Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a dispute resolution scheme for direct taxes in the recent Union Budget 2020-21.
Under the proposed scheme, the taxpayers whose tax demands are locked in any dispute in any of the forums can pay their due taxes by March 31, 2020. By paying it before the deadline, the taxpayer can get complete waiver of interest and penalty. With an additional 10 per cent, he can pay up to June 30. The Finance Minister recently introduced the ‘Vivad se Vishwas’ bill in the parliament. Last year, a scheme for dispute resolution for indirect taxes called ‘Sabka Vishwas’ was launched.

Notes:
E-Commerce major Flipkart recently shut down its Jabong- lifestyle and fashion e-commerce portal. The users are being redirected to the website of its another fashion company, Myntra.
Flipkart, which is now owned by Walmart, had acquired Jabong for $70 million four years back. As there was a dip in number of app downloads and its business, the portal was closed. Myntra was acquired by Flipkart in the year 2014. After it was bought by Walmart, Flipkart had merged Myntra and Jabong.

Notes:
Tripura government is to hold the two-day Hornbill Festival for the first time from February 8, 2020. The festival has been an important state festival of Nagaland, which is usually held in the month of December in the Naga heritage village of Nagaland.
Tripura hosts the festival with an aim to conserve the Hornbill bird and to boost the livelihood of the state’s people through tourism. Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur also had started organising the Hornbill festival in their states, following Nagaland.

Notes:
The state government of Madhya Pradesh recently announced that drones would be used in land surveys for mapping the villages. The Revenue department of Madhya Pradesh has signed agreement in this regard with the national mapping agency, Survey of India.
The land survey work is being done manually or with the assistance of satellite images, until now in the state. As many as 55 thousand villages of the state have been selected for mapping. Using the drone technology, the map of the area will be made on a scale of 1:500, for a better resolution. Last year in August, Maharashtra started using drones for mapping its villages.

Notes:
Esperanza Base (Hope Base) is a permanent, all-year-round Argentine research station in Hope Bay, Trinity Peninsula in Antarctica.

Notes:
Hollywood actor Muhammad Ali is playing Dr. Kalama’s role in the movie. The movie is a co-production of Suvarna Pappu, Managing Director of a Hollywood Production House, Hollywood Director, Jagadeesh Daneti and Hollywood Producer & Director Johnny Martin.

Notes:
Chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand has received an honourable mention in the male category of the prestigious 2019 International Olympic Committee’s Coaches Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of the role he played in the development of the game in the country.

Notes:
The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) was established in 1972, by an act of Parliament, to act as the nodal agency for the development of Indian seafood industry. It is head-quartered at Kochi.
Recently, MPEDA announced that it is to start the upgradation and modernisation 25 fishing harbours in the country. The project is to be undertaken with the assistance from the Centre
at a proposed outlay of Rs 2500 crore.

Notes:
Renowned writer and academician Giriraj Kishore passed away recently. The Gandhian writer was 82-years-old. He was also the recipient of the prestigious civilian award ‘Padma Shri’.
The famous literary works of Giriraj Kishore include ‘Pahla Girmitiya’ and ‘Dhaai Ghar’. A recipient of ‘Sahitya Samman’, he was also a former member of the Sahitya Academy working committee.

Notes:
The 2nd Seven-nation BIMSTEC Disaster Management Exercise, 2020 was recently inaugurated at Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha by its Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The Exercise is hosted by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) as the nodal agency. The theme of the exercise is- “Response to a cultural heritage site that suffers severe damage in an earthquake” & “Response to a Cultural Heritage site that is affected by flooding or storm surge”.