Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2020

Notes:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a first virtual summit with his counterpart of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen.
As per the joint statement, the new ‘Green strategic partnership’ will be based on existing Joint Commission for Cooperation for cooperation in various fields including politics, energy, environment and education.

Notes:
Major Tech company Google has planned to pay USD 1 billion to publishers globally for their news over the next three years.
The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai said the new product called Google News Showcase will be launched first in Germany. It will be unveiled in Belgium, India, the Netherlands and other countries. Google will pay publishers to create high-quality content for the news feature.

Notes:
Nigeria is celebrating its 60th independence day on Oct 1, 2020. Nigeria gained independence from the imperial Britain on October 1, 1960 and a representative of Queen Elizabeth II handed over Nigeria’s constitution to the country’s new Prime Minister – Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. The African country became a republic three years later.

Notes:
The Department of Economic Affairs of the Union Finance Ministry is responsible for preparing the Union Budget.
The Finance Ministry has commenced the exercise for Union Budget 2021-22 by issuing the traditional circular. The Budget is expected to be presented to Parliament on February 1, 2021. The discussions will start from October 16 and continue till the first week of November.

Notes:
India and South Africa has formally submitted a request to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and sought a waiver on agreements related to prevent Covid-19.
The countries claimed that there were many reports about Intellectual property rights (IPR) hindering timely provisioning of affordable medical products to COVID-19 patients. Many Developing countries face difficulties while using TRIPS Agreement.

Notes:
The United Nations designated the first Monday of October of every year as World Habitat Day, to sensitise on the basic right to adequate shelter.
This year, the theme of the World Habitat Day 2020 is ‘Housing For All — A Better Urban Future’. World Habitat Day was first celebrated in 1986 with the theme ‘Shelter is My Right’ and was hosted by Nairobi.

Notes:
American Scientists Harvey J Alter and Charles M Rice, and British scientist Michael Houghton were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.
The award has been presented for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Their work helped to explore a major source of blood-borne hepatitis, which couldn’t be explained by the hepatitis A and B viruses.

Notes:
The Wildlife Day celebration started in 1955 in India and it was later expanded to Wildlife week celebration in 1957. It aims to spread awareness on conservation and protection of wildlife.
This year the 66th Wildlife Week was celebrated with the theme RoaR (Roar and Revive) – Exploring Human-Animal Relationships. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javdekar presented the Prani Mitra awards to encourage the zoo officers and staff.

Notes:
World Teachers’ Day is celebrated annually on October 5, across the world to celebrate the importance of all educators.
The theme for World Teachers’ Day 2020 is “Teachers: Leading in Crisis, Reimagining the Future”. This day has been celebrated since 1994 to commemorate the anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO-UNESCO Recommendation regarding the status of Teachers.

Notes:
Indian Sign Language Research and Training Centre (ISLRTC) functions under the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Divyangjan under the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been between the ISLRTC and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to make educational materials such as NCERT Textbooks and Teachers Handbook accessible for hearing impaired children in their preferred format of sign language.