Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
The Chinese embassy in the central Asian country Kazakhstan has recently issued a statement, in which it has warned its citizens living in Kazakhstan, about a local ‘unknown pneumonia’.
The embassy also announced that this unknown disease has a higher fatality rate than the Covid-19 disease. As per the statement, the disease has caused 1772 deaths in the first six months of the year, which also included several Chinese citizens.

Notes:
The Indian Railways has set the target to achieve net zero carbon emission by the year 2030. In order to achieve the target of becoming a Green Railways, it has accelerated the efforts.
Some of its initiatives include Electrification of lines, improving energy efficiency of trains, green certification for stations, fitting bio toilets in coaches and switching to renewable sources of energy. Recently, a 1.7 mega watt plant at Bina in Madhya Pradesh in collaboration with BHEL has been installed.

Notes:
The historic Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple located at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, has been in dispute over its management. It is considered as one of the richest temples in the country.
The Supreme Court of India has recently upholded the rights of Travancore royal family in the administration of the temple. This dispute has been pending in the Supreme Court for the past nine years after charges of financial irregularities. The Travancore Royal house had ruled southern Kerala and some parts of Tamil Nadu.

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 CMD of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), Mukesh Ambani announced at the annual general meeting, that Jio platforms and Google will jointly develop a new Android-based smartphone system.
An entry level affordable smart phone by optimising the Android operating system would be jointly developed by the two giants. Google also announced that it will invest Rs 33,737 crores in Jio for developing 5G technology.

Notes:
The United States President Donald Trump has signed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act into law. He also signed an executive order ending US preferential treatment for Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Autonomy Act was passed unanimously by the Congress. It gives provisions to the country, to hold accountable the individuals involved in suppressing Hong Kong’s freedom. After this act, Hong Kong will be treated the same as mainland China by the US.

Notes:
Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal inaugurated the virtual Digital Indo- Italian Business Mission on Food Processing’.
The two-day event comprises of digital conferences, trade fair and B2B (Business to Business) meetings, which are being attended by 23 Italian companies. This Digital Sectorial business Mission is expected to promote the bilateral trade between India and Italy.

Notes:
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras-incubated start-up named Modulus Housing has developed a portable hospital unit.
The foldable unit called ‘MediCAB’ can be installed by four people anywhere within two hours. ‘MediCAB’ was launched recently in Wayanad District, Kerala to treat Covid-19 patients. The start-up was founded by two IIT alumni in 2008 and it is in the process of developing micro hospitals.

Notes:
The Supreme Court of India has extended the tenure of the chairperson and members of the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) by three months.
The chairperson of TDSAT is former Supreme Court judge Justice Shiva Kirti Singh. His tenure was to end on July 20 this year and the tenure of other members of the tribunal has already ended. TDSAT has recently set aside TRAI’s order that blocked Vodafone-Idea’s premium tariff plan RedX.

Notes:
World Emoji Day is celebrated every year on July 17, across the world. It was founded by Jeremy Burge.
He is called an emoji historian as he created an unofficial Wikipedia for emojis named Emojipedia. This day has been observed since 2014, to celebrate the usage of emojis, the ideograms used in online text conversations.