Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The first batch of five Rafale fighter jets have landed at the Ambala Air Force Base, located in the state of Haryana.
The Air Chief Marshal RKS Bhadauria received the fighter jets, which will be inducted in the No. 17 Squadron, ‘Golden Arrows’. The jets were flown by Indian Air Force pilots for seven hours with the help of the mid-air refuellers.

Notes:
NASA has successfully launched its Mars rover named ‘Perseverance’ from Cape Canaveral Florida on a United Launch Alliances Atlas V rocket.
The vehicle with the size of a large car is also accompanied by a helicopter called Ingenuity which will study Mars’s atmosphere. It will drill into Mars and collect geological specimens. The rover is expected to land at the base of a crater called Jezero on February 18, 2021.

Notes:
The Union Government has extended the deadline for filing income tax returns for 2018-19 fiscal by two months till September 30.
The reason for the extension is constraints due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown. The Central Board of Direct Taxes has extended the deadline for the third time to September 30. Earlier it was postponed from March 31 to June 30 and then to July 31.

Notes:
Former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui has recently passed away at the age of 97, after having suffered from Pneumonia.
After a landslide victory, Lee Teng-hui served as the first democratically elected president of Taiwan in the year 1996. He resisted China’s activities to absorb the country and wanted Taiwan to be a ‘country of democracy, freedom, human rights and dignity’.

Notes:
‘Samarth’ is an initiative of E-Commerce major Flipkart, to help artisans of India that was launched last year.
Under the programme, Walmart-owned Flipkart had partnered with five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to help local artisans in using the online marketplace to sell their products. Flipkart recently announced that under ‘Samarth’, it has supported 6 lakh artisans to reach around 200 million customers.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates has successfully commenced operation of the Arab world’s first commercial nuclear power plant.
The Barakah reactor is located in the oil-rich city of the UAE, Abu Dhabi. With the commission, the UAE joins the group of 30 countries that can generate nuclear energy. It is built and run by a joint venture with Korea Electric Power Corporation.

Notes:
State-owned oil and gas company and the largest commercial oil company in the country, Indian Oil has partnered with France’s Total.
The Joint Venture has been formed to make Superior Quality Bitumen derivatives and specialty products for India’s road construction industry. The JB would initially take over the existing plant of Total at Jodhpur, Rajasthan and then invest Rs 226 crore to set up six new plants across India.

Notes:
Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Union Minister of Textiles and Women & Child Development Smriti Irani officially launched the book with essays on the journey of Swachh Bharat Mission.
Named the ‘Swachh Bharat Kranti’ (Swachh Bharat Revolution), it has been edited by the Secretary of the Department of Water and Sanitation and has been translated to Hindi. The book has as many as 35 essays by several stake holders involved in the mission.

Notes:
Hyderabad has been ranked 16th among the ‘Top 20 Most Surveilled Cities globally’, according to a report published by Comparitech.
In the survey conducted by the UK-based firm, Hyderabad topped the country with its 3 lakh CCTV cameras to organise surveillance operations in a city of over 1 crore. The Taiyum city of China was ranked at the top spot with 4.65 lakh CCTV cameras.

Notes:
The Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu has launched a new mobile application named ‘E-Gyan Mitra’.
The application launched by the Education Department of the UT aims to teach the students through digital mode. Students from Primary to Higher secondary classes can take online classes and attend tests in the application.