Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
Five sportspersons were named as the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna awardees and 27 sportspersons as Arjuna awardees.
Rohit Sharma (Cricket), Rani Rampal (Hockey), para athlete Mariyappan Thangavelu, Vinesh Phogat (Wrestling) and Manika Batra (Table Tennis) were selected for the prestigious Khel ratna award. They will be virtually conferred with the award on August 29 on the National Sports Day.

Notes:
Technology major Microsoft has launched a new program to teach quantum computing skills to train around 900 faculty from across the country.
As a part of this initiative, Microsoft is organizing a ‘Train the Trainer’ program in association with Electronics and ICT Academies at Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur and National Institute of Technology, Patna.

Notes:
In order to enhance the ease of doing business, the Aadhaar authentication has been activated by the Government for registration to GST. The Aadhaar based GST registration of an entity would be completed in 3 working days and there is no requirement for physical verification.
Those not opting for Aadhaar based registration will be subjected to physical verification of place of business activity and other related documentary verification. The time required for non-Aadhaar registration would be up to 21 days.

Notes:
Union Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has inaugurated and laid foundation stones of as many as 45 Highway Projects in Madhya Pradesh.
The project outlay is Rs 11427 crore and it includes projects include road length of 1361 kilometres. The Minister also announced Rs 700 crore from Central Road Fund (CRF) for Madhya Pradesh to be utilised in the road sector.

Notes:
Indian Navy’s longest serving warship, the Indian Naval Ship (INS) Viraat, that was earlier decommissioned and laid at the Naval dockyard in Mumbai, is to be dismantled at Alang yard, Gujarat.
INS Viraat is a 27,800-tonne Centaur class aircraft carrier. It had originally served in the British Navy for 25 years till 1984. It was commissioned into the Indian Navy in the year 1987 and was operating Harrier fighter jets.

Notes:
The Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) has initiated tele-consultation services using the e-Sanjeevani platform of the Health Ministry.
The tele-medicine services will initially be available to beneficiaries in Delhi and NCR on all working days. As a pilot measure, services for four specialties namely Medicine, Orthopaedics, Eye and ENT will be made available.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently released its annual report 2019-20, in which it has estimated that India would have a negative growth of (-) 4.5 % for the year 2020-21.
The central bank has also projected the global growth rate between (-) 6.0 per cent and (-) 7.6 per cent. It also said that the supply of banknotes during 2019-20 was also lower by 23.3 % than that of the previous year.

Notes:
Ace England Bowler James Anderson has become the first fast bowler to reach 600 wickets in Test matches.
Before his feat, only three spin bowlers had made this achievement, including Muttiah Muralitharan (800), Shane Warne (708) and Anil Kumble (619). Anderson achieved this feat during the third Test against Pakistan at the Rose Bowl.

Notes:
The Union Civil Aviation Minister has recently announced that a total of 78 additional routes has been approved under the fourth batch of Regional Connectivity Scheme—Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagarik (UDAN).
Named as Udan 4.0, the new set of air operations connect Eighteen unserved/underserved airports to metro cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Kochi among others. With this, the total number of sanctioned routes has been increased to 766.

Notes:
The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman chaired the 41st GST Council meet, which discussed about the options that can be given to states to meet shortfall of GST compensation.
Earlier in the month of May, the Centre amended the FRBM act to raise the borrowing limit of States from 3 per cent to 5 per cent of GSDP for FY21. After the meeting, the Finance Minister said, a further relaxation of 0.5 per cent in the limit will be given. This year, there is a GST compensation gap of 2.35 lakh crore rupees.