Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
Top Striker of the Indian Hockey team Navneet Kaur was seen in news recently, as she scored two crucial goals against the host New Zealand and led the country to a 3-0 win in the last game of the five-match tour.
In the tour, India began with a 4-0 win over New Zealand Development squad and two subsequent loses. In the fourth match against Great Britain, the Indian skipper Rani Rampal, who was recently chosen as the ‘World Games Athlete of the year’, scored a goal to lead India to the 1-0 win.

Notes:
The Pink City of India, Jaipur was formally certified as a World Heritage site by the Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay. The World Heritage City certificate was presented at a ceremony held at the historic Albert Hall of Jaipur.
It was also announced that UNESCO would collaborate with the Tourism department of Rajasthan Government to promote tourism sector in Western Rajasthan. The walled city of Jaipur was named as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2019, at the 43rd Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan.

Notes:
During the on-going exhibition DefExpo-2020, an MoU was signed between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and Israel’s Elbit Systems, for joint development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).
The agreement aims at analysing the feasibility of developing an UAV, which performs vertical take-off and landing, for maritime and land-based military operations. The proposed UAV will cut down the huge costs associated with maintenance of manned helicopters. The vehicles with greater potential, will also be more efficient in military operations. The Indian armed forces could deploy them for operating in unsafe areas or for surveillance missions.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently projected the economic growth of the country to grow by 6 per cent during the next financial year. This is the lower end of the growth projection as announced by the government in the economic survey, which estimated a rate of 6-6.5 per cent. RBI also stated that the Indian economy continues to be weak.
The first half of the year would grow in the range of 5.5-6.0 per cent and the third quarter at 6.2 per cent, as per the RBI. But this projection is higher than the GDP growth projection of 5%, made in the monetary policy statement of December 2019.

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:
India’s leading defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RailTel Corporation of India for mutual co-operation in the fields of Cloud Services, IoT, e-Governance and Networks for Defence projects.
BEL also signed an agreement with a Bengaluru-based start-up, Newspace & Research Technologies Limited (NRT), for co-operation in design, testing and supply of Unmanned Systems. The PSU also partnered with Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) to develop and market products for defence and non-defence applications. All the agreements were inked during the ongoing defence exhibition-DefExpo 2020, at Lucknow.

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:
Pakistani cricketer Naseem Shah recently became the youngest person to get a hat trick in test cricket. Naseem, aged 16 years and 359 days took three wickets against Bangladesh on February 9, 2020 to set this record.

Notes:
The state government of Haryana has launched an initiative called ‘Reading Mission- Haryana’. The initiative was launched to encourage reading habit among the young students of the state.
The scheme is on the lines of the ‘Reading Mission 2022’, launched by the central government. Under the state’s initiative, monthly book review sessions and mass book reading are to be organised by students in educational institutions.

Notes:
European countries witnessed a devastating storm named ‘Ciara’, which caused huge damage and killed as many as six people. The hurricane-force winds and heavy rains damaged several thousand buildings in the region.
The storm moved on near Germany, after hitting Britain and Ireland. It was called as ‘Ciara’ by the Irish weather service and dubbed as ‘Sabine’ in Germany. Flood warnings are given and flight operations are suspended in the countries.