Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
Legendary Indian classical vocalist Pandit Jasraj has recently passed away in the United States, at the age of 90.
During his musical career spanning over 80 years, he has won several prestigious awards including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Fellowship, Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. He was also honoured with the second highest civilian award Padma Vibhushan in the year 2000.

Notes:
Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes clinched victory at the Spanish Grand Prix for the fourth successive year. With this victory, he holds the record of the highest number of podium finishes in F1 history.
Earlier, Lewis Hamilton has shared a record of 155 podium finishes with Michael Schumacher. With the Spanish Grand Pix victory, the count stands at 156 for Hamilton. Max Verstappen finished second in the race followed by Valtteri Bottas.

Notes:
The President of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has recently stepped down from his role, after the prevalent military rebellion in the country.
The soldiers had detained the President and the country’s Prime Minister Boubou Cisse. The country was seeing a large number of protests against alleged corruption and worsening security. People were demanding the resignation of the President for some time.

Notes:
All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Delhi Police for providing door step Ayurvedic preventive health services to Delhi Police.
The service which is supported by AYUSH Ministry, would be provided by a mobile unit of AIIA named ‘Dhanwantari Rath’. It would also be available in the Police Wellness Centers. This is a part of “AYURAKSHA”, a joint venture of AIIA & Delhi Police for maintaining the health of Delhi police personnel during the COVID 19 pandemic.

Notes:
In order to reduce the dependency of China, three countries namely India, Japan and Australia have begun discussions to launch a trilateral “Supply Chain Resilience Initiative” (SCRI).
The initiative was originally proposed by Japan, which had approached India to take forward the initiative. The first meeting of the commerce and trade ministers of the three countries will be held next week.

Notes:
India is set to launch a new direct cargo ferry service to the Maldives, in the third week of September, as per the Indian high commission in the Maldives.
The service will link Kochi and Tuticorin with Male and will boost bilateral trade relations. A vessel operated by the Shipping Corporation of India, will be used for the ferry service. The vessel is to carry electrical machinery, medicines, construction material as well as perishable goods.

Notes:
The island nation of Sri Lanka has proposed to draft a new Constitution. It will also discard the 19th Constitutional Amendment passed in 2015 which imposes restriction on presidential powers.
It sets a limit of 2 years for the President to be in power. The new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has stated that new constitution would prioritize the concept of ‘One country, One law for all the people.’

Notes:
Spain has recently reported an outbreak of West Nile Virus spread by mosquitos. It spreads due to mosquitoes and causes West Nile Fever.
It has claimed the lives of two people in Spain and several people were admitted in hospital. It was originally discovered in Uganda in 1937. It was indigenous to Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia. This RNA virus belongs to the Flaviviridae family, which also has Zika virus, yellow fever virus and Dengue virus.

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.

Notes:
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has launched an application named “Harit Path”.
It has been developed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to monitor the location, maintenance activities, and performance of all its plantation projects. Using the application, the data of the plants along with their photos will be uploaded to oversee their status.