Current affairs notes on August 1-4

 1.Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) has received SKOCH Gold Award for its “Empowerment of Tribals through IT enabled Scholarship Schemes” project. Award is Instituted in 2003, it is the highest civilian honour in the country conferred by an independent organisation. It recognises people, projects and institutions that go the extra mile to make India a better nation.

2. Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s 100th death anniversary was observed on August 1st. Bal Gangadhar Tilak was called ‘father of the Indian unrest” by British colonial rulers. Jawaharlal Nehru called him the ‘father of Indian revolution’. His slogan ‘Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it’ .

3. China has recently completed its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System constellation. It is Chinese Satellite Navigation System. The GPS is owned by the US government and operated by the US Air Force. Russia has its navigation system called GLONASS. The European Union (EU) has Galileo. India’s navigation system is called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).

4.National transist pass system (NTPS): It is an online transit pass generation system for timber, bamboo and other forest produce. It was launched recently by the Union Environment Ministry. The pilot project will be functional in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana for now.

5. The National Education Policy (NEP) has dropped Mandarin or ‘Chinese’ from its list of examples of foreign languages that can be taught in schools. It is the language of government and education of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, with the notable exceptions of Hong Kong and Macau where a local dialect of Chinese called Cantonese is more often used.

6. United Arab Emirates’ first nuclear reactor at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant has achieved first criticality and successfully started up.

7. Britain is considering minting a coin to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi, amid growing interest in recognizing the contributions of people from the Black, Asian and other minority ethnic communities.

8. Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network (eVIN): This is being implemented under National Health Mission (NHM) by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. eVIN aims to provide real-time information on vaccine stocks and flows, and storage temperatures across all cold chain points in the country.

9.IN-SPACe is the name of the nodal agency that will regulate space activities and the use of ISRO facilities by private sector.

10.July 30 is observed as ‘World Day against Trafficking in Persons’. The day is celebrated to raise awareness about the conditions of the victims of trafficking and to protect their rights. Theme for 2020 World day against trafficking in Person is "Committed to the Cause: Working on the Frontline to End Human Trafficking".

11. The union cabinet approved MoU between India and Zimbabwe on Cooperation in the field of Traditional Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy.

12. Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with his Mauritian counterpart Pravind Jugnauth jointly inaugurated the new Supreme Court building of Mauritius in Port Louis through video conference. 

13. The Polycarbonate facility of SABIC in Spain, is set to become the world's first large scale chemical production plant to completely run on renewable power.

14.Formula One Champion Mercedes Lewis Hamilton(British) won British Grand Prix(GP) 2020(officially known as the Formula 1 Pirelli British Grand Prix 2020) held at the Silverstone Circuit in Silverstone, United Kingdom(UK).

15. As per the official data, the Centre’s fiscal deficit for the first three months of fiscal 2020-21 (April-June) was Rs. 6.62 lakh crore, which is 83% of the budgeted target for the year (Rs. 7.96 lakh crore). The government describes fiscal deficit of India as “the excess of total disbursements from the Consolidated Fund of India, excluding repayment of the debt, over total receipts into the Fund (excluding the debt receipts) during a financial year”. In simple words, it is a shortfall in a government's income compared with its spending. Fiscal Deficit = Total expenditure of the government (capital and revenue expenditure) – Total income of the government (Revenue receipts + recovery of loans + other receipts).

16. The output of eight core industries contracted for the fourth consecutive month - shrinking by 15% in June 2020. The eight core sector industries are coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an index that shows the growth rates in different industry groups of the economy in a fixed period of time. It is compiled and published monthly by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

17. Recently, an Israeli team arrived in India with a multi-pronged mission, codenamed Operation Breathing Space to work with Indian authorities on the Covid-19 response.

18. Recently, the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises has approved a programme for the benefit of artisans involved in manufacturing of Agarbatti under the Gramodyog Vikas Yojana. Gramodyog Vikas Yojana is one of the two components of Khadi Gramodyog Vikas Yojana which aims to promote and develop the village industries through common facilities, technological modernization, training etc.

19. Recently, China convened a quadrilateral dialogue with the Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan. China proposed a four-point plan to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, boost economic recovery and resumption of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure projects.

20. Recently, the Ministry of Defence has formulated a draft Defence Production and Export Promotion Policy 2020 (DPEPP 2020). The DPEPP 2020 is envisaged as an overarching guiding document to provide a focused, structured and significant thrust to defence production capabilities of the country for self-reliance and exports.