IMPORTANT FACTS

1.     The Speaker is the presiding officer of the lower house (Lok Sabha) of Parliament of India.
2.     The Speaker holds office from the date of election till immediately before the first meeting of the next Lok Sabha. He/She is eligible for re-election.
3.     On the dissolution of the Lok Sabha, although the Speaker ceases to be a member of the House, he/she does not vacate her office.
4.     The Speaker may, at any time, resign from office by writing under his/her hand to the Deputy Speaker.
5.     He/she decides whether a bill is a money bill or a non money bill.
6.     He/she maintains discipline and decorum in the house and can punish a member for their unruly behaviour by suspending them.
7.     He/she permits the moving of various kinds of motions and resolutions like themotion of no confidence, motion of adjournment, motion of censure and calling attention notice as per the rules.
8.     The Speaker decides on the agenda to be taken up for discussion during the meeting.
9.     The first speaker of the Lok Sabha was Shri G.V. Mavalankar.
10.     Meira Kumar is the first women speaker of the Indian Parliament.
11.     The UK is a country in north-western Europe. It is bordered to the south by the English Channel; to the east by the North Sea; to the west by the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
12.     The United Kingdom is made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
13.     England, Scotland and Wales together forms Great Britain.
14.     Great Britain and Northern Ireland together form the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (UK).
15.     The UK is a developed country and has the world's seventh-largest economy by nominal GDP and eighth-largest economy by purchasing power parity.
16.     It was the world's first industrialised country.
17.     The UK is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946. It has been a member of the European Union and its predecessor the European Economic Community since 1973.
18.     The Royal Greenwich Observatory in London is the defining point of the Prime Meridian.
19.     The UK's de facto official language is English (British English). According to the 2011 census, Polishhas become the second largest language spoken in England.
20.     England's national sport is cricket although some of England's football teams are world famous, such as Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.
21.     A mountain pass is a saddle point between two areas of higher elevations and makes a path for crossing between the chains of mountains.
22.     The Khardung la's pass is located at the Ladakh range of the Himalayan ranges. It is a gateway to the valleys of Shyok and Nubra.
23.     The Karakoram pass is located in the Karakoram Ranges between Jammu and Kashmir border and the Xingjiang region of China.
24.     Bara-lacha la is present in Zanskar range connecting Lahaul district in Himachal Pradesh to Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, situated along the Leh-Manali highway.
25.     Jelep La is a high mountain pass between India and Tibet in East Sikkim District of Sikkim. It connects Lhasa to India.
26.     Nama Pass is located in eastern Kumaun region of the Pithoragarh District of Uttarakhand, India. It links Kuthi and Darma Valley.
27.     Nathu La connects the Indian state of Sikkim with China's Tibet Autonomous Region.
28.     Rohtang Pass is a high mountain pass on the eastern Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas, connects the Kullu Valley with the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys of Himachal Pradesh, India.
29.     Shipki La is a mountain pass and border post on the India-China border. The river Sutlej enters India (from Tibet) through this pass.
30.     Zoji La is a high mountain pass in India, located on the Indian National Highway 1 between Srinagar and Leh in the western section of the Himalayan mountain range.
31.     A credit card is a payment card issued to users to pay for goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for them to banks within stipulated time.
32.     The credit card issuer gives a certain amount of time to pay back all of what holder has borrowed before they charge interest. This period of time is called the grace period and is usually between 20 and 25 days.
33.     Zero interest credit cards or interest free credit cards help customers to avoid paying interest on credit, if they repay the debt within a specified period of time.
34.     In 1950, Diners Club became the first company to offer a credit card that could be used at multiple locations.
35.     A Debit card is essentially like an ATM card. When a person makes any purchases using a debit card, then bank account is instantaneously debited to the extent of the purchase amount.
36.     Benefits to customers include: convenience; rewards and benefits packages; also offer reward points which may be redeemed for cash, products, or airline tickets.
37.     Credit Card associations are an association of card-issuing banks such as Discover, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc. that set transaction terms for merchants, card-issuing banks, and acquiring banks.
38.     Visa International has the largest global ATM network in over 113 countries.
39.     According to 2009-10, credit card users in India are 18.3 million whereas debit card users are 181.4 million.
40.     On August 6, 1945, during World War II (1939-45), an American B-29 bomber dropped the world's first deployed atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
41.     It was done on the executive order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman.
42.     The atomic bomb was equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT, it has flattened the city and killed tens of thousands of civilians.
43.     Three days later, a second B-29 dropped another A-bomb on Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people.
44.     Later Japan's Emperor Hirohito announced his country's unconditional surrender in World War II on August 15, citing the devastating power of "a new and most cruel bomb."
45.     Since then, more have died from leukemia and solid cancers attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs.
46.     The effects of the bombing of Hiroshima are still felt today. For generations after the bombing, children were born with severe health defects that are believed to be connected to the effects of the bomb's radiation.
47.     Hiroshima was chosen because it had not been targeted during the US Air Force's conventional bombing raids on Japan and it was also an important military base.
48.     After the war, Hiroshima was rebuilt as a peace memorial city and the closest surviving building to the epicentre was designated the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
49.     Hiroshima has been declared a City of Peace by the Japanese Parliament.
50.     Rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a group of seventeen elements in the Periodic Table from Atomic no. 57 to 71.