Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
The Union Shipping Ministry has issued a draft ‘Aids to Navigation Bill, 2020’ and sought suggestions from stakeholders and general public.
This draft bill seeks to replace the colonial Lighthouse Act, 1927, which is over nine decades old. The bill seeks to empower the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships (DGLL) with additional power. It also proposes to include global best practices.

Notes:
The President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan has recently announced that the iconic architectural place of the country Hagia Sophia would be made a mosque, which gained criticism from across the world.
After the top Turkish court revoked the museum status of the monument, the President made this announcement. The UNESCO World Heritage site in Istanbul was first constructed as a cathedral but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. It has been a museum since 1935 and open to people of all faiths.

Notes:
The officials at Wimbledon club has announced that will pay out USD 12.5 million in prize money to over 600 players despite the tournament’s cancellation.
The oldest tennis tournament in the world, London-based prestigious Wimbledon championship was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. After consultations with their insurance provider, all the 256 players who would have competed in the main event will be paid equally.

Notes:
The incumbent President of Poland, Andrzej Duda has been re-elected to a second term, in a narrow count.
Andrzej Duda was backed by the ruling party, the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party. He won with 51.21% of the votes, as per the country’s election committee. Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, of the center-right opposition Civic Platform party (PO) secured 48.79%.

Notes:
India’s oldest apex industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) has projected India’s annual median GDP growth for 2020-21 at -4.5%.
This has been projected in the association’s Economic Outlook Survey in the SBI Banking and Economics Conclave. It had previously predicted India’s growth rate to be 5.5 per cent in the January 2020 survey. In the conclave, RBI Governor said that Indian economy has started showing signs of getting back to normalcy.

Notes:
India’s leading telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has recently launched its new video conferencing app named ‘BlueJeans’.
This application is expected to compete its rival applications namely Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams and the recently launched JioMeet. BlueJeans has been launched in partnership with US-based telecom company Verizon.

Notes:
The Chairman of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani has recently become the world’s sixth-richest person, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Mukesh Ambani has recently crossed SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Alphabet co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to reach this position. Last week, he had surpassed Warren Buffet. The wealth of Mukesh Ambani is now worth USD 72.4 billion.

Notes:
India has signed bilateral agreements named ‘Air Bubbles’ with France and the US to operate international flights.
Under the agreement, the airlines of each country will operate international flights between each other. American air carrier United Airlines will be operating 18 flights between India and the US and Air France will be operating 28 flights between Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Paris.

Notes:
Union Ministry of Civil Aviation has recently established an Investment Clearance Cell (ICC), aimed at providing assistance and clearance of proposals.
The ICC will comprise of ten members and it will be headed by a Joint Secretary in the Ministry. The cell will be a single-window system for attracting investments and it will work closely with states to rope in investors.

Notes:
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is the world’s largest trade union federation, headquartered at Brussels, Belgium.
ITUC releases Global Rights Index that ranks 144 countries on the basis of respect for workers’ rights. In this year’s index, India has been ranked among the 10 worst countries for working people, for the first time. Egypt and Honduras are also named in the list for the first time. The Middle East and North Africa is the worst region for working people in the world.