Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

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.

Notes:
The Supreme Court of India ruled that the daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality and they will have equal coparcenary rights in joint Hindu family property even if the father died before the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
The daughters will have the right to inherit their ancestral property with retrospective effect with similar rights and liabilities as sons hold. Coparcener refers to a person who assumes a legal right in parental property by birth.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs has announced that all nine museums sanctioned for tribal freedom fighters will be completed by the end of 2022.
Out of the total nine museums that are being built, two will be completed soon. The largest of the museums is being built in Rajpipla in Gujarat at a project outlay of around Rs 100 crore. The Prime Minister announced about these museums in the year 2016.

Notes:
Founded by two former scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Space tech start-up Skyroot Aerospace is the first Indian private company to build a homegrown rocket engine.
The company has recently test-fired an upper stage rocket engine successfully. It has also planned to launch the first satellite into the lower earth orbit by the end of 2021. The company had also manufactured India’s first 3D printed Cryogenic rocket engine.

Notes:
International Youth Day is celebrated every year on 12th August. The theme of this year’s International Youth Day is, “Youth Engagement for Global Action”.
In 1998, a resolution to observe August 12 every year as International Youth Day was passed in the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth, which was hosted by the Government of Portugal in cooperation with the United Nations.

Notes:
An application called the ‘Interactive Neural Machine Translation (INMT) tool’, has been developed by the Microsoft Research Lab.
Microsoft Lab has collaborated with CGNet Swara, an Indian voice-based online portal and IIIT Naya Raipur for developing this tool. It translates sentences from Hindi to South-Central Dravidian language Gondi and vice-versa. The application aims to motivate youth from the Gond tribal community to learn the language.

Notes:
“Atulya” – a new device that can disinfect any premise in 30 seconds was unveiled by the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Nitin Gadkari.
The design of the device is certified by DRDO and is developed completely in India. It is portable and weighs about 3 kilograms. It can be used to disinfect any premise up to an area of 5 meters at a time. It can also be used to disinfect surfaces of home, office, boxes, furniture etc.

Notes:
A five-month time extension has been given by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) from 25th March 2020 to 24th August 2020 to all the Renewable Energy Projects under implementation.
The implementing agencies have been directed to treat COVID 19 as a “Force Majeure”. This move is followed by the representation from various implementing agencies demanding extension of time due to COVID 19-imposed national lockdown.

Notes:
The famous computer scientist Russel Kirsch who is celebrated for invention of Pixel died at the age of 91.
Russel Kirsch created a small 2 by 2 inch black and white image of his son in digital form in 1957. This was also the world’s first photograph that was scanned into a computer using a device created by his research team. That was the basis for satellite imaging, medical scans, virtual reality and other imaging technology being used recently.

Notes:
The 4th Session of the BRICS Anti-Drug Working Group was conducted recently through video conferencing.
Representatives from all 5 member countries: Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa and India participated in the session, which was chaired by Russia. Indian delegation was led by Shri Rakesh Asthana, DG of Narcotics Control Bureau. Misuse of Darknet and advanced technologies for drug trafficking was the theme of the session.