Top Best Current Affairs 22 August 2020 (2)

Air Unique-quality Monitoring(AUM), an indigenous photonic system for real-time remote monitoring of air quality parameters has been developed. It was developed by Prof. Rao Tatavarti, Director of Gayatri Vidya Parishad-Scientific and Industrial Research Centre (GVP-SIRC) & GVP College of Engineering, Visakhapatnam with the support from Department of Science and Technology's Clean Air Research Initiative. The system had CATS Eco-Systems, Nashik as the technology transfer partner for commercialization.

The World Mosquito Day is observed on 20th August every year to raise awareness about the Causes and Prevention of Malaria and to commemorate the discovery made by British Doctor Sir Ronald Ross in 1897 that female Anopheles mosquitoes transmit Malaria between humans.

On 19th August, 2020 National Seeds Corporation (NSC) and Jute Corporation of India (JCI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to improve the production and productivity of raw Jute in the country. The MoU was signed virtually in the presence of Union Minister for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar and Union Minister for Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani.

On 20th August 2020 India signed a cultural agreement with Israel, which outlines a three year programme of cooperation for 2020 to 2023, to strengthen the strategic bilateral relations through promoting the people to people exchange.

Iran(officially the Islamic Republic of Iran) has inaugurated a locally made surface-to-surface ballistic missile, called Martyr Qassem Soleimani, which has a range of 1,400 kilometers-km (870-mile) and a new cruise missile, called Martyr Abu Mahdi which has a range of over 1000 km(620-mile).

Lakshmi Vilas Bank(LVB) has launched 'LAKSHMI digiGO', a contactless digital initiative that will enable customers to open a savings account instantly. This initiative will help people to avail the most required banking services instantly through the website on account of COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched a wholly-owned subsidiary, NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL) to internationalize (or export to foreign markets ) NPCI's indigenously developed offerings and technological acumen, i.e. real-time payment system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and card payment network, RuPay along with a few more offerings of NPCI. It is also responsible to co-create payment technologies with other countries. NPCI has appointed Ritesh Shukla as Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of NIPL.

In a major boost for Make in India, the first ever Pinaka rockets fully manufactured by the private sector company "Economic Explosives Ltd (EEL)" have been successfully test fired by the army at a firing range in Pokhran, Rajasthan. Six Pinaka rockets were test fired as part of the final developmental trials and are the first munition of its kind made by the private sector in India.