Current Affairs Quiz - August, 2020

Notes:
The present Chairman of Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Ajay Tyagi has been given an 18-month extension till February 2022.
According to a Personnel Ministry order, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved his extension. The 1984 batch IAS (retired) officer has been serving as the Chairman since March 2017.

Notes:
Malayalam movie ‘Moothon’ has won the best film award at the New York Indian Film Festival 2020 (NYIFF).
In addition to the best film award, Malayalam star Nivin Pauly won the best actor award and Sanjana Dipu won in the best child artist category. The Malayalam-Hindi bilingual movie was directed by Geetu Mohandas and was released in the year 2019.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) held its second bi-monthly monetary meeting of FY 2020-21 on August 6, 2020.
After the meeting, the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced that the central bank has decided to keep the key policy rates unchanged with ‘accommodative stance’. Hence, the repo rate will remain at 4 per cent and the reverse repo at 3.35 per cent. There were two rate cuts in March and May.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced a phased restraint on the import of as many as 101 products of Defence equipment.
This decision has been announced on the lines of the Prime Minister’s Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) initiative. As the Armed Forces will procure those items from Indian Defence Manufacturers, it will provide more opportunities and increased jobs.

Notes:
As per the research paper published by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, pathogens named as critical by the World Health Organisation have been found in the river of Yamuna.
The pathogens were named by the WHO in the year 2017. The multidrug-resistant bacteria that are found in Yamuna, were found due to the entry of Sewage into the river. Several major sewer drains and the Yamuna river across New Delhi were studied by the team.

Notes:
The Supreme Court of India ruled that the daughters cannot be deprived of their right of equality and they will have equal coparcenary rights in joint Hindu family property even if the father died before the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005.
The daughters will have the right to inherit their ancestral property with retrospective effect with similar rights and liabilities as sons hold. Coparcener refers to a person who assumes a legal right in parental property by birth.

Notes:
Founded by two former scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Space tech start-up Skyroot Aerospace is the first Indian private company to build a homegrown rocket engine.
The company has recently test-fired an upper stage rocket engine successfully. It has also planned to launch the first satellite into the lower earth orbit by the end of 2021. The company had also manufactured India’s first 3D printed Cryogenic rocket engine.

Notes:
The President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko has recently won a landslide re-election victory, as per the country’s central Election Commission.
As per the figures of the votes counted, around 80 per cent of the votes were secured by the President. His main rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, won over 9 per cent of the votes. At least one person was killed and dozens were injured in the clashes held during the elections.

Notes:
International Youth Day is celebrated every year on 12th August. The theme of this year’s International Youth Day is, “Youth Engagement for Global Action”.
In 1998, a resolution to observe August 12 every year as International Youth Day was passed in the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth, which was hosted by the Government of Portugal in cooperation with the United Nations.

Notes:
World Animal Protection, an international animal welfare organisation has released a new report titled “Elephants. Not commodities”.
The third edition of the report reveals that India has the second-highest number of elephants used in tourism in Asia. It also reveals that as many as 225 of the elephants, which is more than 45%, were kept in severely inadequate conditions.