Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has renewed its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The aim of the 3-year agreement is to scale up collaboration on sustainability and energy sector resilience in Asia and the Pacific. The first three-year agreement was signed in March 2017, for knowledge sharing of sustainable energy systems in ADB’s developing member countries.

Notes:
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently revamped its advisory committee on mutual funds.
As per the recent release of SEBI, the 20-member advisory committee is headed by the former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Usha Thorat. The panel which was originally created in 2013 had 15 members, headed by Janki Ballabh. The committee advises SEBI on regulation and development of mutual fund industry.

Notes:
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has recently launched a report on “Cancer preparedness in Asia-Pacific: Progress towards universal cancer control”.
As per the report, India has been ranked eighth for cancer preparedness among 10 Asia-Pacific countries including Australia, China, Japan among others. Australia tops the Asia-Pacific region, followed by South Korea and Malaysia.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates has recently announced its plans to send its first Mars mission and it has become the first Arab country to do so.
Until now, only the United States, India, USSR and the European Space Agency have successfully sent their Mars orbiter missions. China is in the process of launching its first Mars rover. The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) is heading the Mars project of the UAE.

Notes:
The Indian Railways has recently transported Andhra Pradesh dry chillies in special Parcel train to Bangladesh.
The special train has been operated beyond the country borders, for the first time to Benapole town in Bangladesh. Earlier, farmers and merchants in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh were transporting dry chillies by road to Bangladesh, which was an expensive process.

Notes:
The state of Andhra Pradesh has rolled out an initiative of online registration of crops named e-Crop.
The state’s Revenue and Agriculture Department officials will jointly register crops online. At village level, village revenue officers and the village agriculture assistants will register the names of the farmers, details of their land, bank account and about his crops cultivated.

Notes:
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) became the first Indian company to hit a market capitalisation of Rs 12 lakh crore.
In less than a month, the company has added over a market capitalisation of Rs 1 lakh crore, to stand at Rs 12.24 lakh crore. Since April, the company witnessed investments from 12 global investors. Recently, the wireless technology leader Qualcomm invested Rs 730 crores in Jio platforms.

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:
The United Nations has recently released a report titled ‘the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’, prepared jointly by FAO, UNICEF, IFAD and WFP.
As per the report, the number of undernourished people in India has fell down from 249.4 million in 2004-06 to 189.2 million in 2017-19. There was a rise in obesity level in India, as per the report. India and China are the only Asian countries that reported a reduction in number of undernourished people.

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.