Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
After several months of protests, Iraq has named Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as its next Prime Minister. The Iraq President Barham Salih has appointed the former Minister of Communications as the next Prime Minister.
Mohammed Allawi was appointed as the head as the previous Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned in last November, after mass demonstrations against the government. The new Prime Minister is expected to lead the government until early elections. He is set to form the new government in a month’s time.

Notes:
Famous Punjabi writer Jaswant Singh Kanwal recently passed away at his native village recently. His novels are loved by several readers across the country.
The novelist was a recipient of the country’s highest literary honor, Sahitya Akademi Award in 1977 for his famous novel ‘Taushali Di Hanso’. He has authored more than 100 novels, which mainly focus on agrarian crisis, caste barrier and women empowerment. He was also called as the ‘Writer of movements’.

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:
Kenya’s longest-serving president, Daniel Arap Moi, who ruled the country for 24 years, passed away recently. He assumed charge as the President of the country in 1978, when the founding President Jomo Kenyatta died.
He was seen as a uniting figure by many Kenyans. During his reign, he passed a constitutional amendment that made Kenya a one-party state. Then he surrendered to the demands of a multi-party state in 1991. Corruption, economic crisis and political protests were reported in the East African country.

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 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:
In the recent Monetary policy committee statement released by the Reserve Bank of India, it extended the deadline for one-time restructuring of GST-registered MSME borrower account to December 31,2020. The restructuring was to be implemented before March 31, 2020, as per the RBI’s earlier guidelines. It also announced that scheduled commercial banks can deduct the credit disbursed as retail loans for automobiles, housing and MSME loans from their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) for CRR maintenance.

Notes:
The 86-year-old renowned cricket journalist and film historian Raju Bharatan recently passed away. Raju Bharatan had worked with the news magazine-‘Illustrated Weekly of India’ for more than 40 years. He has worked with several famous personalities including Khushwant Singh.
Raju Bharatan was also a columnist in sports magazines. He is the director of “The Victory Story” (1974) the first full-length cricket documentary. The film was based the first victory of the Indian cricket team over England during the tour of 1972. He was also a film historian and he had given voices for several cricket matches in radio.

Notes:
The state government of Kerala has recently unveiled a scheme to establish hotels to provide meals at subsidised rates called ‘Kudumbashree’ hotels. The announcement was made during the presentation of state’s budget.
The hotels are to be set up in in each of the 1034 local bodies and Kerala meals is to be available at a subsidised price of Rs 25. Kudumbashree is an initiative of the state government for poverty eradication and women empowerment.

Notes:
Indian cueist Aditya Mehta was seen in news recently as he won the National Snooker Championship, held at Pune. He represented the Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) and defeated the 22-time-world champion Pankaj Advani 6-2 to win the title. Pankaj recently won the National Billiards Championship.
Vidya Pillai of Karnataka clinched the women’s snooker title, by beating Amee Kamani of Madhya Pradesh.