Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
China has recently claimed that the Diaoyu islands are Chinese territory and it has the right to conduct law enforcement activities in the area.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin denied the criticism of the U.S. of incursions of China. The islands located in the East China sea has also been claimed by Japan for several year. Japan calls the territory as Senkaku and China calls as Diaoyu.

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:
The Sports Ministry has constituted a 12-member committee to select this year’s National Sports Awards winners.
The committee is to be headed by retired Supreme Court Justice, Mukundakam Sharma. It will select the award winners among both athletes and coaches. The members include Former India Cricketer Virender Sehwag, Hockey star Sardar Singh and Paralympic silver-medallist Deepa Malik.

Notes:
Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) has received SKOCH Gold Award for its “Empowerment of Tribals through IT enabled Scholarship Schemes”.
The 66th SKOCH award ceremony was organised on the title “India responds to Covid through Digital Governance”. The Tribal affairs won the award in ‘Digital India & E-Governance’ competition. The Ministry had integrated its 5 Scholarship Schemes with Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) Portal.

Notes:
Veteran bureaucrat Rajesh Bhushan has recently assumed charge as the Union Health Secretary. He will succeed the previous Health Secretary Preeti Sudan.
Preeti Sudan superannuated and she was given a three-month extension in April. Rajesh Bhushan is a 1987 batch Bihar cadre IAS officer. He has been serving as an Officer on Special Duty in the Ministry of Health from April.

Notes:
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan launched a national- level programme named ‘Vidyarthi Vigyan Manthan’ 2020-21.
This initiative aims to promote scientific temper among school students of Class 6 to 11. It is jointly organised by Vijnana Bharati, in collaboration with Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organisation under Science and Technology Ministry and NCERT of Education Ministry. It identifies and trains bright students with interest in Science.

Notes:
Northern Railway operated the first-ever Vyapar Mala Express train from Delhi to Jirania in Tripura. It has 46 wagons and 34 of them were loaded with wheat and the remaining with rice and pulses.
Railways is said to have earned more than 94 lakh rupees from this Vyapar Mala Express train. This is an express service which aims to reach its destination in a shorter time, as the train will be monitored on a real-time basis.

Notes:
Veteran England all-rounder Ian Botham has been made a member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament.
The 64-year-old former England captain is the first cricketer to be awarded this honour since 2011. He is among the 36 new members announced by the Government. He was knighted in the year 2007 for his services in cricket and in the field of charity.

Notes:
Nokia is set to establish a robotics lab at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru to study about 5G technology.
Nokia Center of Excellence (CoE) for networked robotics lab will be deployed to research on socially-relevant use cases based on 5G and emerging technologies. This will promote cooperation between colleges and industries.

Notes:
PTC India Limited, previously called as Power Trading Corporation of India has been approved to set up the third Power exchange of India.
At present, India has two power exchanges namely Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) and Power Exchange India (PXIL), to enable over-the-counter sale and purchase of power. The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission has approved the proposal of PTC India made along with BSE Investments and ICICI Bank.