Current Affairs: August 11, 2020

Notes:
As per the recent notification of the Department of Economic Affairs, Girish Chandra Murmu has been appointed as the next Comptroller and Auditor General of India.
G C Murmu was the former Lieutenant Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. He was replaced by Manoj Sinha. The 60-year-old Indian Administrative Service Officer has replaced the previous Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Rajiv Mehrishi.

Notes:
The Delhi government has launched the UT’s own Electric Vehicle Policy that aims to boost the economy and reduce the pollution level.
The Government will also introduce financial incentives for people to buy e-vehicles in the range of Rs 30000 for two-wheelers and auto-rickshaws and Rs 150,000 for cars. The policy also offers subsidies and waive road tax and registration fee for electric vehicles.

Notes:
The ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge’ was launched on the Innovate platform of MyGov.
It received entries from around 7000 entries from entrepreneurs and start-ups in 9 different categories including Business, e-Learning, Work from Home etc. Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, MEITY Start-up Hub and National e Governance Division also collaborated in this regard. 24 applications were named the winners of the challenge.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has offered a credit facility of Rs 10000 crore to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and the National Housing Bank (NHB).
The fund of Rs 5,000 crore each is provided at policy lending rate to the banks, its will be deployed to boost rural lending and affordable housing across the country. Under this facility, small NBFCs and micro-lenders will extend small loans to the poor. Earlier, NABARD got a refinance support of Rs 35,000 crore and NHB got Rs 10,000 crore.

Notes:
The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) releases the Business Confidence Index (BCI) and Business Expectation Survey (BES).
As per the recent survey conducted by NCAER, the Business Confidence Index fell to 62% from the last year’s level. The index recorded in the first quarter of this fiscal is the lowest index since 1991. During the period, the BCI for North India increased by 25.1% and decreased by 89.3% and 68.1% for East and West India.