Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
E-Commerce Giant Flipkart has announced that it will acquire parent Walmart’s wholesale business, ‘Best Price’.
The loss-ridden cash-and-carry business of Walmart in India is the last part of Walmart to be acquired by Flipkart marking a complete consolidation. This acquisition is expected to help Flipkart to expand its business-to-business vertical.

Notes:
Reserve Bank of India releases a bi annual report called the financial stability report (FSR). The latest edition was released recently.
RBI has estimated that the gross non performing asset (GNPA) ratio of all banks may increase from 8.5% in March 2020 to 12.5% by March 2021. GNPA ratio of public sector banks will increase to 15.2% in March 2021. The main reason for this dip is the slowdown in the economy due to the Covid-19 induced lock-down.

Notes:
As per the recent statement from the Indian Railways, they will hand over as many as 10 broad-gauge diesel locomotives to Bangladesh.
Bangladesh had earlier sent a proposal to India in for procurement, as 72% of its present locomotives are at the verge of crossing their economic life. The country will deploy them for both intra-country and inter-country rail transport.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India has signed necessary documents for extending USD 400 million currency swap facility to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka had earlier requested for a currency swap facility under the SAARC Currency Swap Framework. This swap arrangement will remain available till November 2022 and is expected to assist Sri Lank to address the economic crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Notes:
Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have developed a new low-cost, portable device that can test for Covid-19 and give results in an hour.
The new technology has accuracy similar to the RT-PCR test, which is now considered the standard for testing. The device uses a disposable paper strip for analysing the sample and the results are made available in a mobile application.

Notes:
The India-Indonesia Defence Ministers’ Dialogue was held in New Delhi. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh led the Indian delegation while Indonesia’s Defence Minister General Prabowo Subianto led their delegation.
Both the countries affirmed to further expand defence and military ties between the countries in areas including technology sharing. The countries had signed a new defence cooperation agreement in 2018 for a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Notes:
At the 2016 high-level meeting at the UN General Assembly, India pledged to fast track efforts towards ending HIV/AIDS as a public health threat in the next five years, and to end the epidemic by 2030.
Recently, a study published by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) stated that India may miss the national target to end AIDS by 2030. The decline in annual new HIV infections is only 27% from 2020 to 2017 against the national target of 75% by 2020.

Notes:
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has recently attended the 5th Annual Meeting of Board of Governors of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
A roundtable discussion was conducted on the theme ‘AIIB 2030-Supporting Asia’s Development over the Next Decade’. The bank had earlier provided a financial assistance of about USD 10 billion to combat Covid-19.

Notes:
The Chairman of Tata Sons N Chandra Sekaran announced that Thierry Bollore would be appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tata’s British luxury arm Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).
Thierry Bollore, who was previously working with the Renault, will assume office with effective from September 10. He is to succeed Professor Sir Ralf Speth, who would take up the position of Non-Executive Vice Chairman of Jaguar Land Rover.

Notes:
Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship recently announced that out of the over 2,00,000 people who became Australian citizens in 2019-2020, around 38,000 were Indians.
They are the largest international community to be granted the Australian citizenship. This figure is also 60 per cent increase from the previous year. India is followed by the people of the UK, China and Pakistan.