Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
The Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in India has declined to 113, in 2016-18. The ratio was 122 in 2015-17 and 130 in 2014-2016.
The Office of Registrar General’s Sample Registration System (SRS) has recently released a special bulletin on Maternal Mortality in India 2016-18. The target of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is to reduce the global MMR to less than 70 per 1 lakh live births.

Notes:
The Regulatory body of Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission (BTRC) has directed telecom companies to stop free internet services to its subscribers for accessing social media.
This decision has been made as this facility is being used by some people for indulging in criminal activities on the social media. This ban is also expected to curb unhealthy competition between the companies.

Notes:
Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal has recently inaugurated the Zoram Mega Food Park at Kolasib in Mizoram.
The Food Park that is built over 55 acres of land has entailed a cost of Rs 75 crore. It is expected to directly benefit over 25,000 farmers and provide ample employment opportunities. 37 Mega Food Parks have been approved in the last six years and 18 of them have started functioning.

Notes:
The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoMSME) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) for sharing of data.
Under the MoU, certain Income-tax Return (ITR) related information will be seamlessly shared by the Income Tax Department to Ministry of MSME. With this data, the Ministry will be able to check and classify the enterprises, as per the MSME category.

Notes:
England’s star cricketer Ben Stokes has displaced West Indies captain Jason Holder to become the world’s top-ranked Test all-rounder.
Ben Stokes also attained his career-best third position among batsmen in the ICC Test Player Rankings. Recently, he delivered an outstanding performance in the Test match with the West Indies at Old Trafford.

Notes:
European Union leaders have approved 1.82 trillion-euro (approximately 2.1 trillion) budget after discussions of four days at a Summit held in Brussels.
The EU also finalised a 750-billion-euro coronavirus recovery fund, which is sent to be provided as loans and grants to the member countries that are hardly hit by the coronavirus. The grants were finalised at a total of 390 billion euros.

Notes:
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has handed over its indigenously-developed drone named Bharat to the Indian Army.
The drones will be deployed for carrying out accurate surveillance in high altitude areas and mountainous terrain in Eastern Ladakh. The drone developed by a Chandigarh-based DRDO laboratory, is claimed to be the World’s most agile and lightest Surveillance drone.

Notes:
For the first time, Russia has conducted a successful flight test of the MGTD-20 gas turbine engine, which is a 3D-printed aircraft engine.
As per the Russian Foundation for Advanced Research Projects in the Defense Industry, the production of the engines is scheduled for the year 2021-2022. The bench tests of small-sized gas turbine aircraft 3-D printing technology engines were reported in 2019.

Notes:
The Director General of the Railway Protection Force (RPF), Arun Kumar, has been nominated to be the Vice-Chairman of the Security Platform of International Union of Railways (UIC).
The Paris-based union also called as Union Internationale Des Chemins, is a global platform for railway systems for improving inter-operability and developing common standards. India has been working closely with the UIC in several initiatives. After the two-year tenure of vice-chairmanship, the DG will hold the chairmanship for the next two years.

Notes:
The United States has listed India’s leading tele-com company Reliance Jio among the companies that are becoming “Clean Telcos”.
This is an initiative of a coalition of countries and companies to secure their critical telecommunication technologies by relying on trusted vendors. Orange in France, Jio in India, Telstra in Australia, SK and KT in South Korea, NTT in Japan, and O2 in the United Kingdom have been added in the list recently.