Current Affairs Quiz - October, 2020

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:
The Films Division has organized ‘Gandhi Filmotsav’, as a part of the final event of two years celebration of Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th Birth Anniversary.
The week-long online film festival was streamed on its Website and YouTube Channel. The birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi is celebrated on October 2 across the world. The birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri is also celebrated on the same day.

Notes:
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has successfully test fired an indigenously developed laser-guided anti-tank guided missile (ATGM).
The missile was test fired from the third-generation main battle tank, Arjun from a range at Ahmednagar, Maharashtra. The ATGM has been developed with a capability to launch from multiple platforms.

Notes:
On the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, the Swachh Bharat Diwas 2020 was celebrated which included the distribution of Swachh Bharat Puraskar.
In the Swachh Sundar Samudayik Shauchalaya (SSSS) campaign organized from 1st Nov 2019 to 30th April 2020, Gujarat state has been conferred with the first prize. Tirunelveli (Tamil Nadu) won the best district award.

Notes:
In order to commemorate the Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, “Shramdan” drive was organized by the Department of Justice, Government of India at New Delhi on 2nd October, 2020.
During the event, all the officers and staff members of Department of Justice participated in a cleanliness drive to clean the office premises.

Notes:
The National Statistical Office (NSO) conducted the first of its kind “Time Use Survey in India” during the period from January to December 2019. The result of the survey has been released recently in the form of a report.
The survey measures the time spent on paid activities, care activities, unpaid activities, etc. NSO conducted the survey covering 1,38,799 households in both urban and rural areas.

Notes:
A United States Navy P-8A long range Maritime Patrol Aircra landed at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
This is seen as a significant incident as this is the first time a U.S. P-8 aircraft landed at Port Blair for refuelling under the bilateral logistics support agreement. The agreement is called the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA).

Notes:
The Election Commission has recently issued a set of new instructions regarding the postal ballot facilities for those above 80 years of age and people with disabilities.
The booth level officer would deliver the form required to opt for the postal ballot, under his polling station. The fresh guidelines would be applicable to all elections and by-elections, including the by-polls announced last week.

Notes:
The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is set to commission India’s largest HPC-AI supercomputer, ‘PARAM Siddhi – AI’.
The initiative has been led by Scientist and Program Director at CDAC Abhishek Das. The same has been approved by the Union Minister of Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad. The supercomputer will have 210 AI Petaflops and will be based on NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD reference architecture.

Notes:
Technology Major Google has recently announced Google Workspace as the new name for its package of business tools.
The package including email and document editing was earlier known by the G Suite brand, which was introduced in 2016. Google has also launched some new features including integration of video chat with co-workers among others.