Current Affairs Quiz - January, 2020

Notes:
The renowned Indian scientist and Director General of Aeronautical Systems, DRDO, Dr.Tessy Thomas was the Chief Guest of the Women Science Congress, held at Bengaluru. It was a part of the ongoing 107th Indian Science Congress. Tessy Thomas was the first woman scientist to head a missile project in India, when she was the Project Director of India’s Agni-IV missile.

Notes:
The 17-year-old ace shooter of India, Saurabh Chaudhary clinched the men’s gold medal in 10-metre air pistol in the 63rd National shooting Championship, being held at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Saurabh had earlier won the gold medal in Youth Olympics and Asian Games. Sarabjot Singh won the silver medal while Shiva Narwal bagged the bronze medal. Saurabh is also qualified to represent India in the Tokyo Olympics in Shooting (Air pistol category).

Notes:
The ‘Antarrashtriya Yoga Diwas Media Samman’ award was instituted in June 2019, to recognise the contribution of media in spreading Yoga. The first edition of the award is to be conferred to 30 media houses, by the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar. The awards will be presented in three categories, namely ‘Best Media Coverage of Yoga in Newspapers’, ‘Best Media Coverage of Yoga in Television’ and ‘Best Media Coverage of Yoga in Radio’.

Notes:
The Bangladesh High Court recently ordered the Government to impose a ban on single use plastic in the country’s coastal areas and hotels.
Polythene has been banned in the country since 2002, but the usage of polythene could not be controlled in the country. Hence the court ordered to enforce the ban in a strict manner across the nation within one year from the order.

Notes:
The fourth edition of the ‘Buxa Bird Festival’ was recently inaugurated in the Buxa National Park of West Bengal. It is a famous bird festival which is held at the National Park organised by the Forest Department of West Bengal.
Several bird watchers and bird lovers across the country have registered to take part in the festival, which will be held for four days. Many rare bird species such as the Great Horn-bill, the Greater spotted eagle and several migratory birds are expected to arrive in the national park during this season.

Notes:
India levies license fees of 8% of adjusted gross revenues (AGR) from every telecom license holder. The SC on October 24 defined AGR as all revenues of a license holder, and not just revenues from telecom services. Apart from dealing a body blow to telcos, the order also made non-telecom companies holding licenses for internal communications and signaling liable to pay license fees on their entire revenue, even when they do not offer any telecom services.

Notes:
Union Cabinet has approved to confer the status of “Institution of National Importance” to a cluster of Ayurvedic institutions in Gujarat State’s Ayurved University campus in Jamnagar. This elevation of the status would provide it with the autonomy to upgrade the Ayurveda education standards and frame new courses in Ayurveda as per national and international requirements.
This decision is also expected to boost tertiary care in India and reduce government expenditure on health as Ayurveda is cost-effective. A bill to give effect to this approval will be introduced in the forthcoming Session of Parliament.

Notes:
India’s leading private sector bank, HDFC bank recently launched a customised group of banking products called ‘myApps’. HDFC Bank offers four categories of applications namely mySociety, myClub, myPrayer and myCity at present.
This application suite will benefit several types of institutions like urban local bodies and societies to digitise their transactions. The users can pay bills or book tickets for several facilities using the app. It has many other features like broadcast messages, report on payments by customers and complaint filing.

Notes:
The famous Indian entrepreneur and co-founder of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal recently acquired the DHFL General Insurance company. He bought the company from the Wadhawan Group of companies for ₹100 crore.
The acquisition is done through the investment firm named ‘Navi technologies’, which was founded by Sachin Bansal along with his IIT batchmate, after quitting Flipkart. The microfinance arm of Navi Technologies, Chaitanya India Fin Credit Pvt. Ltd (CIFCPL), has recently applied for a universal banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Notes:
The 18th edition of the famous Dhaka International Film Festival was recently inaugurated at Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The festival will be organised from January 11 to 19, 2020 with the theme of ‘Better Film, Better Audience and Better Society’.
During the eight-day-long festival, which is to be held at various venues in Dhaka, more than 200 films from 74 countries are to be screened. A conference on the theme of ‘Women in cinema’ will also be conducted during the film festival.