Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
China is celebrating the completion of its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), which is seen as a competitor to the U.S. Global Positioning System.
After the 55th and final satellite that was launched last month started operating, the Chinese President Xi Jinping formally commissioned the system. The satellite is a part of the third sequence of the BeiDou system.

Notes:
For the first time in the world, US Technology Giants Facebook and Google will pay the media outlets of Australia for news content.
Australia is set to pass a dedicated law which mandates a royalty-style system. This is a historic move by the country to protest independent journalism. Last year, the Australian government asked the tech firms to negotiate with media companies to use their content.

Notes:
The Women Entrepreneurship and Empowerment (WEE) is a national level social initiative by the India Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, to strengthen women ecosystem.
The initiative helps women in taking up entrepreneurship as a feasible career option. It is India’s first of its kind initiative, supported and sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology. 11 Women entrepreneurs are given cash awards amounting to Rs 25 lakh.

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:
Ciro Immobile is an Italian professional footballer who plays for the football club Lazio and the national team of Italy.
Ciro Immobile was seen in news, as he has won the domestic Golden Boot and the European Golden Shoe award. In a recent match, he matched Gonzalo Higuain’s record of 36 goals in a single season. The striker had a record 14 penalties out of the total goals.

Notes:
India’s leading private sector bank Axis Bank is set to launch a an Artificial-Intelligence powered multilingual voice bot ‘AXAA’.
The bank has entered into a partnership with a Bengaluru start-up Vernacular.ai in this regard. The partnership aims to optimise AI-based voice solutions and automate customer interactions through human-like dialogues.

Notes:
India’s leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd and the cloud services subsidiary of Amazon, Amazon Web Services (AWS), entered into a strategic partnership to provide a range of cloud solutions to large, small and medium businesses.
The partnership aims to develop products that provides security to remote working. Under the partnership, Airtel Cloud will build an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Practise and develop Airtel Cloud products.

Notes:
American computer engineer William English, who played a key role in creating a computer mouse, has recently passed away at the age of 91 in California.
In 1960’s, he joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and worked on the development of a predecessor of modern computer along with Douglas Engelbart. Their model has a mouse which helped users to control the images on the screen interface.

Notes:
Indian President Ram Nath Kovind has appointed former Union minister Manoj Sinha as the next Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.
He will replace the previous LG Girish Chandra Murmu who has resigned and his resignation has been accepted by the President. Manoj Sinha has served as Junior Railways Minister. He represented Ghazipur constituency in Uttar Pradesh in Lok Sabha.

Notes:
National Handloom Day is being celebrated on August 7 across India, to commemorate the Swadeshi Movement.
The Movement was launched on the same day in the year 1905. National Handloom Day also aims to create awareness about the Indian Handloom Industry among the general public. A virtual event was organised by the Ministry of Textiles to mark the occasion.