Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

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 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:
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has registered its first overseas case and has started investigation into the terrorist attack on a gurdwara at Kabul, Afghanistan.
On March 25, 2020, some gunmen entered a gurdwara in Kabul and fired, which killed 27 devotees and injured several others. The recent amendments in NIA Act have permitted NIA to investigate cases against the Indian citizens or affecting the interest of India, which are committed at places outside India.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India recently released some measures to deal with the consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. As per the new export norms, the exporters can take 15 months to realise their export proceeds, for exports made up to July 31 against the earlier 9 months.
RBI also increased the Ways and Means Advances limit for state governments and UTs by 30 % till September 30. It also said that the banks are not required to activate counter-cyclical capital buffers for one more year.

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 official mascots of the 2022 Asian Games were released at a digital launch ceremony in China recently.
Congcong, Lianlian and Chenchen are named as the mascots of the 19th Asian Games, which is scheduled to be held at Hangzhou, China. Three robots nicknamed as ‘Smart Triplets’, representing the mascots were unveiled, to highlight the expertise of the city.

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:
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.

Notes:
As per the recent announcement of the Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, more than 50 crore vulnerable citizens will be eligible for free COVID-19 testing and treatment under Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana- PMJAY.
The Minister also appealed to the private labs and hospitals to come forward and become a part of this initiative. Hospitals empanelled under the AB-PMJAY scheme can use their authorised testing facilities or tie up with an authorised testing facility to provide this service.

Notes:
A four-year-old female tiger named Nadia from the Bronx Zoo in New York City, has been tested positive for the coronavirus.
This is claimed to be the first known case where transmission of the coronavirus from human to an animal has been confirmed. The tiger is believed to have been infected by an asymptomatic zoo-keeper. Later, six other animals, including lions and tigers, have also been showing symptoms.