Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
An employee who earns a monthly salary of up to Rs 15,000 is mandatorily required to join the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) scheme.
Union Cabinet has approved extension of EPF contribution of 24% i.e., employees share of 12% and employers share of 12%, for another 3 months till August 2020. Under the AtmaNirbhar Yojana, the Government had earlier proposed to make the 24% contribution. This will cost Rs 4680 crore to the Government.

Notes:
The Union Defence Minister of India Rajnath Singh has inaugurated six major bridges in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir, through video conferencing.
The bridges are located near the International Border (IB) and Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. These strategically important bridges were completed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) in a record time.

Notes:
The Kuaizhou-11 carrier rocket, that was launched by China, has recently suffered a failure during its maiden flight.
Kuaizhou means ‘fast ship’ in Chinese. It is a low-cost solid-fuelled carrier rocket, that was designed to launch low-Earth orbit satellites. A malfunction occurred during the flight though the exact reason for the failure is not yet known.

Notes:
GOAL is a literacy and mentorship initiative, that aims to identify leaders and make them train 5,000 youth from tribal communities across the country. It is implemented by the Tribal Affairs Ministry.
The Ministry has hosted a webinar on Going Online As Leaders (GOAL) Project, to sensitise Members of Parliament from Scheduled Tribe (ST) Constituencies. Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda and other officials from the Ministry participated in the seminar.

Notes:
The comet C/2020 F3 comet also called as NEOWISE was discovered on March 27, this year. It was seen in news recently, as the comet would be visible in the sky.
In India, the NEOWISE comet will be visible in the northwest sky which is 20 degrees from the horizon. It is expected to be visible after sunset for around 20 minutes for 20 days from July 14, 2020 and it will fade away in the month of August.

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 Tata Group N Chandrasekaran is selected for the US-India Business Council, USIBC Global Leadership Award this year.
Along with him, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, Jim Taiclet will also receive the award. The USIBC Global Leadership Awards are conferred on executives to recognise their leadership and their contribution in promoting trade and business between India and the United States.

Notes:
Former captain of Australian Football team recently announced that he is retiring from all forms of football.
He had earlier announced retirement from international football in the year 2018. The 35-year old footballer led the Australian men’s national team, also called as Socceroos, to the 2015 Asian Cup title.

Notes:
As per the recent data by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India posted a trade surplus of USD 790 million in June 2020.
This surplus has been recorded for the first time after over 18 years. Due to the Covid-19 induced decrease in domestic demand for crude oil, gold and other industrial products, the country’s import was deeply reduced. This led to a trade surplus with imports of USD 21.11 billion and exports of USD 21.91 billion.

Notes:
Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik recently inaugurated the 5th edition of the Conference on Aerospace and Defence Manufacturing Technologies.
The webinar was jointly organised by Tamil Nadu Technology Development & Promotion Centre (TNTDPC), Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM), and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The theme of the conference is Empowering India with ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Mission’.