-5, 6-2, 7-4, 8-2, 9-1, 10-3

11-3, 12-3, 13-1, 14-4, 15-3

List of Jnanpith Award Winners (1965–2014)

Jnanpith Award is being given for the best creative literary writing by any Indian citizen in any of the languages included in the VIII Schedule of the Indian Constitution. The Award is the brain-child of late Smt. Rama Jain, the first President of and the moving spirit behind the Bharatiya Jnanpith since its inception. It has become the most prestigious literary award of the country. This awards inlude sum of Rs. 5 lakhs including citation.

Year : Name – Works (Language)
1965 : G. Sankara Kurup – Odakkuzhal [Flute] (Malayalam)
1966 : Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya – Ganadevta (Bengali)
1967 : Kuppali Venkatappagowda Puttappa (Kuvempu) – Sri Ramayana Darshanam (Kannada)
1967 : Umashankar Joshi – Nishitha (Gujarati)
1968 : Sumitranandan Pant – Chidambara (Hindi)
1969 : Firaq Gorakhpuri – Gul-e-Naghma (Urdu)
1970 : Viswanatha Satyanarayana – Ramayana Kalpavrikshamu [A resourceful tree:Ramayana] (Telugu)
1971 : Bishnu Dey Smriti – Satta Bhavishyat (Bengali)
1972 : Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar' – Urvashi (Hindi)
1973 : Dattatreya Ramachandra Bendre – Nakutanti [Naku Thanthi (Four Strings)] (Kannada)
1973 : Gopinath Mohanty – Paraja (Oriya)
1974 : Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar – Yayati (Marathi)
1975 : P. V. Akilan – Chitttrappavai (Tamil)
1976 : Ashapurna Devi – Pratham Pratisruti (Bengali)
1977 : K. Shivaram Karanth – Mookajjiya Kanasugalu [Mookajjis dreams] (Kannada)
1978 : Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Ajneya' – Kitni Navon Men Kitni Bar [How many times in many boats?] (Hindi)
1979 : Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya – Mrityunjay [Immortal] (Assamese)
1980 : S. K. Pottekkatt – Oru Desathinte Katha [Story of a land] (Malayalam)
1981 : Amrita Pritam – Kagaj te Canvas (Punjabi)
1982 : Mahadevi Varma – Yama (Hindi)
1983 : Maasti Venkatesh Ayengar – Chikkaveera Rajendra [Life and struggle of Kodava King Chikkaveera Rajendra] (Kannada)
1984 : Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai – Kayar [Coir] (Malayalam)
1985 : Pannalal Patel – Maanavi Ni Bhavaai (Gujarati)
1986 : Sachidananda Rout Roy (Oriya)
1987 : Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar (Kusumagraj) – Natsamrat (Marathi)
1988 : Dr.C. Narayana Reddy – Vishwambhara (Telugu)
1989 : Qurratulain Hyder – Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar (Urdu)
1990 : V. K. Gokak (Vinayaka Krishna Gokak) – Bharatha Sindhu Rashmi (Kannada)
1991 : Subhas Mukhopadhyay – Padati (Bengali)
1992 : Naresh Mehta (Hindi)
1993 : Sitakant Mahapatra – "for outstanding contribution to the enrichment of Indian literature, 1973-92" (Oriya)
1994 : U. R. Ananthamurthy – for his contributions to (Kannada) literature (Kannada)
1995 : M. T. Vasudevan Nair – Randamoozham [Second Chance] (Malayalam)
1996 : Mahasweta Devi – Hajar Churashir Ma (Bengali)
1997 : Ali Sardar Jafri (Urdu)
1998 : Girish Karnad – "for his contributions to (Kannada) literature and for contributions to (Kannada) theater (yayati)" (Kannada)
1999 : Nirmal Verma (Hindi)
1999 : Gurdial Singh (Punjabi)
2000 : Indira Goswami (Assamese)
2001 : Rajendra Keshavlal Shah (Gujarati)
2002 : D. Jayakanthan (Tamil)
2003 : Vinda Karandikar – Ashtadarshana (poetry) (Marathi)
2004 : Rahman Rahi – Subhuk Soda, Kalami Rahi and Siyah Rode Jaren Manz (Kashmiri)
2005 : Kunwar Narayan (Hindi)
2006 : Ravindra Kelekar (Konkani)
2006 : Satya Vrat Shastri (Sanskrit)
2007 : O. N. V. Kurup (Malayalam)
2008 : Akhlaq Mohammed Khan 'Shahryar' (Urdu)
2009 : Amar Kant (Hindi)
2009 : Shrilal Shukla (Hindi)
2010 : Chandrashekhara Kambara – for his contributions to Kannada literature (Kannada) 

2011 : Pratibha RayYajnaseni (Oriya)

2012 : Ravuri Bharadhwaja - For his notable contribution to Telugu literature (Telugu)

2013 :   Kedarnath Singh - For his notable contribution to Hindi literature. ‘Abhi bilkul abhi’ and ‘Yahan se dekho’ are among his prominent works (Hindi)

2014  : Bhalchandra Vanaji Nemade (Marathi)

‘Abhi bilkul abhi’ and ‘Yahan se dekho’ are among his prominent works - See more at: http://www.onlinegk.com/current-affairs/current-affairs-june-2014#sthash.QTmHJyfr.dpuf