Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
‘Samarth’ is an initiative of E-Commerce major Flipkart, to help artisans of India that was launched last year.
Under the programme, Walmart-owned Flipkart had partnered with five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to help local artisans in using the online marketplace to sell their products. Flipkart recently announced that under ‘Samarth’, it has supported 6 lakh artisans to reach around 200 million customers.

Notes:
As per the National Hurricane Center of the United States, North Carolina has recently witnessed a Hurricane Isaias.
The hurricane has made a landfall near Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina. More than a dozen tornadoes have been reported in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. At least 2 people is said to have been killed in the hurricane.

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:
The Government of India has abolished All India Handicrafts Board, as per the recent notification of the Textiles Ministry.
The Board was constituted on January 23, 1992 under the chairmanship of the Union Textiles Minister. It has Secretaries in Ministries of Rural development and Micro small & medium enterprises and various states as members. It had been advising the Government on creation of development programmes in the handicrafts and handloom sectors.

Notes:
The state government of Gujarat has announced its new Industrial Policy 2020 for the State, with an expected annual outlay of up to Rs 8000 crore.
The policy aims to attract investments for job creation, value-addition, adoption of technology among others. Under the policy, Industries will be able to get government land for projects on long-term lease up to 50 years, at 6 per cent of the market rate.

Notes:
The state of Tamil Nadu is to set up a park exclusively for the electric vehicle manufacturing eco-system. This will be the country’s first such park.
The state is also targeting investments for around Rs 50000 crore and employment for over 1.5 lakh people in the EV sector. Tamil Nadu had announced a detailed EV policy last year with incentives and subsidies for manufacture and purchase. The state has signed MoUs with several companies in this regard.

Notes:
Indian Journalist Nitin Sethi has won the prestigious investigative journalism award, given by the Asian College of Journalism.
He has been awarded for his coverage and investigative articles on Electoral Bonds, published on Huffington Post India. K. P. Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism was awarded to the Hindu’s Shiv Sahay Singh.

Notes:
According to the Bombay Natural History Society, as many as 77 new species of butterflies have been found in the ecologically sensitive forest of Matheran hill station.
It is located about 80 km from Mumbai and is spread over an area of 214.73 sq km. With this, the total number of butterfly species in the Matheran forest has increased to 140. BNHS conducted the study over last eight years from 2011 to 2019.

Notes:
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) of Government of India has launched a new national portal called SURAKHSYA. It has been launched for real time data collection on Human Animal conflict.
The portal is launched as a part of the World Elephant Day, which is observed every year on 12th August. The portal would be used by policy makers for preparation of Action Plans and Strategies to mitigate conflicts.

Notes:
Russia has become the first country to register and approve the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine. It has named the vaccine as ‘Sputnik V’.
This has been named as a reference to the world’s first satellite sent by the country. Russia claims that is has received requests from more than 20 countries for 1 billion doses of its newly-registered Covid-19 vaccine.