Daily Current Affairs : 7th and 8th Nov 2020 | Daily GK update Quiz

Exp. The World Travel Mart London bestowed Kerala Tourism with the coveted ‘Highly Commended’ Award. Kerala Tourism was recognised for its remarkable activities for promoting Responsible Tourism (RT) during the challenging times of COVID-19 pandemic. Kerala’s Responsible Tourism (RT) Mission received this recognition in the category of ‘Meaningful Connections.’

Exp. “Festival of Festivals”, the Hornbill Festival is celebrated every year from December 1 to 10, showcasing the rich cultural heritage and tradition of the Nagas in one platform at Naga Heritage Village Kisama under Kohima District.

Nagaland Tourism Department has informed that the state government decided to celebrate the Hornbill Festival 2020 in a complete virtual mode only through various audio visual media channels and Social Media platforms.

Exp. Democrat Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States, several news outlets projected on 7th Nov. Kamala Harris will be his vice president.

She is the first woman as well as the first person of colour in the post. A candidate needed 270 electoral votes to win. Biden won the elections with a total of 273 electoral votes.

Exp. Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has enhanced the investment limits for Mutual Fund companies for overseas investments. Mutual Funds can make overseas investments subject to a maximum of US $ 600 million per Mutual Fund, within the overall industry limit of US $ 7 billion. Earlier it was USD 300 million.

Mutual Funds can make investments in overseas Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) subject to a maximum of US $ 200 million per Mutual Fund, within the overall industry limit of US $ 1 billion. Earlier it was Rs 50 million.

Exp. Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) announced on 6th Nov that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign Public Investment Fund (PIF) is investing Rs 9,555 crore ($1.3 billion) to pick 2.04% stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), becoming the latest high-profile global fund to purchase stake in India’s largest retailer.

The Saudi company will take the number of international funds to plough capital into RRVL to nine and their cumulative foreign investment into the holding company of Reliance Retail to Rs 47,265 crore to collectively pick 10.5% stake in the retailer.

Exp. WhatsApp has partnered with five Indian banks to process its payment services. These are State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Jio Payments Bank.

The Facebook-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp Inc., has received the approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to launch its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) based payments services in India, to let users send or receive money across the country.

Exp. On November 6, 2020, Snam, an Italian energy infrastructure firm, signed an agreement with the Greenko, a renewable energy company in India, to develop the hydrogen value chain in the country.

According to the agreement, the two companies will collaborate on the study of hydrogen production methods from renewables.

Exp. India’s Vidisha Maitra was elected to the UN body – Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) with strong support of the member states.

India’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador T. S. Tirumurti expressed gratitude to the member states in reposing faith in India’s candidate. He added that India has a stellar record of bringing its professional auditing experience to the UN. He affirmed that India takes the responsibility very seriously.

Exp. The Earth Observation Satellite to be launched is a Radar Imaging Satellite. It is the third of the three-spacecraft constellation. The other two are RISAT-2B and RISAT-2BR1. These two satellites were launched in 2019. These three satellites in the constellation are to provide all weather round the clock service with high-resolution images.

Benefits: As the satellite uses radar imaging, it is unaffected by clouds, fog or lack of sunlight. All the three satellites, EOS-01 and RISAT-2B, RISAT-2BR1 use X-band radars to monitor urban landscape, forest land and imaging agricultural land.

Exp. National Cancer Awareness Day is celebrated in India on 7th Nov. The day is important, for it educates people about the serious threat that is cancer. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer is the second-deadliest disease which causes death among people.

Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan first announced National Cancer Awareness Day in September 2014. He launched the state-level movement on cancer control, and encouraged people to report to municipal clinics for free screening.

Exp. A military exercise involving special forces was carried out in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands between November 3 and 5 as the Army, Navy and Air Force got together for the war games amid the India-China standoff to test synergy in joint operations.

Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) conducted a joint services exercise code-named ‘Bull Strike’, involving the three Services components of Andaman and Nicobar Command.