Current Affairs - September 8, 2020 Current Affairs

Pierre Gasly (Scuderia AlphaTauri, France) has won the Formula One Italian Grand Prix 2020 held at Autodromo Nazionale Monza, Italy. This is his first Grand Prix win. Carlos Sainz Jr. (McLaren, Spain) came second followed by Lance Stroll (Racing Point, Canada) in third place. Lewis Hamilton ended at 7th place after he earned a 10-second stop and go penalty.

Aiming to boost the food processing sector, the Andhra Pradesh government on Friday signed 8 pacts with reputed global and domestic players. The MoUs were signed in the presence of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy at his camp office at Tadepalli, Amaravati. These MoUs will help the food processing sector of various agricultural products, including bananas, tomatoes, mangoes, sugar, chillies, vegetables, and aqua products.

Maruti Suzuki MD and CEO, Kenichi Ayukawa has been elected as the new President of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) for a term of two years. He will replace Rajan Wadhera. Ashok Leyland MD and CEO, Vipin Sondhi has been elected as the new vice president of SIAM. SIAM is the apex body of the Indian automotive industry.

The 35th Session of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC 35) was held virtual format due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The Conference was held under the Chair of the Host Country, Bhutan. The Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Parshottam Rupala represented India in the conference. The conference focused on regional priorities and issues such as COVID 19, the state of agriculture, natural resources management, food security and nutrition.

Karnataka is set to implement a ?600-crore project for brining 10 lakh hectares of parched land in 10 districts under watershed development with World Bank assistance. The State Cabinet that met on Thursday cleared this proposal, said Law Minister J.C. Madhuswamy. The project titled 'Rejuvenating watershed for agriculture resilience through innovative development' would be implemented for the next six years. Under the project, the State government would provide ?180 crore while the World Bank would extend an assistance of ?420 crore, the Minister said.

The Union Minister of State for Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh informed on September 6, 2020, that Chandrayaan-3, India's mission to Moon, is likely to be launched in early 2021. The Union Minister also added that unlike Chandrayaan-2, this mission will not have an orbiter but it includes a rover and a lander.

Vodafone Idea has announced its new unified brand identity by renaming all its products under a new name and logo "Vi". The Beleaguered telecom operator, announced the rebranding of the company through a virtual platform. The integration into one brand is believed to be the company's efforts to reduce the cost of maintaining two brands. The rebranding also comes at a time when Vodafone Idea has seen its user base falling from 408 million at the time of the merger to 280 million at the end of June 2020. With Vodafone focusing on premium urban brand, Idea has been a mass rural-focused brand. Following the merger, the urban-rural appeal of the two brands took a hit

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully test-fired the Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle at 11 am on September 7, 2020 from the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Launch Complex at Wheeler Island, off the coast of Odisha. The successful flight test of the indigenously-developed Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle (HSTDV) enabled the successful demonstration of the Hypersonic air-breathing scramjet technology, which is a major technological breakthrough for India.

England cricketer, Ian Bell has announced that he will retire from all forms of cricket at the end of the 2020 domestic season. He made his debut in 2004. He played 118 Tests, 161 ODIs, and 8 T20Is for England. He retired from ODIs in 2015 to focus on Test cricket. He won five Ashes series out of seven. He was the Player of the Series in the 2013 series, where he scored 562 runs at an average of 62.44.

CyberPeace Foundation has partnered WhatsApp to create awareness on cyber safety among students. This is an effort to build on their earlier partnership with WhatsApp under the "e-Raksha" program that reached thousands of students.

The IIT Delhi incubated startup Chakr Innovation has launched a special decontamination device called 'Chakr DeCoV', to decontaminate N95 masks. The Chakr DeCoV device is designed in the shape of a cabinet.

Amidst the multipronged COVID 19 challenges, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) marked its 60th Annual Convention with a series of virtual plenary sessions deliberating upon the revival and future of the automotive industry. Gracing the occasion for the plenary session on "A Long Term Regulatory Roadmap and Infrastructure Development" was Guest of Honour, Nitin Gadkari, Hon'ble Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, government of India.

Addressing at the inaugural session of "National Tribal Research Conclave" organized by Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Tribal Affairs, Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA), Arjun Munda said that tribal ministry along with partner organisations design workable models which provide end to end solution, like problem identification, finding solution and execution of the project as part of Action research which can be implemented by policy initiatives.

China launched an experimental reusable spacecraft into orbit on Friday (Sept. 4), with few details about what the spacecraft will do. A report from Chinese state media's Xinhua said the launch was successful and that a Long March 2F rocket sent the spacecraft into orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, but it provided no information about exact launch time or what technologies the spacecraft will test.

National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee for collaboration in areas of universal design principles and inclusive development in the backdrop of 'Building Accessible Safe Inclusive Indian Cities' (BASIIC) program.

The International Day of Clean Air for blue skies is observed globally on September 7th, 2020. The day aims to raise public awareness at all levels individual, community, corporate and government that clean air is important for health, productivity, the economy and the environment.

On September 3, Space X launched its 12th Starlink mission successfully. The mission added 60 more satellites into Earth's lower orbit. During the launch, SpaceX claimed that with the help of these satellites they have been able to record a downloading speed of more than 100Mbps.

The International Day of Charity was established with the objective of sensitizing and mobilizing people, NGOs, and stakeholders all around the world to to help others through volunteer and philanthropic activities. The date of 5 September was chosen in order to commemorate the anniversary of the passing away of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace."

Union Minister of Education has launched a free mobile app named as "EnglishPro". The mobile application has been developed by the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad under University Social Responsibility (USR). This app will be "a useful digital tool" and will act as an educational resource for the teachers, students and for people from varied backgrounds.

The Assam government re-launched a scheme to provide self-employment to around 2 lakh youths of the state. Known as Swami Vivekananda Assam Youth Empowerment (SVAYEM), it would provide 50 thousand rupees each as seed money to selected youths to start business ventures.