Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The Governor of Goa, Satya Pal Malik has been transferred as the Governor of Meghalaya, as per a recent communication from the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.
He is to replace the incumbent Governor of the North Est state, Tathagata Roy who completed his five-year tenure. The Governor of Maharashtra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari, will discharge the additional functions of the Goa Governor.

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 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 Mysuru Zoo in Karnataka is the second Indian zoo to have African hunting cheetahs after the Hyderabad zoo.
Under the Animal Exchange Programme, the zoo has acquired one male and two female African hunting Cheetah from Ann Van Dyke Cheetah Centre at Johannesburg, South Africa. One female Cheetah of age 15 months and two male Cheetahs of age 14 and 16 months are brought by air.

Notes:
The National Commission on Population under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has recently released a report titled ‘Population projections for India and States 2011 – 2036’.
As per the report, the sex ratio of the country is estimated to increase from 943 in 2011 to 957 during 2036. The Infant Mortality rate (IMR) is to go down to 30 by the end of 2031-35. The total population of India is estimated to increase from 121.1 crores to 151.8 crores.

Notes:
IIT Kharagpur has recently inaugurated the Academy of Classical and Folk Arts on its campus, to offer training on music, fine arts and other performing arts.
This is in lines with the New Education Policy, 2020 to spark innovation and multidisciplinary teaching. The academy hosts a ‘100 ragas’ initiative, which will be headed by the Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty.

Notes:
The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), an US based India-centric business advocacy group has announced to honour Anand Mahindra and Shantanu Narayen with 2020 Leadership Awards.
The Mahindra group Chairman and Adobe Chairman and CEO are awarded for promoting US-India bilateral ties. It will be presented at 3rd Annual Leadership Summit of USISPF titled “US-India Week: Navigating New Challenges”, that will be virtually convened from August 31.

Notes:
India’s leading private non-life insurer, ICICI Lombard General Insurance is set to acquire Bharti AXA General Insurance.
The merger of Bharti AXA with ICICI Lombard is to be made by means of a share swap deal. Once completed, the combined entity would become the third largest general insurance entity of the country, as of today.

Notes:
The Government of India has appointed former finance secretary Rajiv Kumar as the new Election Commissioner. He is set to succeed Ashok Lavasa, who has resigned from the post, to join the Asian Development Bank.
Rajiv Kumar is a 1984 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of Jharkhand cadre. He has been instrumental in merger of 10 public sector banks into four.

Notes:
With more than 15 crore users and more than 6.6 million Bluetooth traced contacts, the official contact tracing application of India, Aarogya Setu is the most downloaded contact tracing app in the world, as on date.
The application team has recently introduced ‘Open API Service’, which is used to obtain answers for real-time queries about the health status of their employees or any other Aarogya Setu User who has consented to share their health status.