28th August 2020 Current affairs

1. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stepped down from his position due to his worsening health condition. The long-serving Prime Minister of Japan did not name a successor. 

2. Rafale fighter jets will be formally inducted into the Indian Air Force by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on September 10, 2020 at the Ambala airbase in Haryana. French Defence Minister Florence Parly will be invited for the induction ceremony. 

3. President of India Ram Nath Kovind will confer the National Sports Awards 2020 through a virtual mode for the first-ever time on August 29, 2020. The President will be attending the awards ceremony through the NIC link from the President’s house, while all the award recipients will be attending the ceremony from various SAI and NIC centres across the country.

4. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana completed six years on August 28, 2020. The scheme was launched with an ambitious aim of banking the unbanked. The key features of the scheme included the opening of basic saving bank deposit account with relaxed KYC, zero balance and zero charges and the issuance of debit cards.

5. The Arunachal Pradesh state assembly has passed a resolution to bring the state under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. The resolution also amends Article 371(H) by including provisions to safeguard the tribes of the state. 

6. Ukraine has frozen contact with Belarus and joined the European Union in condemning that the recent elections conducted in the nation were not free or fair. Ukraine had so far been guarded while commenting on the political turmoil engulfing Belarus since August 9 Presidential Elections, which saw the re-election of incumbent leader Alexander Lukashenko.

7. The Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on August 27, 2020, attended the virtual meeting of ASEAN-India Business Council Meet. In his address, he mentioned that the India-ASEAN trade can reach $300 billion by improving relations.

8. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) launched a new forum on Artificial Intelligence which will be chaired by the Managing Director IBM India and South Asia, Sandip Patel.