Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
As per the recent notification of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the limit for investment of Foreign portfolio investors (FPI) in corporate bonds is hiked to 15% of outstanding stock for FY2020-21.
FPIs can invest Rs 3.17 lakh crore in Indian corporate bonds, at present. After this hike in limit, they can invest up to Rs 4.29 lakh crore of corporate bonds for the half year April to September 2020, and Rs 5.41 lakh crore for the half year October 2020 to March 2021. The revised limits for FPI investment in Central Government securities (G-secs) and State Development Loans (SDLs) will be notified separately.

Notes:
Domestic rating agency, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) recently announced that the Gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for the financial year 2020-21 is estimated at 3.6 per cent.
The agency had earlier estimated that India would grow at 5.5 per cent in 2020-21. The main reason for the big reduction in growth is said to be the Covid-19 outbreak and the resultant nation-wide lockdown imposed, which reduced all economic activities.

Notes:
The Government of India has recently launched a mobile application named ‘Aarogya Setu’, to enable people assess the risk of coronavirus infection.
The app is built in a public-private partnership mode and has been launched on both the Google Play Store and the Apple Store. The app assesses the risk of a person based on their interactions, by using Bluetooth technology and Artificial intelligence. The app will detect other devices with the same app installed near-by.

Notes:
The United Nation’s COP 26 climate change summit was scheduled to be held in the city of Glasgow in Scotland in November 2020.
Amid the world-wide Coronavirus pandemic, the Climate change summit has been postponed to 2021. The British government announced that the exact date of the rescheduled conference will be decided later. This decision has been taken by the COP Bureau of the UNFCCC along with the UK and Italy.

Notes:
The Union Agriculture Minister launched new features of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform amid the lockdown, which includes Warehouse based trading module in e-NAM software, FPO trading module in e-NAM where FPOs can trade their produce from the collection centre and enhanced version of logistic module.
e-NAM platform was launched in India on 14 April 2016 as a nation-wide electronic trade portal, which links APMCs across the state. 585 mandis in 16 States and 2 Union Territories have been integrated on e-NAM portal.

Notes:
The animal rights body PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) India has conferred the ‘Hero to Animals Award’ on the Chief Minister of Odisha, Naveen Patnaik.
The Chief Minister was selected for his empathetic act of allocating Rs 54 lakhs from relief fund, to feed public animals in the municipal corporations and all municipalities of Odisha during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Notes:
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has bagged the large order of the Indian Army to set up a unified network management system.
The communication business of L&T Construction has secured the order to manage and operate the armed forces network. The project is to be set up under the Network for Spectrum (NFS). The project is to be implemented in 18 months followed by three years of warranty and seven years of Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC).

Notes:
A Central government enterprise under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, HLL Lifecare Limited has developed a rapid antibody diagnostic kit for COVID-19.
The kit has been validated and approved by the NIV and the ICMR and will be marketed under the brand name of “MakeSure”. The result would be obtained from the patient sample in 15-20 minutes using the kit. About two lakh kits for supplying to various government units are to be manufactured within the next 10 days.

Notes:
The Tropical Cyclone named ‘Harold’ recently hit the South Pacific island nations including Vanuatu islands and Fuji. It started from the south-west Pacific nation Solomon Islands last week, where it claimed 27 lives.
Later, it hit the Vanuatu islands and caused damages especially in the main town Luganville. Though the cyclone was expected to only reach Category Three, it reached the Category Four in Fiji, where the winds are blowing up to 240 kilometres per hour.

Notes:
According to a recent report form International Labour Organisation (ILO) titled ‘ILO Monitor 2nd edition: COVID-19 and the world of work’, about 400 million workers of India will fall into poverty.
India has nearly 90 per cent of its people working in informal economy. It also revealed that the lockdown measures in India have impacted these workers significantly. The measures are at the high end of University of Oxford’s COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index.