Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

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:
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has recently announced that Kunal Bahl has assumed charge as the Chairman of its e-commerce committee for the year 2020-21.
Kunal Bahl is the Co-founder & CEO of popular e-Commerce firm Snapdeal. The agenda of the committee is the upcoming e-commerce policy, consumer protection rules and promotion of exports through e-commerce.

Notes:
Madhya Pradesh has topped in implementing the Pradhan Mantri Street Vendors Atma Nirbhar Nidhi-PM SvaNidhi scheme.
The scheme was launched to provide a free working capital of 10,000 rupees for one year to street vendors. The state also provides assistance for vendors of rural areas in the state, along with those in urban areas. Over 15000 cases have been approved in the state and loans worth above 15 crore have been approved.

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:
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:
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:
Neela Satyanarayan, the first woman Chief Election Commissioner of Maharashtra has recently passed away, at the age of 72.
She was a 1972 batch IAS officer and a celebrated author, poet and music composer. She was the additional Chief Secretary of Revenue Department and was made the state Chief Election commissioner after retirement.

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:
India’s third largest services company, HCL Technologies announced that its Co-founder Shiv Nadar had stepped down as Chairman of the board of directors.
His daughter Roshni Nadar Malhotra has been named as the next Chairperson of the company. Shiv Nadar will continue in the post of Chief strategy officer. Roshni Nadar became the vice-chairman of the board in 2018. HCL was founded in the year 1976 by Shiv Nadar as one of the 5 founders.

Notes:
P. Praveen Siddharth, a 2001 batch Indian Revenue Service- Income Tax (IRS-IT) officer, P. Praveen Siddharth, has been appointed Private Secretary to President Ram Nath Kovind.
He has replaced Vikram Singh, who has recently been appointed as the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Shipping. The new Private Secretary is serving as the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the President’s Secretariat.