Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
Veteran Professor Pradeep Kumar Joshi has been appointed as the chairman of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
PK Joshi, who is currently a member in the UPSC, had earlier served as the Chairperson of both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commissions. He is to succeed Arvind Saxena whose term as the UPSC Chairman has ended.

Notes:
As per the recent notification of the Department of Economic Affairs, Girish Chandra Murmu has been appointed as the next Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
G C Murmu was the former Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. He was replaced by Manoj Sinha. The 60-year-old Indian Administrative Service Officer has replaced the previous Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Rajiv Mehrishi.

Notes:
The ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’ was launched on the Innovate platform of MyGov.
It received entries from around 7000 entries from entrepreneurs and start-ups in 9 different categories including Business, e-Learning, Work from Home etc. Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, MEITY Start-up Hub and National e Governance Division also collaborated in this regard. 24 applications were named the winners of the challenge.

Notes:
Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs implements the PM SVANidhi Scheme. It was launched in June 2020, to provide affordable Working Capital loan to Street vendors to resume their livelihoods.
Recently, the Ministry has launched Letter of Recommendation (LoR) module for the scheme. It enables the vendors who do not possess Identity Card (ID) and Certificate of Vending (CoV), to avail benefits under the scheme.

Notes:
United States President Donald Trump has issued orders that would ban the social media applications TikTok and WeChat from operating in the United States in 45 days, if they are not sold by their Chinese-owned parent companies.
The order bans any transaction by any person, with respect to any property with the Chinese company that owns the social media platform, ByteDance Ltd.

Notes:
The multilateral military exercise named Kavkaz 2020 (Caucasus-2020) is to be held in Astrakhan, Southern Russia.
The strategic exercise also includes participants from many other countries including China and Pakistan and other member-states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Indian contingent includes 150 Army personnel and a small contingent from the Navy and Air Force.

Notes:
Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal and Minister of Coal & Mines Pralhad Joshi inaugurated a new Railway Museum at Hubbali, through video conferencing.
Hubli or Hubbali is a city in North Karnataka and the museum is located near the Hubballi Railway Station on Gadag Road. It aims to preserve the heritage of branches of Railways and exhibit the evolution of advanced system in the Railways ecosystem.

Notes:
Indian Railways is observing ‘Cleanliness Week’ from August 10, to commemorate the Independence Day.
During the week, a special Cleanliness campaign will be launched and Cleaning of tracks, offices and other areas near Railway premises will be focussed. Collection of wastes with separate pool of plastic waste will also be done. Awareness drives will also be organised to keep the places clean.

Notes:
Walmart-owned Flipkart has announced the launch of a Start-up promotion programme named ‘Flipkart Leap’.
Flipkart’s first start-up accelerator program includes a 16-week virtual program to train the B2C and B2B start-ups across the country. The technical experts in Flipkart in the fields of Business, Operations and Technology, along with industry experts will mentor the start-ups.

Notes:
A set of 10 ventilators were gifted by the Indian Army to the Army of Nepal in order to support Nepal tackle Covid-19. The ventilators were handed over by the Indian Ambassador to Nepal to the Nepal Army Chief.
The ventilators are to be deployed for a broad range of applications and advanced respiratory support. They are compact in size and are portable for using in intensive care. This assistance is a part of the humanitarian assistance and relief operations of the Indian Army.