Current Affairs - July 8, 2020 Current Affairs

Himachal Pradesh has become the first state where all the households have LPG gas connections. The announcement regarding this was made by HP Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur. The gas connections were provided for free to women in the state. Over 1.35 lakh families have been benefitted under Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana in the state.

Haryana Cabinet has approved the draft ordinance for reservation of 75% jobs in private sector for youth of the state. The Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Ordinance, 2020 has been approved under the chairmanship of CM Manohar Lal Khattar. The ordinance will now placed for approval of Council of Ministers.

Former Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel has authored a book titled 'Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver', which focuses on the issue of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) that has affected Indian banking in recent years and also its causes. The book will be published by HarperCollins India and will be released by the end of July. He was born in Nairobi, Kenya on 28 October 1963.

Radha Krishna Mathur, Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh launched Mission Organic Development Initiative(M.O.D.I) and Greenhouse Project, to lead the Union Territory on a sustainable path, over a virtual platform from Raj Niwas, Ladakh.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has set up an 11-member expert committee headed by Dr K S Reddy, president of Public Health Foundation of India to study impact of coronavirus (Covid-19) on human rights of individuals, particularly marginalised and vulnerable sections of the society, together with migrant labourers & will also study the future response of the government.

Indian e-commerce payment system Paytm & QorQl Pvt. Ltd, a Healthcare startup company with majority shareholding of Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, is set to acquire Mumbai (Maharashtra)-based private sector general insurer Raheja QBE General Insurance Company Limited in a deal worth around $76 million (or Rs 570 crore). Raheja QBE is a joint venture of India's Prism Johnson (51%) and QBE Australia (49% ).

In accordance with the "INFORM Report 2020:Shared evidence for managing crises and disasters" released by research centre INFORM, operating under European Commission, India has ranked at 31st place with an inform risk of 5.4, means risk of humanitarian crises and disasters. The report ranked the countries based on "INFORM Risk Index" which has been topped by Somalia with an inform risk of 8.9. The report has analyzed 191 countries.

SBM Bank India has partnered with Mastercard to enable its customers to make real-time domestic & cross-border payments(Business to Consumer- B2C) and remittances quickly and efficiently through 'Mastercard Send'. This partnership allows the bank's customer base to offer quick, convenient and secure payments experiences.

The Union Minister for Human Resource Development Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' made an announcement on the partnership of Central Board of Secondary Education and Facebook to launch a curriculum on Digital Safety and Online well-being and Augmented Reality for students and educators.

RC Bhargava, the Chairman of Maruti Suzuki authored the book "Getting Competitive: A Practitioner's Guide for India" from his experience of around 60 years as a policymaker and a leading industrialist. The book published by HarperCollins India, provides practical suggestions to make India a competitive industrialised country.

YES Bank launched a digital solution, 'Loan in Seconds' for instant disbursement of retail loans. It is available for the bank's pre-approved liability account holders. The algorithm evaluates the loan application in real-time and eliminates the need for documentation.

Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) will establish a research cell at Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, 'DRDO - IIT-H Research Cell' to meet the future defence technological requirements of the country. The research cell is established as an extension of the DRDO Research and Innovation Centre, Chennai.

In order to strengthen the bilateral development partnership, the Government of India has inked 5 Memoranda of understanding with Afghanistan under the former's high impact community development projects programme. The objective behind these MoUs is the development of educational infrastructure in four Afghan provinces namely Nooristan, Farah, Badakhshan and Kapisa.

The 23 year-old G. Akash from Chennai, Tamil Nadu becomes the country's 66th Grandmaster with rating of 2495. The title was confirmed at the recent meeting of International Chess Federation (FIDE) Council.

World Zoonoses Day is observed annually on July 6 to raise awareness of the risk of zoonotic diseases among people. The day commemorates French Biologist, Louis Pasteur who administered the first successful vaccine against the Rabies virus in July 6, 1885.

The Space Administration in the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), of the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMoD), and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), have successfully launched a new spy satellite "Ofek 16" into orbit by using a locally-developed Shavit rocket from a launchpad at Palmachim airbase in central Israel at 4:00 AM.

For the 1st time in the world, Indian Railways will directly supply power to Overhead Traction System of train. To achieve this feat, Indian Railways has recently set up 1.7 MWp (mega watt power) at Bina (Madhya Pradesh) which shall be connected directly to Overhead Traction System. This has already been installed and is presently under extensive testing & will become operation in 15 days. Indian Railways has partnered with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited under its Corporate Social Responsibility scheme for this first of its kind project in the world.

India's First No-Permission No-Takeoff (NPNT) compliant drone flight on the A200 Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) has been completed successfully by Quidich Innovation Labs and Asteria Aerospace in the green zone identified by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), near Tumkur in Karnataka. This NPNT drone flight is under the MoCA & DGCA comprehensive policy on use of UAVs, which came into effect on 1st Dec 2018.

The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee(IIT-R) announced that the IIT-R researchers team led by Prof. Soumitra Satapathi, Laboratory of Integrated Nanophotonics and Biomaterials, have developed the disinfection box - "Unisaviour" box, which can be used to sterilise various personal belongings to minimise the COVID-19 transmission.

Virat Kohli has come under the scanner of conflict of interest following the question raised by Sanjeev Gupta on his current position. In this regard, Gupta wrote a mail to BCCI Ethics Officers DK Jain. Gupta had earlier raised such conflict-of-interest issues against Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and even present BCCI President Sourav Ganguly.