Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
Nagoba Jatara is a tribal festival celebrated by the Mesaram clan of Gond tribes in Keslapur village of Telangana. It is the second biggest tribal festival, which is celebrated for ten days.
The idol of their God Nagoba is worshipped by the people during the festival. Tribal people who belong to the Mesram clan and reside in other states such as Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh also come and offer prayers at the festival. The festival has concluded recently, the rituals of which was spread over a month.

Notes:
The National Statistical Office released revised estimates for economic growth of India for the last three years, on January 31,2020. As per the report, it fixed the actual GDP growth 2018-19 at 6.1%, against its previous estimate of 6.8%, estimated in May 2019.
The National Statistical Office also stated that the main reason for the downward revision in the GDP growth rate is deceleration in farming and mining activities in primary sector and manufacturing activities in secondary sector. It also marked the growth rate in 2017-18 as 7%. Recently, NSO estimated the growth rate in 2019-20 to be 5%.

Notes:
Technological major Google has recently launched a short-video making application called ‘Tangi’, which is similar to the popular application TikTok.
The application has been launched initially on the web and iOS platforms. Users have to post a short-video on a ‘Do-it-yourself’ (DIY) and creativity content using the application. The application for 60-second-videos has been designed by the incubator of Google called ‘Area 120’. The name of the application is inspired by ‘Teach and Give’ and ‘Tangible’ things. Communities centered around similar hobbies can also be formed.

Notes:
Indian Public sector bank, Bank of Baroda recently signed an MoU with Indian credit rating agency, Care Ratings. The pact aims to assess credit quality of the small and medium enterprises (SME) customers of the bank.
The rating agency is expected to evaluate the credit quality of the existing and potential SME customers of the bank. The creditworthiness of enterprises is provided on an eight-point scale by the ratings agency. This agreement will strengthen the process of loan-evaluation and help the SMEs in obtaining finance faster.

Notes:
In the recent Union Budget 2020-21, the government has estimated the fiscal deficit target for 2020-21 at 3.5 per cent of GDP (Budget Estimate).
The fiscal deficit target for 2019-20 was estimated at 3.3% earlier, which has also been revised to 3.8% of GDP, citing revenue shortage as the reason. Under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, the Section 4 (2) permits the government to relax its fiscal deficit target during time of unanticipated stress. This section has been used to increase the previous target to 3.8% in the revised estimates.

Notes:
Pakistan has recently witnessed its worst locust attack ever in decades and has declared national emergency for tackling their attack. The insects are reported to have destroyed crops on a large scale in Punjab, the main agricultural region of the country. The swarms of locust are currently found on the Pakistan-India border along Cholistan.
The decision to declare national emergency was taken at a meeting convened by Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. A National Action Plan (NAP) was also approved, which requires a sum of ₹7.3 billion to tackle the crisis. Somalia has also declared national emergency for the same reason, recently.

Notes:
Maldives officially re-joined the Commonwealth on February 1, 2020 and became the 54th member of the Commonwealth Union.
The President of Maldives, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had applied for re-joining the bloc in December 2018. The country has been admitted after the official assessment and consultations made by the organisation. The country is set be a part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda, to be held in June 2020. Maldives joined the Commonwealth in 1982 and withdrew its membership in the year 2016.

Notes:
The World Wetlands Day is observed annually on February 2 across the world. On 2 February 1971, the Convention on Wetlands was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar. From then, the day has been observed annually on the same date.
The theme of this year’s World Wetlands Day is “Wetlands and Biodiversity”. Recently, 10 more wetlands of India are included in the ‘Ramsar site’ list. With this, India has 37 Ramsar sites totally, which cover more than 1 million hectares of area in the country.

Notes:
The Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu recently inaugurated the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) project between the twin cities of Karnataka, Hubbali to Dharwad.
The project cost of Rs 970 crore is jointly funded by the state and central governments and the World Bank. The BRTS established between the cities on a trial basis already serves more than 1 lakh passengers per day. It has now become fully operational and is expected to be a major boost in the state’s public transport.

Notes:
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the third Defence Attaches conference at New Delhi. He also announced that India is set to have 10 more Defence Attaches in 10 different countries.
This creation of additional 10 defence wings will strengthen the defence diplomacy of the country and help in increasing exports in defence sector. Under the central government scheme of promoting defence exports, funds are allocated for export through Defence attaches to 34 countries.