Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan has recently announced that all of the state government jobs will be reserved to the people belonging to its state.
This is the first country in the state to reserve all its jobs to the people of the state. The state government is set to form legal provisions in this regard. During his Independence Day address, the Chief Minister announced that the state will give preference to their youths in government jobs.

Notes:
People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has acquired a small equity stake in the leading Indian private sector bank, ICICI Bank.
It is one among the 357 institutional investors which had subscribed to the issue of the Qualified institutional investors (QIP) placement, of Rs 15,000 crore. PBOC has invested Rs 15 crore in the issue. It had earlier bought a stake in leading institution, HDFC.

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:
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:
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:
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 Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance has notified the ‘Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules, 2020’.
The norms for enforcing the ‘rules of origin’ provisions has been released by the Government recently. These rules will come into effect from September 21, 2020 and will apply where preferential rate of duty is claimed by importer. The ”Rules of origin” provision mandates minimal processing in the FTA country.

Notes:
The Union Government has recently constituted the National Council for Transgender Persons’ under the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.
This is the first-of-its-kind council and will be headed by the Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment. The council includes representatives from 10 central departments, five states and members of the trans-gender community. It advises the Government on the related policies.