Test: October 2020 Weekly Current Affair - 1 - UPSC MCQ

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Vaishvik Bhartiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit, organised for the overseas and resident Indian Researchers and Academicians.
The objective of the summit is to bring Indian-origin luminaries in academic institutes and research organisations across the world and resident counterparts on a single platform to debate upon collaboration mechanisms to strengthen academic and science and technology (S&T) base in India for global development.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh released a coffee table book – ‘Discovering the Heritage of Assam’- with a foreword by Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.
The book has been written by Padampani Bora, who is by profession an officer of the Indian Revenue Service (2009 batch).

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal launched a portal ‘Kritagyata’ an online pension submission and tracking system.
With the help of the portal, the retired government employee, besides submitting pension related papers on line will get opportunity to check the status of his pension. The portal has been created in line with the ‘Bhabhisya’ portal of Government of India.

IIT Kharagpur researchers have launched a telemedicine system ‘iMediX’ to help patients receive assistance from doctors without having to go to hospitals or clinics.

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant launched DISHTAVO (Digital Integrated System for Holistic Teaching And Virtual Orientations), an online learning platform involving YouTube channel, which is first of its kind initiative in the country.
DISHTAVO is a comprehensive and holistic program to create e-content in the form of video lectures of syllabus pertaining to the colleges affiliated to the Goa University.

India will build a 100-bedded cancer hospital and a 22,000-seater cricket stadium in Hulhumale, Maldives, under the USD 800 million Line of Credit (LoC) that was extended to the country last year.

Every year National Wildlife Week is celebrated in India between October 2nd and October 8th across the globe.
The theme of National Wildlife Week 2020 is RoaR (Roar and Revive) – Exploring Human-Animal Relationships.

The International Day of Older Persons is observed on October 1 each year. It is a United Nations designated day to focus on the well-being of the elderly people.
The theme of International Day For Older Persons 2020 is “Leave No One Behind”.

Small Savings Schemes with Interest Rates for Oct-Dec Quarter
Senior Citizen Savings Scheme (SCSS)- 7.4 percent.
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana Scheme (SSYS)- 7.6 percent.
Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP)- 6.9 percent.
Public Provident Fund (PPF) – 7.1 percent.
National Savings Certificates (NSC)- 6.8 percent.
Post Office Monthly Income Scheme (MIS)- 6.6 percent.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has decided to extend the interim relaxation in WMA (Ways and Means Advances) limits and OD (overdraft) regulations for States/ Union Territories (UTs) for another six months till March 31, 2021.

Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda virtually launched India’s largest handicraft and organic products marketplace, Tribes India E-Marketplace (market.tribesindia.com) on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti.

Rajya Sabha MP and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh has been chosen for ‘Gandhi’ Award instituted by the Mahatma Gandhi National Foundation.
He was instrumental in India’s diplomatic intervention to remove Mahatma Gandhi’s images on beer bottles of a private company in Israel, Mr Jose, who brought the matter into the public domain.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice “for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus,” the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced in Stockholm, Sweden.
The trio’s work helped explain a major source of blood-borne hepatitis that couldn’t be explained by the hepatitis A and B viruses.

The 2020 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Roger Penrose for black hole discovery and Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for discovering “a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.”
The three laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole.

Former Union Minister Rasheed Masood, who was suffering complications following his recovery from Covid-19, passed away at the age 73.
Masood was the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare with independent charge in the National Front government led by VP Singh in 1990.

State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) launched a financial inclusion and literacy initiative ‘Gram Sampark Abhiyan’ to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The campaign is centred on four key themes -digital, credit, social security and financial literacy that will encapsulate various activities and prescribes the cherished theme of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

The RBI has excluded six public sector banks, including OBC and Allahabad Bank, from the Second Schedule of the RBI Act following their merger with other banks.
The six banks are Syndicate Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC), United Bank of India, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank, and Allahabad Bank.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a five-day global virtual summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE 2020) summit organized by the Government of India in partnership with Industry and Academia.
The RAISE 2020 summit aims to highlight India’s vision and the potential roadmap of using AI.

Twitter Inc appointed Rinki Sethi, a former information security executive at IBM, as its chief information security officer.

World Space Week is celebrated on October 4-10, to commemorate the launch of earth’s first human-made satellite, Sputnik I, on October 4, 1957, and the signing of the Outer Space Treaty on October 10, 1967.
2020 World Space Week is dedicated to satellites and their broad benefits under the theme “Satellites improve life.”

Public sector Indian Bank has unveiled its IB-eNote facility, aimed at providing a paperless working environment and to improve the turnaround time considerably.
Indian Bank also unveiled ‘Ind Guru’, an e-learning platform for its employees that offers technology-enabled solutions aimed at capacity building.

The government announced the launch of an ambitious information technology project ‘Sunidhi’ to digitise all provident fund and pension related activities of the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organisation (CMPFO).

ICICI Bank and Visa has partnered to launch a debit card facility for the customers who avail Loans Against Securities (LAS) from the bank.
Thus ICICI Bank has become the first bank in India to launch this facility after RBI allowed banks to issue electronics cards to customers who avail OD (Overdraft) facility.

A Belarusian pro-democracy campaigner, an imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer, a US civil rights attorney, and a Nicaraguan activist won a top Swedish honour sometimes called “the alternative Nobel Prize.
Ales Bialiatski of Belarus and his NGO Viasna, Nasrin Sotoudeh of Iran, Bryan Stevenson of the United States and indigenous rights and environmental activist Lottie Cunningham Wren of Nicaragua share the Right Livelihood Award.

The 2nd edition of Indian and Bangladesh Navy Bilateral Exercise Bongosagar is commenced in the Northern Bay of Bengal.