Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs has formed a five-member central team under Smart Cities Director Rahul Kapoor.
The panel will formulate project reports for both the cities, to improve infrastructure and employment opportunities in Ladakh. These cities have been selected in addition to the 100 smart cities in different states. This idea was initially proposed by the Home Affairs Ministry.

Notes:
India’s leading credit rating agency ICRA Ltd has appointed N Sivaraman as the Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer.
The appointment has been made for three years with effect from August 10. His tenure may also be extended for two more years. He had held senior positions in L&T Finance Holdings and he has served as the Chief Operating Officer at IL&FS till July 31, 2020.

Notes:
The Indian Space Research Organisation recently announced that IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre) will be the single nodal agency to regulate space activities and the use of ISRO facilities by private sector.
The Union Cabinet cleared the setting up of IN-SPACe as a separate body. Announcing the detailed structure of IN-SPACe, ISRO said that the body will have its own Chairman, technical experts from academia and industries and members of Prime Minister’s Office and Ministry of External Affairs.

Notes:
Veteran Folk musician Sonam Tshering Lepcha has recently passed away at Kalimpong, West Bengal at the age of 92.
He travelled to various parts of Sikkim and compiled several Indian folk and traditional Lepcha songs. He was also known for his efforts to popularise and represent Lepcha culture. He was awarded the prestigious Padma Shri award by the Government.

Notes:
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and non-profit Pure Earth jointly released a report titled “The Toxic Truth: Children’s exposure to lead pollution undermines a generation of potential”.
As per the report, one third of the world’s children (800 million) are affected by lead poisoning and 275 million of them are in India. The report also highlights that around half of the affected children were from South Asia. Informal recycling of lead-acid batteries is a major contributor to lead poisoning.

Notes:
FinTech company MobiKwik launched a UPI payment link service, mpay.me, that allows users to send and receive money from any UPI payment app.
Through the new service, users and merchants can set up a mini personal payment gateways with their mobile number and share them. With the link, users can send and receive money through any UPI app. This service works on mobile as well as computer.

Notes:
Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) is an autonomous organisation of the Government of India head-quartered in New Delhi.
It promotes India’s external cultural relations by cultural exchange. The council was founded by the first Education Minister of independent India, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in the year 1950. ICCR recently organised a two-day international webinar on the theme of ‘Lokmanya Tilak – Swaraj to Self-reliant India’.

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:
Former Maharashtra Chief minister Shivajirao Patil Nilangekar passed away at the age of 89, due to prolonged illness.
He had earlier been tested positive for coronavirus disease. Nilangekar was a Congress leader, who was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra from June 1985 and March 1986. However, he resigned from the post after an allegation and order of the Bombay High Court.

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.