Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties. With this, the UAE has become the first Gulf Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
UAE also became the third Arab country to enter into diplomatic ties with Israel. This agreement is a part of the deal to stop the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state. US President Donald Trump announced about the strategic ties.

Notes:
The Government of Goa has signed a tri-partite agreement with Siemens and GIZ, a German based agency, for vocational education and training at ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) of the state.
The Indo-German agreement would facilitate in-plant trainings to students, so that they would be exposed to hands-on experience in their respect domain, thereby improving the employability of the students.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released the framework for setting up of a new umbrella entity for retail payments.
It will operate as a ‘for-profit’ company that will have minimum paid-up capital of Rs 500 crore. It will set up and operate the payment systems such as ATMs, white-label PoS and Aadhaar-based payments. The company will also manage clearing and settlement systems of banks/ non-banks.

Notes:
The High Court of Madras has rejected reopening of “Sterlite Copper” smelting plant in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu. Sterlite Copper, a unit of Vedanta Ltd had been catering to nearly 40 % of India’s copper demand from its smelting plant at Tuticorin.
The High Court’s order dismissed all 10 petitions filed by Vedanta to reopen the plant. The Court upheld the orders issued to close the plant by the Tamil Nadu Government and Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.

Notes:
The Government launched ‘Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme’(ECLGS), as a part of the Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package.
The allocation made for the ECLGS scheme was Rs 3 lakh crore for five months till October 31st. As per the recent news, public and private sector banks have sanctioned loans worth over Rs 1.5 lakh crore, as of August 18, 2020 and more than Rs 1 lakh crore was already disbursed.

Notes:
India has signed a cultural agreement with Israel for a three-year programme of cooperation and strengthening of bilateral ties between the two countries.
This cooperation is expected to raise awareness on the history and culture of both countries. This cooperation programme India and Israel for the years 2020-23 is based on the cultural agreement signed between them on May 18, 1993.

Notes:
The water technology company “Va Tech Wabag” has been conferred with the Global Water Award. This award has been given to the company for setting up a tertiary treatment reverse osmosis plant (TTRO) with a capacity of 45 million litres a day, at Chennai.
The award has been given under ‘wastewater project of the year’ category. With this project, Chennai is the first Indian city to reuse more than 20 % of its treated wastewater.

Notes:
The UEFA Champions League 2020 has been won by the Germany-based football club, the Bayern Munich.
The team won 1-0 against the Paris Saint Germain (PSG) at the final match held at Estadio da Luz, Lisbon. Kingsley Coman scored the only goal of the match during the 59th minute. Bayern Muncih has won the league after 7 years.

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:
‘Nuakhai Juhar’ is the agricultural festival and one of the most ancient festivals celebrated in Odisha, Chhattisgarh. It is also celebrated in regions of neighbouring states. This festival is celebrated to welcome the new crop of the season.
‘Nua’ means new and ‘Khai’ means eat. During the festival, people worship food and farmers offer their first agriculture produce from their lands to Goddess Samaleswari.