Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The Indian Government has imposed safeguard duty on solar cells for one more year till July 2021 to protect domestic manufacturers.
This move will also discourage cheap imports from countries like China. Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR), the investigative arm of the Commerce Ministry had recommended to the Department of Revenue for this imposition of duty.

Notes:
India has recently imposed restrictions on the import of Colour Television sets, in an effort to promote its domestic production.
The import of the TV sets was freed from previous restrictions two decades ago and since then there has been no amendments in the import policy. Now the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) notified to change the policy from free to ‘restricted’. However, there is no restriction on importing monochrome TVs.

Notes:
India’s largest private shipping company, Great Eastern Shipping Company has named former Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel as an additional and Independent director.
The Mumbai headquartered company has named him for a term of five years with effect from August 1, 2020. Urjit Patel served as the 24th governor of the RBI from September 2016 to December 2018.

Notes:
FinTech company MobiKwik launched a UPI payment link service, mpay.me, that allows users to send and receive money from any UPI payment app.
Through the new service, users and merchants can set up a mini personal payment gateways with their mobile number and share them. With the link, users can send and receive money through any UPI app. This service works on mobile as well as computer.

Notes:
Facebook has recently launched the second phase of its consumer marketing campaign ‘More Together’ in India.
The first phase was rolled out in the month of March 2020. Through the campaign, Facebook will spotlight people who connected with one another through Facebook for the first time and jointly addressed many challenges

Notes:
Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India head-quartered in New Delhi.
It promotes India’s external cultural relations by cultural exchange. The council was founded by the first Education Minister of independent India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the year 1950. ICCR recently organised a two-day international webinar on the theme of ‘Lokmanya Tilak – Swaraj to Self-reliant India’.

Notes:
Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Union Minister of Textiles and Women & Child Development Smriti Irani officially launched the book with essays on the journey of Swachh Bharat Mission.
Named the ‘Swachh Bharat Kranti’ (Swachh Bharat Revolution), it has been edited by the Secretary of the Department of Water and Sanitation and has been translated to Hindi. The book has as many as 35 essays by several stake holders involved in the mission.

Notes:
On August 5 2019, the special status of Article 370 and 35-A of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir was abrogated and it was bifurcated into two Union Territories.
The first anniversary of the event was observed on the same day this year. During the past year, several initiatives carried out in the UTs include National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS), Extension of all allowances of Central Government employees, J&K Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Commission.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has enhanced the amount of loan that banks can provide against the pledge of gold ornaments and jewellery.
As per the guidelines, banks can give 90 per cent of the pledged gold as loan for non-agricultural purposes. Earlier, the loan to value (LTV) limit was 75 per cent. This will only be applicable to banks and not to gold loan companies and will be valid till March 2021.

Notes:
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) is the apex institution to implement the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), which provides a time-bound realisation of stressed assets. It is headquartered at New Delhi.
IBBI has recently amended regulations related to liquidation process and provided clarifications on fee payable to liquidators. At present, the Committee of Creditors (CoC) fixes the fee payable to the liquidator. The liquidator is entitled to the fee corresponding to the amount realised or distributed by him.