Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
NASA has recently selected a new space capsule from Elon Musk-owned SpaceX to ferry cargo and supplies to be used in its proposed lunar space station.
The Lunar space station aims to build a permanent post on the moon and mount future missions to Mars. SpaceX will get a portion of a $7 billion NASA contract to send ‘Dragon-XL’ spacecraft by using its Falcon Heavy rocket.

Notes:
As per the recent report of S&P Global Ratings, the GDP growth of India in the financial year 2020-21 is slashed to 3.5% from its earlier forecast of 5.2%.
The main reason for the decrease is said to be the huge dip in output from the covid-19 outbreak for the Asia-Pacific region. It had also forecasted the Asia-Pacific economy will grow at 2.2% in 2020. Earlier Moody’s Investors Service slashed India’s economic growth projection for 2020 to 2.5%.

Notes:
Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan recently announced that Saudi Arabia has assured India of uninterrupted supply of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).
The Minister announced this after his discussions with Saudi Minister of Energy, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. As the cooking gas demand surged due to the nation-wide lockdown, Saudi Arabia has assured of LPG supplies to support the domestic requirement in the upcoming days.

Notes:
As per the recent notification from the country’s largest lender State Bank of India said Insurance Australia General (IAG) of Australia has exited from SBI General Insurance.
IAG sold its entire 26 per cent stake in the SBI General insurance, for USD 310 million (about Rs 2,325 crore) to Napean Opportunities and WP Honey Wheat Investment Ltd, which are subsidiaries of Premji Invest and Warburg Pincus group respectively. SBI owns 70 per cent stake in its insurance arm.

Notes:
India’s leading private lender ICICI Bank recently announced the launch of banking services on WhatsApp amid the nation-wide lockdown resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
The customers have to save ICICI Bank’s verified WhatsApp profile number in their contact. Using the WhatsApp banking services, the customers are provided with several banking services including checking their savings account balance, last transactions, credit card limit and blocking/unblocking credit and debit card.

Notes:
From April 1, 2020, several changes are coming into force in the direct tax regime of India, with the changes in provision of Finance Act.
The prime change is with respect to the Non-Resident Indians. The NRIs with over ₹15 lakh income from Indian sources will be deemed as Indian residents for the purpose of taxation, if they had spent 120 days in India in the previous year. Earlier the number of days needed to be spent was 182.

Notes:
As per the new gazette notification under the J&K Civil Services (Decentralization and Recruitment) Act, a person who has resided in Jammu and Kashmir for at least 15 years will be eligible to be a domicile of the Union Territory.
The person who has studied for a period of seven years and appeared in class 10 or 12 examination in an educational institution based in the Union Territory will also be eligible to be a domicile.

Notes:
An online hackathon to find working solutions for overcoming COVID-19 pandemic, called ‘Hack the Crisis- India’ has been recently launched.
This hackathon is being organised by ‘Hack A Cause – India’ and ‘FICCI Ladies Organization Pune’. It is supported by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Minister of State of HRD and IT Sanjay Dhotre who launched the hackathon said that over 2,000 teams and 15,000 participants will be participating in 48-hour hackathon.

Notes:
An India-based non-profit organization ARMMAN has been awarded the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship 2020.
The NGO has been selected for its contribution towards the maternal and child health sector in India. Out of the five organisations which won this USD 1.5 million award, it is the only one selected from Asia and Africa. The NGO has been implementing mobile health programs in partnership with the Government of India.

Notes:
One of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) laboratories Vehicle Research Development Establishment (VRDE), Ahmednagar has designed a full body disinfection chamber called as Personnel Sanitisation Enclosure (PSE).
This enclosure is a walk-through set-up, which is designed for personnel sanitization. The portable system which sanitises one person at a time, is equipped with sanitiser and soap dispenser. An electrically operated pump creates a disinfectant mist of hypo sodium chloride for 25 seconds.