24th August 2020 Current affairs

1. Rajiv Kumar was on August 21, 2020 appointed as the new Election Commissioner by President Ram Nath Kovind. The former finance secretary has been replaced Ashok Lavasa, who resigned earlier this week. 

2.Odisha has launched a new scheme to promote intensive aquaculture through bio-floc technology in fisheries. The Bio-floc based farming system is an advanced fish farming technology, which has been introduced in the State to provide livelihood support to young entrepreneurs and interested progressive fish farmers of the state. 

3.Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, Saudi Aramco has suspended a USD 10 billion worth deal to build a refining and petrochemicals complex in China. The deal was signed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was in Beijing in February 2019.

4.Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged the centre on August 23, 2020 to consider re-opening the Delhi Metro in a phased manner on a trial basis, as COVID-19 situation is under control in the national capital. 

5.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on August 21, 2020 that Turkey has discovered 320 billion cubic meters of natural gas, the biggest-ever natural gas reserve in the Black Sea. The announcement was made during a televised address at Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace. 

6.Assam government has launched India’s longest ropeway over Brahmaputra river on August 24, 2020. The ropeway will connect Guwahati to North Guwahati.

7.Delhi’s Labour and Employment Minister Gopal Rai has announced that the state government will organise camps to enable registration of construction workers for a period of 15-days starting from August 24, 2020 in all the 70 assembly constituencies of the state. 

8.Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic round-shaped spectacles were sold for Rs 2.55 cr at an auction in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2020. The gold-colored wire spectacles were left in an envelope in the East Bristol Auction house in England’s southwest by a man who claimed that his uncle had been given the glasses by Gandhi during the 1920s.