Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
Punjab National Bank has unveiled its new logo ahead of its merger with the United Bank of India and the Oriental Bank of Commerce.
The new logo bears the symbols of all the three public sector banks. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a notification that the merger of ten banks into four will be carried out as scheduled, on April 1, 2020. After the amalgamation process, PNB will become the second largest lender in India after the State Bank of India.

Notes:
Switzerland based Technology company Acronis recently unveiled the inaugural edition of ‘2020 World Cyber Protection Week Survey’.
As per the survey, 42% of companies experienced a data loss event that resulted in interruption last year. It also revealed that traditional strategies of data protection can no longer keep up with the modern technology needs of individuals and organizations.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Tourism has launched a new portal named ‘Stranded in India’, to assist the foreign tourists who are stranded in the country amid the prevailing lockdown.
The portal aims to extend support to tourists by circulating information about the services available for them in India. The portal comprises of information about the helpline numbers and call-centres, about the control centres of External affairs Ministry and regional support.

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:
The Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Philip Anderson recently passed away in the United States at the age of 96.
The physicist was known for making the science community understand about magnetism and superconductivity and for starting solid state physics as a field. He had been the inspiration for other Nobel-prize winning physicists including Brian Josephson (1973) and F. Duncan Haldane (2016).

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:
Tony Lewis devised the Duckworth-Lewis along with a mathematician Frank Duckworth, which is a mathematical formula used to determine the winner in cricket games that are affected by bad weather.
The method was introduced in 1997 and adopted by the International cricket council (ICC) in 1999. It was renamed as Duckworth-Lewis-Stern Method in 2014. Tony Lewis was a recipient of the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his outstanding work in the field of Mathematics and Cricket.

Notes:
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has notified three incentive schemes to boost electronics manufacturing namely Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI), Electronics Manufacturing Clusters 2.0 (EMC 2.0), Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronics Components and Semiconductors (SPECS).
The schemes which were cleared by the Cabinet last month, include incentives worth more than Rs 48,000 crore. PLI is the largest scheme with an outlay of Rs 40,000 crore which will give incentives of 4-6% on incremental sales on mobile phones and specified electronic components.

Notes:
The United Nations General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution on COVID-19 recently, which was titled ‘Global solidarity to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)’.
The resolution was co-sponsored by 188 member nations including India. The 193-member United Nations assembly has called for intensified international cooperation to fight the pandemic. This resolution, which was made under silent procedure, is the first such document on the global pandemic adopted by the UN.

Notes:
One of the leading aid agencies in the world, USAID of the United States government, has announced a grant of USD 2.9 million to India to help it tackle the effect of coronavirus pandemic.
This assistance was announced by the US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster. The aid agency will also support the World Health Organization (WHO) initiatives in India. The proposed funds will help the Indian Government of India in curbing the spread of COVID-19.