Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
The 59th National Pharmacy Week (NPW) is celebrated throughout the country from November 16-22, 2020.
This year, the theme of the National Pharmacy Week (NPW) is “Pharmacists: Frontline Health Professionals”. The Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) is the national professional body of pharmacists, which leads the celebrations.

Notes:
Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad launched the UMANG’s international version in coordination with Ministry of External Affairs for select countries including USA, UK, Canada, Australia, UAE, Netherlands, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
An online conference was organized to mark the occasion of 3 years of UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) and a milestone of 2000 plus services. The app will help Indian international students, NRIs and Indian tourists to avail the services of the Government.

Notes:
As per a recent survey conducted by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and Ernst & Young, Multi-national Companies regard India as their first option, in terms of investments across the globe.
Out of the total key decision makers of those MNCs, 82 per cent of them said that they have plans to expand their business in the next 2 to 3 years. After India, the second most favourable place is North America followed by the rest of Asia-Pacific.

Notes:
Indian army has successfully test fired the land-attack version of the surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile BrahMos, in the Andaman and Nicobar.
The range of the new version of the missile has been extended to 400 km from the original 290 km. The Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy will carry out separate test-firing of the new version of the air-launched and naval versions of the missile.

Notes:
Argentina’s Football legend Diego Maradona, regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time, passed away due to a cardiac arrest, the age of 60.
The country is to observe three-day mourning for the legendary footballer, who helped Argentina life the World Cup in 1986. Maradona made his debut in the country’s football team before the age of 16. He has won several awards including FIFA Player of the Century.

Notes:
On 26 November 1949, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted the Constitution of India, and it came into effect on 26 January 1950.
To commemorate the event, Constitution Day (Samvidhan Diwas) is observed every year on 26 November. This year, ‘All India Presiding Officers’ Conference’ has been organised in Gujarat. The President participated in ‘Reading of Preamble to the Constitution’ event, held every year.

Notes:
Under a new law approved by the Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority will be renamed to Saudi Central Bank.
However, the Central Bank will continue to use its acronym “SAMA” due to its historic significance and relevance. The new law also mandates the objectives of the Central Bank to maintain monetary stability, support economic growth and to directly report King of Saudi Arabia.

Notes:
The Government of India has recently reduced the import tax on crude palm oil from 37.5% to 27.5%. This step has been made by the Government to bring down food inflation.
India is the world’s largest importer of palm oil and it imports nearly 9 million tons of palm oil every year from Indonesia and Malaysia predominantly.

Notes:
The promoter of the Sputnik V vaccine candidate – Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has entered into an agreement with Hyderabad based company named “Hetero Biopharma”.
Under the agreement, the Sputnik V vaccine candidate would be produced in India from beginning of 2021. The Sputnik V vaccine is recently claimed to have reached an efficiency of 91.4% in Phase 3 trials.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is set to become the first Arab Gulf country to generate electricity from coal.
A USD 3.4 billion Hassyan coal plant is being set up in Dubai with a capacity of 600 MW. The capacity is expected to increase to 2,400 MW by 2023. Most of the existing power plants in UAE runs on Gas.