Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
Renowned Hindi poet and novelist Vinod Kumar Shukla was selected for the inaugural edition of the ‘Mathrubhumi Book of the Year’ award for his translated book ‘Blue Is Like Blue’.
One of the finest writers in Hindi, the 83-year-old writer was also a recipient of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in 1999. The award is presented to the best fictional work, that was released in the previous year. The stories in his book was translated into English by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai.

Notes:
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the third Defence Attaches conference at New Delhi. He also announced that India is set to have 10 more Defence Attaches in 10 different countries.
This creation of additional 10 defence wings will strengthen the defence diplomacy of the country and help in increasing exports in defence sector. Under the central government scheme of promoting defence exports, funds are allocated for export through Defence attaches to 34 countries.

Notes:
Leading Indian fin-tech start-up company Paytm has recently launched a point-of-sale (POS) device for smaller merchants. The device would accept payments through cash, Paytm wallet, debit and credit cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) apps.
It is an android-based all-in-one device, which will help the smaller merchants, road-side shop-keepers in handling digital money. Good and Services Tax (GST) compliant bills can also be generated through the ‘Paytm for Business’ app. The device was launched jointly by the founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and co-founder Nandan Nilekani.

Notes:
The annual event called Udyanotsav, during which the Mughal Gardens at Rashtrapati Bhavan will be opened for the general public, was inaugurated by the Indian President Ram Nath Kovind.
The gardens will remain open for the public till March 8, 2020 between 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM. The gardens are to be closed only on Mondays for maintenance works. The unique Mughal Gardens of the official residence of the President comprises of several exotic flowers and bulbous flowers like Narcissus, Dahlia, Sparaxis. Visitors can walk-in directly or use the online booking facility to visit the Gardens.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently announced that it has discovered a new natural gas field with 80 trillion standard cubic feet of shallow gas resources. The new gas field was named ‘Jebel Ali gas field’.
The field is located between the territories of Dubai and Abu Dhabi and reported to span around 5,000 square kilometres. This discovery would help the country become more energy independent, and self-sufficient. As of now, the UAE imports natural gas from its neighbouring country Qatar for electricity. The National Oil companies of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are set to further explore the field.

Notes:
A German cybersecurity firm called Greenbone Sustainable Resilience recently published a report on medical data leaks. It revealed that the medical details of more than 120 million Indian patients have been leaked and made available on the Internet.
The state of Maharashtra is placed at the top of the list of states that are affected by the data leak, followed by Karnataka and West Bengal. It also classifies countries in three categories of good, bad and ugly, based on the action taken by the governments after its first report was released. India is placed second in the ugly category.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet recently approved the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020, to confer the status of Institution of National Importance (INI) to five Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs).
The Five IIITs in Public-Private-Partnership mode at Surat, Bhopal, Bhagalpur, Agartala and Raichur are to conferred with the INI status. After the status has been granted, the institutions would be able to award degrees and to use the nomenclature of Bachelor of Technology (BTech) or Master of Technology (MTech) or PhD degree. The existing 15 IIITs had already been provided with the INI status.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently released its statement on developmental and regulatory policies, along with the February 2020 Monetary policy statement.
In the statement, the central bank announced about the launch of Digital Payments Index (DPI), which will assess the digitalisation of payments in the country. The DPI will accurately measure the penetration of digital payment modes among the general public of the country. The index is proposed to be launched from July 2020.

Notes:
The Nutan International Theatre Festival (NITF) began on Feb 1 in Jammu and has veen a big it. This is first time in history of Jammu & Kashmir that a theatre festival of international repute was organized here.

Notes:
M.J. Akbar’s new book “Gandhi’s Hinduism – The Struggle Against Jinnah’s Islam” chronicles the endgame that led to the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 and the creation of Pakistan.