Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
India and Iran partnered to construct a rail line from Chabahar port to Zahedan, along the border with Afghanistan, four years ago.
Recently, Iran decided to proceed without India’s assistance and its Transport Minister has inaugurated the track-laying process for the Chabahar-Zahedan line. Recently, China finalised a 25 year-USD 400 billion strategic deal with Iran.

Notes:
The Union Government has appointed Vikram Doraiswami as the new high commissioner to Bangladesh. Prior to this appointment, he was the Additional Secretary in charge of International Organisations and Summits at the Foreign Ministry.
Another Foreign Service Officer Rudrendra Tandon was named as the new envoy to Afghanistan. He is currently the Indian envoy to ASEAN at Jakarta.

Notes:
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari has recently inaugurated and laid foundation stones of 11 highway projects in Haryana worth over 20,000 crore rupees.
These projects are part of the new Economic corridors in the state, which includes the Ambala Kotputli corridor among others. The projects will provide better connectivity to neighbouring states such as Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson announced that the country is set to ban Chinese technology giant Huawei from the country’s 5G network.
This news has been announced amidst the rising tensions between the United States and China. The UK’s move is aligned towards supporting the US, in limiting the expansion of global telecom leader Huawei’s expansion in the west. The process will be completed by 2027.

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:
The Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank launched a low-cost Covid-19 test developed by Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT) Delhi.
The test kit named ‘Corosure’, has been claimed as the world’s most affordable probe free RT-PCR based Covid-19 diagnostic kit. It uses an alternative method of testing samples and costs approximately Rs 650 per kit.

Notes:
The FIFA World Cup 2022 football tournament is to played in Qatar, for the first time in the history of FIFA.
FIFA has released the new schedule for the World Cup to be played in November and December, 2022. The 60,000-capacity Al Bayt Stadium will be the venue for the inaugural session of the tournament. FIFA will finalise the 30 contestants of the World Cup in April 2022

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced has released guidelines for ‘Fair Practices Code’ for Asset Reconstruction Companies (ARCs).
The guidelines are released by the RBI, under the powers conferred by the SARFAESI Act, 2002. As per the recent guidelines ARCs have to follow transparent and non-discriminatory practices in acquisition of assets.

Notes:
Solar Orbiter Mission is the collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) and it was launched in the month of February 2020.
NASA has recently released the images from the Orbiter including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun, to the public. The spacecraft has closely passed the Sun for the first time in the month of June. The orbiter carries six imaging instruments, to capture the layers of Sun.

Notes:
Union Shipping Ministry has named the retired IAS officer Malini Shankar, as the Vice-Chancellor of Indian Maritime University.
Malini Shankar is also the Chairperson of the National Shipping Board (NSB), the ace advisory agency to the Central government on shipping-related matters. Before being appointed as the VC in the Chennai-based University, she was the Director General of Shipping.