Current Affairs - July 25, 2020 Current Affairs

Turkmenistan became the 25th country who was granted observer status in the World Trade Organization (WTO) enabling the nation to establish permanent residence at WTO headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland and monitor it's proceedings.

As per the report of DBS (Formerly, Development Bank of Singapore), Singaporean brokerage, India's Gross domestic Product(GDP) will contract by 6% (-6%) in FY21 as the economy is yet to stabilise the COVID -19 infection curve and the due to the caseload in the economically key states.

Largest Solar Power Plant at Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala has been commissioned by the Vice Admiral Anil Kumar Chawla. It is a 3 MW Solar Power Plant which has been set-up in line with the Indian Government's initiative of 'National Solar Mission' which aims to achieve 100GW of solar power by 2022.

The Hero Indian Super League (ISL) joins the World Leagues Forum (WLF), the association of Professional football leagues. It is the first league from South Asia and seventh in Asia to join the WLF. The Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga are also part of the association of Professional football leagues and also the most supported leagues by the people.

Indian Railways is planning to radio-frequency identification tags (RFID) Tag all wagons by the end of 2022. Indian Railways is expected to complete this process of fitting RFID in all the wagons by December 2022.

India's third-largest public sector bank, Bank of Baroda (BoB) launched 'Insta Click Savings Account', a 100% paperless digital self-assisted online savings account. It can be activated in real-time i.e; the customer can transact using the Baroda M Connect Plus application with the MPIN received on the mobile number.

Eminent danseuse and choreographer Amala Shankar passed away. She was honored with the West Bengal government's Banga Bibhusan award in 2011 for her contributions to art. First performance of Amala Shankar was in Kaliya Daman which was staged in Belgium in 1931. She also acted in the film "Kalpana" which was released in 1948.

Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad represented India in the virtual meeting of the G20 Digital Economy Minister under the presidency Saudi Arabia.

Karnataka State Government approved the formation of the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission. The Mission was aimed to promote over 7,000 start-ups, e-commerce, and other gig economy companies in the State.

Airtel Payments Bank Ltd has partnered with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to train and skill the youth in rural India.

As stock market data, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) becomes the 1st Indian company to reach Market Capitalisation (m-cap) of Rs 13 lakh crore. It becomes the world's 48th largest company by m-cap, ahead of Abbott Labs, Oracle, Chevron and Unilever. It also crossed the stock price of Rs 2000 for the 1st time.

National Broadcasting Day was observed on 23 July. The first-ever radio broadcast in India went on air from the Bombay Station on 23 July 1927. The broadcasting was done under the then private company, the Indian Broadcasting Company (IBC). Radio Broadcasting: Radio broadcasting began in the year 1923.

Raj Kumar Singh, Minister of State (MoS)(IC) Power and New & Renewable Energy stated that India will have around 60% of the installed capacity of the electricity generation from renewable resources by 2030, in the webinar on Energy Transition at the second pre-event hosted by The World Sustainable Development Summit (WSDS) 2021 in collaboration with Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) India on 21st July 2020.

Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN) has appointed Alok Misra as its new Chief Executive Officer& Director. The appointment will be effective from 1st August 2020.Dr Misra takes over from the present CEO, Harsh Shrivastava, who has put down his papers after spending over 2 years at MFIN.

On 23rd July 2020, The Tianwen-1, China's first fully homegrown Mars Mission, was launched by Long March 5 Rocket from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan Island at 12:41 a.m. EDT (0441 GMT).

India and Maldives inked an agreement to set up Geydoshu Mas Plant (Neighborhood Fish Processing Plants) at two islands in the Addu city of Maldives namely Maradhoo and Hulhudhoo. The Contract signing ceremony was held in Addu City, which attended virtually Maldives' Foreign Secretary Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, High Commissioner of India to the Maldives Sunjay Sudir, along with other members of Maldives' Ministry of Foreign affairs.

Digital payments major, Amazon Pay have launched vehicle insurance in partnership with Bengaluru-based startup Acko General Insurance. Amazon Pay, a payments unit of Amazon India, will help customers purchase insurance effortlessly and Amazon Prime members will get extra benefits including additional discounts

"The Pandemic Century, A History of Global Contagion from the Spanish Flu to Covid-19", by the british medical historian Mark Honigsbaum covers 10 outbreaks in the past 100 years, dating from the Spanish Flu (1918) to the present day Coronavirus (2019). The book is published by Penguin Publishers.

On 23rd July 2020, The Republic of Nicaragua became the 87th country to sign the International Solar Alliance(ISA) Framework Agreement, an initiative to promote sustainable energy, led by India.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman & CEO Mukesh Ambani (63), became the world's fifth-richest man in the world with an estimated wealth of 75 billion USD, according to the real-time ranking of billionaires by Forbes.