Top Best Current Affairs 19 July 2020 (2)

Union HRD (Human Resource Development) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Minister of State (MoS) for HRD Sanjay Dhotre have jointly launched the first online National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA) programme for 1,200 key resources persons (KRPs) of Andhra Pradesh (AP), virtually from New Delhi.

Union Minister for Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal addressed the opening session of two day long Digital Indo- Italian Business Mission on Food Processing held virtually. This webinar consisted of digital conferences; trade fair, and B2B (business to business) meetings where 23 Italian companies virtually exhibited their products and services for end users and other industry players in India.

Day of International Criminal Justice is annually observed on 17th July to recognise the importance of the international criminal justice system in prevailing the justice for the victims of the crimes, wars and genocide and to promote their rights.

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only impacted the routine life but it also made the virtual world vulnerable to cyber threats as there was a rapid increase in digitization during the last 5 months of global lockdown. In order to deal with this situation, on July 16, 2020, India and Israel have signed an agreement to further expand their collaboration in dealing with cyber threats. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a unit of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, and Israel's National Cyber Directorate (INCD).

Indian Institute of Technology Madras(IIT-M)-incubated start-up, Modulus Housing has developed a portable hospital unit, 'MediCAB', a decentralized approach to detect, screen, identify, isolate and treat COVID-19 patients. It can be installed anywhere within 2 hours by four people.

Union Minister of State for Shipping (I/C) Mansukh Mandaviya flagged off the first trial container ship from Kolkata (West Bengal) to Agartala (Tripura) through Chattogram Port of Bangladesh in a virtual ceremony. This will not only provide an alternative and shorter route for India to connect it's North East Region (NER) through Bangladesh but will also further boost India-Bangladesh maritime relations.

Ali Bongo Ondimba, President of Gabon appointed Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda(56), as the First Women Prime Minister of Gabon succeeding Julien Nkoghe Bekale, On 16 July 2020. She is the sixth Prime Minister under Bongo's Presidency since 2009.

L&T Technology Services(LTTS), the engineering services arm of Larsen and Toubro Group, informed that it will acquire a 100 % stake in Texas-based Orchestra Technology(Tech). The acquisition is an all cash deal of USD 25 million, or about Rs 187 crores.