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Dear Readers, Daily Current Affairs Questions Quiz for SBI, IBPS, RBI, RRB, SSC Exam 2020 of 18th August 2020. Daily GK quiz online for bank & competitive exam. Here we have given the Daily Current Affairs Quiz based on the previous days Daily Current Affairs updates. Candidates preparing for IBPS, SBI, RBI, RRB, SSC Exam 2020 & other competitive exams can make use of these Current Affairs Quiz.
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1) The AYUSH Ministry has launched a campaign “Ayush for Immunity” for awareness on affordable immunity boosting practices. The duration of the campaign is _____ months.
A) 8
B) 5
C) 3
D) 4
E) 6
2) Which company has launched a free app to help investors in the stock market understand about safe investment and successful wealth creation?
A) Squirrel Fintech
B) Angel Broking
C) India Infoline
D) 5paisa
E) Zerodha
3) Which of the following renowned personalities passed away recently and has a planet named after him?
A) Pandit Maniram
B) Nishikant Kamat
C) Bhimsen Joshi
D) Hariprasad Chaurasia
E) Pandit Jasraj
4) Which state government has announced the scheme ‘Padhai Tuhar Para’ scheme under which school students will be able to learn in their respective localities in view of the suspension of classes due to the coronavirus?
A) Punjab
B) Chattisgarh
C) Madhya Pradesh
D) Uttar Pradesh
E) Haryana
5) Which bank has approved $750,000 technical Assistance for developing distance education platforms in Armenia?
A) IMF
B) World Bank
C) ADB
D) AIIB
E) ECB
6) Who among the following has been appointed as the next chief of the Border Security Force?
A) Ankush Asthana
B) Samant Goel
C) Alok Verma
D) Rakesh Asthana
E) Rishi Shukla
7) The Indian Solar Alliance which India initiated with France in 2015 will hold the World Solar Technology Summit for the first time on which date?
A) September 10
B) September 15
C) September 20
D) August 30
E) September 8
8) Which city has been ranked 26th in the Knight Frank Prime Global Cities Index?
A) Pune
B) Bengaluru
C) Dehradun
D) Mumbai
E) Chandigarh
9) According to the Forbes Real Time Billionaires List Mukesh Ambani now ranks at which position?
A) 4
B) 6
C) 7
D) 5
E) 8
10) Who has broken Michael Schumacher’s record after claiming his 88th Formula One career victory?
A) Sebastian Vettel
B) Charles Leclerc
C) Valtteri Bottas
D) Lewis Hamilton
E) Max Verstappen
11) India Post has issued commemorative postage stamps on UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India. The stamps depict _______ cultural sites of India.
A) 6
B) 5
C) 10
D) 8
E) 7
12) Which state has teamed up with the NPCI for providing impetus to digital payments in hinterlands?
A) Kerala
B) Bihar
C) Madhya Pradesh
D) Haryana
E) Andhra Pradesh
13) Name the portal launched by the government to promote tribal health & nutrition.
A) Healthify
B) HealthPlus
C) Swasthya
D) Aarogya
E) Nirog
14) India has signed an agreement with which country to integrate financial transactions and cooperate in the area of Fintech?
A) Israel
B) Qatar
C) Oman
D) UAE
E) Saudi Arabia
15) Flipkart has entered an MoU with which institution to jointly create industry focused applied research in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML)?
A) IIT Roorkee
B) IIT Mandi
C) IIT Delhi
D) IIT Madras
E) IIT Patna
16) Which state has planned to implement the new National Education Policy by 2030?
A) Telangana
B) Karnataka
C) Andhra Pradesh
D) Haryana
E) Chhattisgarh
17) Who among the following has launched the foundation for 13 highway projects in Manipur?
A) Narendra Modi
B) Prahlad Patel
C) Amit Shah
D) Nitin Gadkari
E) Anurag Thakur
18) Which company has partnered with the Central Water Commission (CWC) to provide timely, updated, and critical information that can help users make informed decisions on their safety?
A) Dell
B) HP
C) Facebook
D) HCL
E) Google
19) The Meghalaya government has planned to launch the ‘Restart Meghalaya Mission’, an amount of Rs 14,515 crore will be spent over the next _____ years.
A) 6
B) 5
C) 3
D) 4
E) 2
20) The first ever Pallikkutam award for innovation in education has been won by a school in which state?
A) Manipur
B) Nagaland
C) Mizoram
D) Assam
E) Tripura
21) Which insurance provider has partnered with the SBM Bank for distribution of life insurance products?
A) Aviva
B) Apollo Munich
C) Religare
D) Nippon
E) Bharti AXA
22) Who among the following has gained $8 billion to become the world’s fourth-richest person after the shares of his company surged 11 per cent?
A) Steve Balmer
B) Larry Page
C) Elon Musk
D) Mark Zuckerberg
E) Bernaud Assault
23) Who among the following has been appointed as the Managing Director and Head of National Distribution of DBS Bank India?
A) RA Vishwakarma
B) Prashant Joshi
C) B Singh
D) SB Bharate
E) Surjit Manda
24) The Finance Ministry has announced plans to extend and modify the Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme (PCGS) 2.0. The scheme will be extended for ______ more months to build up the portfolio.
A) 7
B) 6
C) 5
D) 3
E) 4
25) Name the skilling portal which will soon be launched by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) to provide an opportunity to the workforce for skilling, upskilling and re-skilling.
A) Upskill and Upgrade
B) Lets upskill
C) Lets upgrade
D) I want to upgrade myself
E) I want to skill myself
26) Who among the following has been appointed as the Governor of Meghalaya?
A) Phagu Chauhan
B) Bhagat Singh Koshyari
C) Satya Pal Malik
D) BD Mishra
E) Baby Rani Maurya
27) The government of which country has launched a 3 million innovation challenge fund in India to tackle COVID-19 and threat to the environment?
A) US
B) Israel
C) South Korea
D) UK
E) Japan
Answers:
1) Answer: C
The Ministry of AYUSH launched a three-month campaign aimed at increasing awareness about affordable and easy practices that can be adopted for enhancing immunity and preventing any disease.
The campaign, called “Ayush for Immunity”, was launched through a webinar which saw the participation of more than 50,000 people.
The webinar was staged on Ayush Virtual Convention Centre (AVCC), the new digital communication platform of the ministry.
Personalities like spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and actor-model Milind Soman were also part of this event.
2) Answer: D
Discount broker 5paisa.com has launched a free app to help investors in the stock market understand about safe investment and successful wealth creation.
The app — 5paisa school– focuses on micro-learning and has many one-minute modules to meet expectations of young investors.
5paisa school has collaborated with industry experts for live webinars and host content created by influencers to help investors learn the advanced trading techniques.
The content is available in both video and textual formats to make the whole process of learning simple and enjoyable. 5paisa school also provides certification on course completion.
5paisa school is a collection of modules catering to the different aspects of the market.
3) Answer: E
Indian classical vocalist Pandit Jasraj passed away following a cardiac arrest.
Indian classical vocal music was a recipient of various prestigious awards and honours including Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.
In September last year, a minor planet, between Mars and Jupiter, was named after him. International Astronomical Union (IAU) named minor planet 2006 VP32 (number -300128), discovered on November 11, 2006, as ‘Pandit Jasraj’ which traverses the cosmos between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
4) Answer: B
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel announced to launch a special scheme under which school students will be able to learn in their respective localities in view of the suspension of classes due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The online education platform ‘Padhai Tu Har Duar’ scheme launched by the state government earlier during the lockdown yielded better results and around 22 lakh children are getting its benefit.
Besides, a Bluetooth-based programme ‘Bultu Ke Bol’ will be introduced for providing study materials to students in remote areas who do not have access to internet facilities.
‘Mukhyamantri Slum Swasthya Yojana’ will be launched in urban areas under which people will be provided health facilities at their doorstep through 70 mobile medical units in all the 14 municipal corporations.
Similarly, Radhabai Diagnostic Centre Scheme will also be introduced under which pathology and other testing facilities will be provided at concessional rates.
5) Answer: C
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a grant-financed $750,000 Knowledge and Support Technical Assistance project to help Armenia improve resilience to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and other disasters by developing and operationalizing a distance education platform.
The project will support the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport (MoESCS) to ensure quality and continuous education during times of emergency and normal situations.
The assistance will improve the regulatory and institutional framework supporting distance learning, as well as the capacity of users through a training of trainers scheme for effective operation of the distance education platform.
Under the program, a distance education platform will be developed to provide more learning modalities and information in a learner-friendly format.
The platform will support kindergarten through grade 12 education institutions to deliver online courses and provide teachers and students with real-time feedback mechanisms, assignment distribution and monitoring, and other student-centric learning tools.
6) Answer: D
Former CBI special director Rakesh Asthana appointed the Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF).
Asthana was moved out of the CBI in 2018 amid a spat between him and former CBI director Alok Verma that saw both of them trade corruption allegations.
V S K Kaumudi will be Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Home Ministry.
Asthana is at present working as the Director General of Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS).
7) Answer: E
The Indian Solar Alliance which India initiated with France in 2015 will hold the World Solar Technology Summit for the first time on September 8.
The World Solar Technology Summit is an attempt to bring together scientists, engineers and member states to sit down together and think about what the challenges are in realising the dream of making energy affordable and abundant.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ministers from ISA member countries, dignitaries and Nobel laureates are expected to participate in the virtual summit.
The International Solar Alliance is an alliance of sunshine rich countries set up by India and France on the sidelines of the Paris meeting on climate change in November 2015.
8) Answer: B
Bengaluru and the national capital New Delhi ranked 26th and 27th, respectively, globally in ‘Prime Global Cities Index Q2 2020′ , according to the Knight Frank report.
Mumbai is at 32nd position.
The Philippines capital Manila leads the index with prime home prices rising by 14.4 per cent over the 12 months to June 2020, followed by Japan’s Tokyo (8.60 per cent) and Sweden’s Stockholm (4.40 per cent).
Thailand’s capital Bangkok was the weakest-performing global city in the year to June 2020, with luxury home prices falling by 5.8 per cent.
9) Answer: C
Mukesh Ambani has dropped two positions to become the seventh-richest man in the world according to Forbes Real Time Billionaires List.
Ambani’s net worth is valued at $78.3 billion, while Elon Musk was sixth with a marginally high net worth of $78.6 billion. Warren Buffet climbed back the ranks and is currently the fifth-richest with a net worth of $79.5 billion.
Ambani is the only Asian tycoon in the elite list of the top 10 richest people in the world.
Jezz Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon continues to rule to top spot, with a net worth of $190 billion, while Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft ranked second with a net worth of $114 billion.
10) Answer: D
Lewis Hamilton claimed his 88th Formula One career victory and, with it, an outright record 156th podium finish in the Spanish Grand Prix.
It was the world championship leader and six-time champion’s fifth win in Spain and his fourth in consecutive years, extending his record run of finishes in the points to 39.
Hamilton had shared a record 155 podium finishes with Michael Schumacher whose other records for championships and wins are in the Briton’s sights this year.
11) Answer: B
India Post has released a set of five commemorative postage stamps and a miniature sheet on UNESCO World Heritage Sites in India on 15th August 2020 on the occasion of 74th Independence Day. This is the third part of the series .
The stamps depicts following five cultural sites of India-
Historic City of Ahmedabad
Churches and Convents of Goa
Group of Monuments at Pattadakal
Khajuraho Group of Monuments
Qutub Minar
12) Answer: E
Andhra Pradesh government has announced teaming up with the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) and Canara Bank to empower over 15,000 village and ward secretariats with digital payments in the rural areas.
The initiative, aimed at providing impetus to digital payments among last-mile customers towards financial inclusion was launched by the chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, introducing UPI QR code in 15,004 village and ward secretariats.
NPCI’s flagship product UPI allows users to transfer money on a real-time basis, across multiple bank accounts without revealing details of one’s bank account to the other party.
This first-of-its-kind initiative will not only reduce the time spent by villagers waiting in serpentine queues but also ensure secure, instant and contactless payments especially amid COVID-19 outbreak.
13) Answer: C
Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda inaugurated the e-portal on tribal health and nutrition named ‘Swasthya’. The portal provides all health and nutrition related information of the tribal population of India on a single platform.
Swasthya will also curate innovative practices, case studies, and best practices collected from different parts of India to facilitate the exchange of evidence, expertise and experiences.
Mr Munda stated, the launch of the portal is a first step towards the much bigger goal of serving the tribal population of the nation. He informed about the initiatives of the Ministry in partnership with Facebook through the Going Online as Leaders (GOAL) Programme.
Mr Munda stated, through the GOAL Programme, the Ministry aims to mentor five thousand tribal youth across India and enable them to become village-level digital young leaders for their communities.
14) Answer: D
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and UAE’s Minister of State for Financial Affairs Obaid Al Tayer have agreed to cooperate in the area of FinTech especially UPI and RuPay card, thereby integrating financial transactions between two economies.
“FM mentioned that with NIP (National Infrastructure Pipeline), there are greater avenues between India & UAE to collaborate in the field of infrastructure investment. The leaders agreed to cooperate in areas of FinTech, especially UPI & RuPay cards, thereby integrating financial transactions between two economies,” the Ministry of Finance tweeted.
Both the leaders also agreed to work together in aligning the interests of India and UAE in various international forums including G-20 and ITU (International Telecommunication Union), for achieving common goals.
15) Answer: E
Leading e-commerce player Flipkart has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Institute of Technology Patna (IIT Patna) to jointly create industry focused applied research in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML).
As a part of the MoU, IIT Patna will undertake a number of programmes like joint research activities, writing research papers, organising seminars, internship and mentorship opportunities.
The academic collaboration is expected to bring real-world industry exposure to students and scholars of IIT Patna and provide an opportunity for faculty members to work closely with Flipkart on research projects, stated the e-commerce marketplace in a statement.
The company works closely with academia through some of the leading institutes including Indian Institute of Science (IISC), IIT (Kharagpur, Bombay and Kanpur), IIM (Ahmedabad and Kolkata) and foreign universities like Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California at San Diego.
16) Answer: B
Karnataka has planned to implement all the provisions of the new National Education Policy by 2030. As part of this, the state has decided to launch six research oriented Universities, 10 teaching oriented Universities and 34 autonomous educational institutions in the next three years.
The decision was taken at a meeting held under Deputy Chief Minister Dr. C N Ashwathnarayan and Primary Education Minister Suresh Kumar in Bengaluru with academics.
The Government appointed Task Force, which is mandated with the advisory role to implement the new Education Policy, will be handing over a draft road map to the Government before 29th this month.
17) Answer: D
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari laid the foundation stones of Rs.3,000-crore highway projects in Manipur and stated the government will soon take up additional projects worth Rs.16,023 crore in the state.
Laying the foundation stone of the 13 highway projects and inaugurating a road safety project in a virtual ceremony, the road transport, highways and MSME minister promised to also expedite the ongoing Rs.2,250-crore highway works in the state and termed it as his “priority”.
The virtual ceremony was attended by Minister of State for the Development of North Eastern Region Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways V K Singh, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh and Manipur cabinet ministers, among others.
Projects worth Rs.16,023 crore will be awarded soon for highway works of 874.5 km. Projects worth Rs.2,250 crore are already underway in the state which will also be expedited, Gadkari stated.
He also stated a good beginning has been done and in the coming days, new projects will be taken up. These include a 106.5-km four-lane project between Kohima and Imphal at Rs.2,663 crore, a 220-km four-lane project on a stretch of NH-37 from Imphal to Jiraban at Rs.5,425 crore, and a 118-km two-lane project on NH-129A at Rs.1,765 crore.
18) Answer: E
Google in association with the Central Water Commission (CWC) has taken flood forecasting initiatives over the past several months, and sent numerous public alerts to people in impacted regions across the country.
These alerts provide timely, updated, and critical information that can help users make informed decisions on their safety, and that of their families and friends, Google stated.
Any user in the affected region having an Android smartphone with location services enabled will receive these alerts, it added.
Various parts of the country, including Assam and Bihar, are grappling with floods.
Users can also use Search to enter a query on a flood-affected area to see key information on the current situation in that region, it added.
If there is a current flooding situation in the area, the user will see a visual overview of key information, including the rise or fall in the water level in the next day with a description of the recent situation containing specific guidance.
19) Answer: C
The Chief Minister stated the Mission is a series of programmes to support farmers, entrepreneurs working in different fields and sectors. An amount of Rs 14,515 crore will be spent over the next three years for the Mission and out of the amount Rs 7,839 crore have been earmarked for this year, he added.
He further noted that the State government is promoting various other schemes and projects which include National Rural Livelihood Mission, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana besides others.
The Chief Minister stated that the State government is also leveraging on the Jal Jeevan Mission and targeting to provide functional household tap connections to 5,89,000 households in the State by 2022.
20) Answer: B
The first-ever Pallikkutam National Award for Innovation in Education, instituted by Rajagiri Media, has been won by St Christopher School, Chessore Village, Nagaland.
The silver award was won by DAV Public School, Haryana, and the bronze award by CMI Christ School, Iritty in Kerala.
The awards, carrying a cash prize of Rs.1,00,000, Rs.50,000 and Rs.25,000, respectively, are meant to honour education leadership by way of frugal and disruptive innovations that help them cross the Covid-19 induced academic lockdown. The awards are sponsored under the CSR initiative of Federal Bank.
The award winners were chosen by an expert jury set up by the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.
In all, 55 schools submitted entries in the form of a 1,000-word write-up and five-minute videos. The awards were announced through a Zoom meeting.
The award committee noted that Christopher School in Nagaland ensured smooth running of classes despite the limited infrastructure and resource constraints in a rural area.
21) Answer: E
SBM Bank to distribute Bharti AXA’s products in its branches
Bharti AXA Life Insurance has entered into a bancassurance partnership with SBM Bank India for distribution of life insurance products through the latter’s network.
Under this agreement, Bharti AXA Life Insurance will offer its entire suite of life insurance products, including protection, health, savings and investment plans, to the customers of SBM Private Wealth, the retail banking arm of SBM Bank India.
SBM Bank India, one of the youngest new age banks in the country, has presence in six cities and serves its customers through direct and collaborative networks. The collaboration would offer different life insurance products to SBM Bank’s customers in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ramachandrapuram.
22) Answer: C
Elon Musk’s financial upswing shows no signs of slowing. The outspoken entrepreneur is now the world’s fourth-richest person after Tesla Inc. shares surged 11 per cent, closing at a record high and boosting Musk’s net worth by $7.8 billion.
The rise vaulted the Tesla co-founder past French luxury tycoon Bernard Arnault, the wealthiest non-American on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk’s $84.8 billion fortune puts him within $15 billion of Mark Zuckerberg, No. 3 on the ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.
Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, is poised to potentially pad his fortune further. The company is close to finalising $2 billion in new funding that would increase its equity valuation to $46 billion, Bloomberg reported last week.
Musk’s fortune has grown by $57.2 billion this year, the second-biggest increase on the index after Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos’s. The world’s richest man has accumulated $73 billion in 2020 and is now worth $188 billion.
23) Answer: B
DBS Bank India announced the appointment of Prashant Joshi as Managing Director and Head of National Distribution.
He will report to Surojit Shome, Managing Director and CEO of DBS Bank India Limited.
Joshi was earlier Chief Operating Officer, IndoStar Capital Finance. He has nearly three decades of experience in the banking sector across consumer, SME and corporate banking with leading banks and financial institutions.
24) Answer: D
The Finance Ministry announced plans to extend and modify the Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme (PCGS) 2.0.
It has been decided to extend the scheme for three more months to build up the portfolio. At the end of six months(by November 19), the portfolio will be crystallised based on the actual amount disbursed for the guarantee to come into effect. At the portfolio level, ‘AA’ and ‘AA (-)’ rated investment sub-portfolio under the scheme should not exceed 50 per cent against 25 per cent earlier of the total portfolio of bonds/ CPs (commercial paper) purchased by Public Sector Banks under the scheme.
In May, Aatma Nirbhar Package revamped and extended the existing PCGS to cover the borrowings of lower-rated NBFCs, (non-banking finance companies) HFCs (housing finance companies) and other MFIs (micro finance institutions). Under the Rs.45,000-crore PCGS 2.0, the government will provide 20 per cent first loss sovereign guarantee to PSBs for the purchase of bonds or commercial papers with a rating of AA and below (including unrated paper) issued by NBFCs/HFCs or MFIs.
25) Answer: E
The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) will soon come up with a demand-driven skilling portal “I want to skill myself”. The portal will provide an opportunity to the workforce to demand the kind of skilling, upskilling and re-skilling they need for themselves.
The portal that is still in the testing stage will be launched in a month, official stated.
This comes after MSDE last month announced the launch of portal ‘Atma Nirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping’ (ASEEM) to help skilled people find sustainable livelihood opportunities.
ASEEM refers to all the data, trends that describe the workforce market and map demand of skilled workforce to supply.
The data further mentioned that the top five job giving sectors are logistics, tourism and hospitality, construction, IT-ITeS and telecom. The five major job demanding States are Karnataka, Maharashtra, Delhi, Telangana and Haryana.
Courier delivery executive, housekeeping attendant, customer care executive, warehouse associate and machine operator are the five most popular job roles.
26) Answer: C
The Governor of Goa, Satya Pal Malik has been transferred and appointed as Governor of Meghalaya. Rashtrapati Bhavan in a communique stated that Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari will discharge the functions of the Governor of Goa in addition to his own duties.
These appointments will take effect from the dates they assume charge of their offices.
27) Answer: D
The UK Government has launched a £3 million Innovation Challenge Fund to support scientists in academia and industry to tackle the most acute global challenges of our time – COVID-19 and the threat to our environment.
The Fund invites tech innovators with connections to the AI-Data cluster in Karnataka and the Future Mobility cluster in Maharashtra to submit research and development proposals for tackling Covid-19 or which promote a greener planet.
At least 12 grants up to £250,000 are expected to be awarded. Applicants are required to submit bids as an academia-industry consortium, ideally with an international member. The deadline for submitting two-page concept notes is 31 August and further details are available on the website,” it stated.
It may be recalled that in April 2018, the Indian and British Prime Ministers announced the formal creation of the UK-India Tech Partnership. The programme aims to bring together the best minds working in tech to unlock its future potential and deliver high-skilled jobs and economic growth in both countries. The key aim is to catalyse innovation and technology, which will address global challenges. This is part of the UK Industrial strategy.
