Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has built an infrastructure at Rihand project in Uttar Pradesh.
The project has been designed to transport fly ash in bulk at affordable rates to cement plants. NTPC has committed to utilise the fly ash completely from power plants. The power plants will upgrade their infrastructure for utilising the fly ash using the loading facilities of the Indian Railways.

Notes:
The International Solar Alliance, ISA is set to organise its first World Solar Technology Summit virtually on September 8, 2020. ISA is an alliance of 121 countries, initiated by India headquartered at Gurugram.
The inaugural address of the summit will be delivered by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ISA President and Minister of New and Renewable Energy R. K. Singh. The event will focus on using technology to effectively utilise the solar energy.

Notes:
The Government of United Kingdom (UK) has launched a £3 million Innovation challenge fund in India. The fund is aimed at supporting scientists in industry and academia to cope with acute global challenges like COVID-19 and other environment threats.
The fund aims to bring together best minds under “UK India Tech Partnership”. The fund has specifically invited innovators associated with “AI-Data cluster” in Karnataka and “Future Mobility cluster” in Maharashtra to submit research proposals.

Notes:
The title sponsorship of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 is awarded to Dream11, an Indian fantasy sports platform. The sponsorship rights have been awarded for Rs.222 crore.
Byju’s came second in the bid at Rs 201 crore and Unacademy stood third in the bid at Rs 171 crore. The 2020 IPL is the 13th edition of the cricket event and is scheduled to be held at the United Arab Emirates.

Notes:
A joint report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) stated that, 41 lakh youth in the country lost jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ‘Tackling the Covid-19 youth employment crisis in Asia and the Pacific’ report stated that construction and farm sector workers account for the majority of job losses. Youth (15-24 years) will be hit harder than adults (25 and older) in the immediate crisis.

Notes:
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved a one-time relaxation to Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) for extending loans to state-owned electricity distribution companies (Discoms).
This measure has been made by the Government to inject liquidity into Discoms, as a part of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Scheme. As per the existing guidelines, Discoms can avail working capital loans equal to 25% of last year’s revenues, under UDAY scheme from PFC and REC.

Notes:
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has attended the inaugural ceremony of the 5th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament (5WCSP).
It is a two-day virtual Conference organized jointly by Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Geneva and Parliament of Austria. The programme is supported by United Nations (UN). The theme of the Conference is “Parliamentary leadership for more effective multilateralism that delivers peace and sustainable development for the people and planet.”

Notes:
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched its wholly-owned subsidiary, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL).
The company aims to popularise NPCI’s domestic payments technologies such as UPI and RuPay in other countries and co-create payment technologies with them. NPCI has appointed Ritesh Shukla as the Chief Executive Officer of NIPL.

Notes:
Madhya Pradesh is set to be the first state in the country to recruit candidates to government jobs on the basis of National Recruitment Agency (NRA) test.
This decision has been informed by the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, a day after the Union cabinet approved setting up of NRA to conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET), for conducting examinations which are presently conducted by IBPS, RRB, SSC among others

Notes:
The Union Ministry of External Affairs in collaboration with the Thailand’s Foreign Ministry has organized the 6th Round Table of ASEAN-India Network of Think Tanks (AINTT). The round table conference was conducted virtually.
The theme of the conference was ‘ASEAN-India: Strengthening Partnership in the Post COVID Era’. More than 400 eminent members from various educational institutions, industry, government and diplomats attended the Round Table.