Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
Union Minister for Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal has launched the Pradhan Mantri Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme.
The scheme has been launched as a part of “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan”. It is claimed to generate a total investment of Rs 35,000 crore and generate 9 lakh skilled and semi-skilled employment. The scheme would benefit 8 lakh units through access to information, training and better exposure.

Notes:
The state government of Maharashtra has launched the world’s largest convalescent plasma therapy project named PLATINA, for treating COVID-19.
The trial-cum-project is expected to save at least 500 lives of critically-ill Covid-19 patients in the state. The trial will be carried out in government medical colleges and BMC medical colleges. All critical patients will receive two doses of 200 ml of convalescent plasma under the project, free of cost.

Notes:
National Statistics Day is observed on June 29 every year in India. This year it was celebrated through virtual conference with the theme of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) and SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls).
The Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation instituted a new award ‘Prof. P. C. Mahalanobis National Award in Official Statistics’, which was conferred upon Former RBI Governor C Rangarajan. ‘Prof. P.V. Sukhatme National Award in Statistics 2020’ was given to Dr Arvind Pandey and Dr. Akhilesh Chandra Kulshreshtha.

Notes:
Charted Accountants (CA) Day is celebrated on July 1 every year to commemorate the finding of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) was established by the parliament of India in 1949 under an Act. It is the national professional accounting body and the second biggest accounting organization in the world.

Notes:
The Union Home Ministry has extended the Armed Forces (Special power Act) (AFSPA) in Nagaland, for six more months.
The whole state has been declared as a “Distributed area” for a period of six months with effect from 30th June. This has been exercised under the powers provided by section 3 of the AFSPA Act. Earlier, Nagaland Governor R. N Ravi has written to the Chief Minister that the law and order has collapsed in the state.

Notes:
Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian-American author and oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee has been named as the ‘2020 Great Immigrants’ honourees by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Another Indian American Professor of Economics at Harvard University Raj Chetty also jointly received the honour. They have been honoured for their contribution towards the efforts in containing the COVID-19 crisis.

Notes:
The World Bank has recently announced that it has enhanced its support for India’s flagship program to rejuvenate Ganga river.
World Bank would provide a USD 400 million assistance to the program, which will help reduce pollution and strengthen river basin management. The Second National Ganga River Basin Project (SNGRBP) will support the government’s Namami Gange program. The loan has a maturity of 18.5 years including a grace period of 5 years.

Notes:
Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan have jointly launched the online competition to identify drugs against coronavirus.
The competition is named “Drug Discovery Hackathon” 2020. Students, researchers and experts from across the country and the world can participate in the event, to submit their discoveries on potential drugs. While HRD Innovation cell and AICTE will identify potential drug, CSIR will conduct synthesis and laboratory testing.

Notes:
Everton Weekes, who was considered as one of the finest cricketers of the West Indies, has recently passed away at the age of 95.
During his eminent cricket career, he scored an average of 58.61 per innings, which included a world-record of five consecutive centuries in 1948. Weekes also jointly holds the record as the fastest to reach 1000 Test runs. He was also a member of the prestigious ICC Hall of Fame.

Notes:
Reliance Industries has recently launched a new video conferencing application named ‘JioMeet’, as a competition to the popular video conferencing app Zoom.
The JioMeet video conferencing app is available across all play stores and web. As per the statement of Reliance Jio, the application supports High Definition audio and video call quality. It allows a maximum of 100 participants and unlike Zoom, it does not have a restricted meeting time of 40 minutes.