4th August 2020 Current Affairs in English

by

4th August 2020 Current Affairs in English

4th August 2020 Current Affairs in English – Today Current affairs PDF link available below.

Dear Aspirants, we (Vetripadi.com team) have come with Daily Current affairs analysis. It is prepared to crack the various competitive exams. We are here to make sure your preparation easy. We will update the current affairs every day. It will help for both preliminary and mains (facts oriented with background information) for your preparation. We need you support.

VETRIPADI Daily Newsletter

வெற்றிப்படி.காம் | வெற்றிக்கு நீ படி!!!

Daily Current affairs for Competitive

Exams ( UPSC, TNPSC, SSC)

4th August 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Space X with NASA crew is back home
  • Cut gratuity period to one year: panel
  • Palaniswami rejects three-language formula
  • Irish Nobel winner John Hume dead
  • Govt issues draft policy to ramp up Defence exports
  • Rakhis tied to trees in Aravalis
  • MGNREGS running out of funds
  • Mass production of vaccine in 2021: Russia
  • China suspended Hong Kong’s extradition treaty with New Zealand

  1. Space X with NASA crew is back home

Information in News:

  • Two NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken returned to Earth in their Space X Dragon capsule named Endeavour, less than a day after departing the International Space Station and two months after blasting off from Florida.
  • On Sunday in a dramatic, retro-style splashdown, their capsule parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida after 64 days in space, to finish an unprecedented test flight by Elon Musk’s Space X Company.
  • It was the first splashdown by U.S. astronauts in 45 years, with the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry people to and from orbit.
  • The return clears the way for another SpaceX crew launch as early as next month and possible tourist flights next year.

First Splashdown in 1975

  • The last time NASA astronauts returned from space to water was on July 24, 1975, in the Pacific, the scene of most splashdowns, to end a joint U.S.-Soviet mission known as Apollo-Soyuz.
  • The Mercury and Gemini crews in the early to mid-1960s parachuted into the Atlantic, while most of the later Apollo capsules hit the Pacific.
  • The lone Russian “splashdown” was in 1976 on a partially frozen lake amid a blizzard following an aborted mission; the harrowing recovery took hours.

2. Cut gratuity period to one year: panel

Information in News:

  • The Parliamentary Committee on Labour has recommended that the eligibility period for gratuity payable to an employee on termination of his employment should be reduced to one year from the present provision of five years.
  • The Committee made this recommendation in its report on Social Security Code, which has been evolved subsuming nine Central Labour laws.
  • The committee, which is headed by Biju Janta Dal MP Bharatruhari Mahtab.
  • This comes in the wake of extensive retrenchment in all sectors in COVID-19 pandemic-induced economic slowdown.

Reasons to cut Gratuity period

  • The nature of India’s Labour Market where most employees are employed for a short duration period only, making them ineligible for gratuity as per extant norms, the Committee desires that the time limit of five years as provided for in the Code for payment of gratuity be reduced to continuous service of one year,” the report says.
  • It has also recommended that this facility be extended to all kinds of employees, including contract labourers, seasonal workers, piece rate workers, fixed term employees and daily/monthly wage workers.

3. Palaniswami rejects three-language formula

Information in News:

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami categorically stated that the AIADMK government will “never allow the three-language policy [which has been proposed as part of the National Education Policy 2020], and will continue to implement the two-language policy” in the State.

  • “The NEP makes it clear that no language will be forced upon States and all languages will be promoted.”

Stands followed in past

  • Recalling the agitation against the imposition of Hindi in 1965, the CM underlined a resolution rejecting the three-language policy that was passed by the Madras Legislative Assembly on January 23, 1968, during C.N. Annadurai’s tenure as Chief Minister.
  • On November 13, 1986, when M.G. Ramachandran was the CM, a resolution in support of the two-language policy was passed in the Assembly.
  • Former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa too had maintained that Hindi should not be imposed on people in non-Hindi-speaking States, and any such effort would be defeated.

The people of Tamil Nadu have been firm in following the two-language policy for over 80 years, and have expressed their sentiments on the issue through protests at different points in time.

4. N. Irish Nobel winner John Hume dead

Information in News:

  • John Hume, the Northern Irish politician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for his pivotal role in ending decades of violence in the British province, has died aged 83, his family announced on Monday.
  • Hume, the former leader of the mainly Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), shared the Nobel with David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party after the pair helped forge the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
  • It helped to end three decades of bloody strife in Northern Ireland between the largely Catholic nationalist community who want to reunify with Ireland and Protestant unionists who want to remain part of Britain.
  • Hume had been suffering from dementia

5. Govt. issues draft policy to ramp up defence exports

Information in News:

  • With the aim of achieving a manufacturing turnover of $25 bn or Rs. 1,75,000 crore, including exports of $5 bn in aerospace and defence goods and services by 2025, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on Monday put out a draft ‘Defence Production & Export Promotion Policy (DPEPP) 2020’ for public feedback.
  • “The DPEPP 2020 is envisaged as overarching guiding document of MoD to provide a focused, structured and significant thrust to defence production capabilities of the country for self-reliance and exports,” the Ministry said in a statement.
  • Inputs and comments on the draft policy can be sent up to August 17.
  • “The share of domestic procurement in overall defence procurement is about 60%. In order to enhance procurement from domestic industry, it is incumbent that procurement is doubled from the current Rs. 70,000 crore to Rs. 1,40,000 crore by 2025,” the draft document states.
  • On increasing defence exports, the policy states that Defence Attachés have been mandated and are supported to promote export of indigenous defence equipment abroad.
  • This effort would be supplemented by selected Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSU), which would work as export promotion agencies for certain countries with earnings linked to success fee, to promote export of defence products abroad.
  • “Subject to strategic considerations, domestically manufactured defence products will be promoted through Government to Government agreements and Lines of Credit/Funding.”

6. Mass production of vaccine in 2021: Russia

Information in News:

  • It aims to launch mass production of a COVID-19 vaccine next month and turn out “several million” doses per month by next year.
  • The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which finances the trials, said he expects official registration of the vaccine to be complete “within ten days.” “If this happens in the next ten days, we will be ahead not just of the United States but other countries too, it will be the first registered corona virus vaccine.
    • Gamaleya’s vaccine is a so-called viral vector vaccine, meaning it employs another virus to carry the DNA encoding the needed immune response into cells.
    • Gamaleya’s vaccine is based on the adenovirus, a similar technology to the vaccine prototype developed by China’s CanSino, currently in the advanced stage of clinical trials.
  • Another vaccine, developed by Siberia-based Vektor lab, is currently undergoing clinical trials and two more will begin human testing within the next two months.

7. China suspended Hong Kong’s extradition treaty with New Zealand

Information in News:

  • China suspended Hong Kong’s extradition treaty with New Zealand on Monday amid a row with Western nations protesting against a tough new security law that Beijing imposed on the city.
  • New Zealand is the latest to join a string of Western powers — including Canada, Britain, Australia and Germany — that have suspended extradition treaties with Hong Kong since the controversial law was introduced in late June.
  • China has already hit back by suspending Hong Kong’s extradition treaties with Canada, Britain and Australia.
  • New Zealand’s practices… grossly interfere in China’s internal affairs, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, announcing Beijing’s decision to suspend any judicial cooperation with Wellington.
  • New Zealand has also tightened restrictions on military and dual-use exports to Hong Kong.
  • Its latest travel advice to Kiwi citizens in the territory said the security law had led to an increased risk of arrest for activities such as protests, with the possibility of being removed to mainland China to face a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
  • The United States has decided to rescind Hong Kong’s special trading privileges after the new law was enacted.