CURRENT AFFAIRS
22 August 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) EC issues guidelines for the conduct of polls amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the Bihar Assembly elections, the Election Commission on 21 August has approved the guidelines for polls during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic by allowing public meetings and roadshows subject to the restrictions of social distancing and some other safety norms. The guidelines of the Election Commission made it mandatory to wear masks and gloves by voters, protective gear for polling staff, and limiting the number of people allowed for campaigning to 5, including the candidate. Sanitizers would be kept at the entry and inside the booths as well. The electors who have tested positive for Covid-19 will cast their votes in the last hour of polling by following the preventive measures.
B) Nine dead in Telangana Srisailam power plant fire.
9 bodies have been recovered from the fire-ravaged 6×150 MW Srisailam Left Bank underground hydel station in Telangana. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) confirmed this news. They said that a 39-member Fire Rescue and Disaster Management team was rushed to the Srisailam Dam. As per the information reaching Hyderabad, a short-circuit in the terminal panel of the fourth unit of the hydel station on the night of 20 August is said to be the immediate cause of the accident. But the authorities said that they would arrive at a conclusion only after finding out what exactly had happened there.
C) COVID Watch: Numbers and Developments
The number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 29,64,587 with the death toll at 55,851. India on Friday reported 68,898 new cases. On 21 August, the Haryana government has announced that all offices and shops in the state, except those selling essential items, will remain closed every Saturday and Sunday. This decision is in view of the increasing coronavirus outbreak. Meanwhile the Assembly Speaker of Punjab, Rana Singh has said that it is mandatory for the ministers to have their latest corona negative reports in hand for attending the assembly session which will begin on 28 August.
D) Bloomsbury in controversy after inviting Kapil Mishra for Delhi Riots’ book inauguration.
Publisher Bloomsbury was stuck in a controversy after it emerged that he has invited BJP leader and former Delhi MLA Kapil Mishra to be the chief guest for the launch of a book on the riots that had occurred in north-east Delhi in February this year. Kapil Mishra has been blamed for allegedly inciting the riots through an inflammatory speech. The book, titled Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story, and published by Bloomsbury India, is written by Monika Arora, Sonali Chitalkar, and Prerna Malhotra.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Will be an ally of light, not darkness, says Biden as he accepts Presidency nomination.
Joe Biden who was a candidate for Democratic Presidential election said in a speech of his nomination acceptance that the country would overcome from this season of darkness. The current President of the USA has covered the whole of America in darkness for too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division. He further said that if the people will entrust him with the presidency, he will draw on the best of them and not the worst. He will become an ally of the light and not of the darkness. They will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, and fairness over privilege.
B) Our policies on hate speech are uniformly applied : Facebook
Asserting that Facebook has tolerated toxic content by Indian politicians and failed to enforce its policies fairly, the company’s employees have asked the top management to review the handling of hate speech in India, the Wall Street Journal has reported. In a letter sent by members of the firm’s internal group for Muslim employees, staffers from India, the U.S., and the Middle East said Facebook’s policy enforcement process for high profile users needed to be more transparent and less susceptible to political influence, the WSJ report said.
C) ‘Shipments to China driving export recovery’.
The improvement in the export numbers of India in the month of July was led by a 78% spike in shipments to China and other Asian countries. These destinations constitute 16% of the overall export basket. The contraction in export rate narrowed to -10.2% in July from -60.2% in April when India was under a strict lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A contraction in shipments rate has improved to 50% in May and 30% in June. While July shipments to China jumped a full 78%, the same to Malaysia jumped 76%, Vietnam (43%), and Singapore (37%). East Asian economies constitute 16% of the total export basket.
