Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
India’s leading NBFC and a Public sector Unit (PSU) under Ministry of Power, Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has partnered with Indian Institute of Technology- Kanpur (IIT-K) for Training and Research in Smart Grid Technology
Under the agreement, PFC will provide financial assistance of over Rs 2 Crore to the institution under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. This is expected to promote research and Entrepreneurship Development in the field.

Notes:
Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) organised the “National Digital conference on Ease of Doing Business for Atmanirbhar Bharat”.
Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal inaugurated the conference and said that the country is heading towards a complete digital eco-system. He also said that the government is aiming to cover the entire nation through optic fibres in the next two years.

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:
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:
British racing driver Lewis Hamilton has recently won the British Grand Prix tournament, to clinch his 87th career victory.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen came second and is followed by Charles Leclerc who finished third for Ferrari. Due to a technical glitch, Valtteri Bottas had to come back for a tire change and he could get only 11th spot. Four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel was placed 10th.

Notes:
Union Ministry of Defence, IIT Kanpur and the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding.
The MoU is for developing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques to analyse public grievances. The grievances received on the web-based Centralised Public Grievances Redress and Monitoring System of the Ministry would be subjected to predictive analysis.

Notes:
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has touched a record high transaction of 1.49 billion in the month of July.
This is its highest count of transactions since its inception and a 11% growth over that of the previous month. The monthly transactions were worth Rs 2.9 trillion. IMPS recorded 222.1 million transactions in July while Bharat Bill Payment Services hit 20.16 million transactions.

Notes:
India has recently contributed a sum of USD 15.46 million to the India-UN Development Partnership Fund.
India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti handed over it to the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC). This UN Office manages the India-UN Development Partnership Fund. In the 15 million fund, USD 6 million goes to the overall fund and the remaining to the Commonwealth countries.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Trivendra Singh Rawat announced that the state will set up the country’s first snow leopard conservation centre.
The centre will be opened in the Uttarkashi forest division in the state. It is to set up jointly with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a part of its six-year long project called ‘SECURE Himalayas’. It was started in 2017 to conserve snow leopards and other endangered species in the Himalayas.

Notes:
The state government of Chhattisgarh has implemented a scheme called ‘Godhan Nyay Yojana’, under which cow dung is being procured from cattle farmers at Rs 2 per kg.
It is a first of its kind scheme, which produces vermicompost from the dung so procured. It is then sold with the help of cooperative societies. The Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel will inaugurate the process of payment to the bank accounts of beneficiaries under the scheme.