Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The United States astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who flew to the International Space Station in SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon, landed back on the Earth.
The astronauts splashed down aboard Crew Dragon ‘Endeavor’ in the Gulf of Mexico after a 64-day voyage in space. This is NASA’s first crewed mission from American soil in nine years. This splash down is the first of its kind by NASA in 45 years.

Notes:
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has recently announced that it will pardon the players who voluntarily declare age fraud.
It will grant amnesty to registered players who voluntarily declare that they have manipulated their date of birth but those who found to have breached the scheme would be granted a two-year suspension. Then, they will not be allowed to participate in any age group tournaments of BCCI and the State boards.

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:
Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar has virtually launched ‘DD Assam’ channel, jointly with the Chief Minister of Assam.
The 24×7 channel will showcase the rich history of the state with programs like music programmes, travelogues, reality shows and feature films focussing on folk culture and tribal life. Door Darshan has already been running channels in several north eastern states.

Notes:
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), an organisation under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
The MoU seeks to set up a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for using Artificial Intelligence in Decision making and Advance Data Management System for Highways. IIT Delhi will develop simulation models in this regard and provide space and infrastructural facility for the CoE.

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:
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:
National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a new loyalty platform named ‘nth Rewards’.
It is an analytics-enabled multi-branded loyalty platform that allows users to earn points through various bank transactions. The points can be redeemed on various products like e-vouchers, hotel and flight bookings. Using the platform, banks and merchants can identify consumer behaviour.

Notes:
Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries has gone 10 places ahead in the Fortune Global 500 list and entered into the world’s top 100 companies.
As per the recent 2020 ranking released by Fortune, Reliance has been ranked at 96th place globally. This is the highest rank ever of any Indian company on the Fortune Global 500 list. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) slipped to 151st rank, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is ranked 190th while State Bank of India (SBI) is at 221st rank.

Notes:
Israel has recently provided its artificial intelligence (AI) based technologies and equipment to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.
The technologies include contact-less monitoring applications, advanced medical management systems and AI-based solutions comprising AI assistant robots. The Prime Ministers of both the countries were affiliating with each other for identifying the areas of mutual cooperation.