Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
Veteran comic actor of Japan, Ken Shimura who tested positive for COVID-19 has recently passed away at the age of 70.
He has been in the entertainment media field since 1970. He joined the Japanese rock band and comedy group called ‘The Drifters’. He became very popular in the country, when he appeared in the group’s comedy show “Hachijidayo Zeninshugo!” (It’s 8 o’clock, assemble everyone!)

Notes:
The Department of Science and Technology has released Rs. 1 Crore to an incubatee firm called Science and Technology park also called as Scitech park.
The Pune-based Scitech park has developed a novel air-purifying technology, which is expected to be used during the ongoing response of the country against Covid-19. The production of the new purifier called ‘Scitech Airon’ is to be scaled up and 1000 units will be soon installed in hospitals.

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:
Veteran Indian historian Arjun Dev, who co-authored several popular NCERT books, recently passed away in Noida.
Mr. Arjun Dev served as a historian at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for many years. He wrote many famous NCERT books on Modern and Contemporary India and the World, along with his wife Indira Arjun. In the later part of his life, he was associated with the ‘Towards Freedom Project’ of the Indian Council of Historical Research.

Notes:
On April 1, the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Diplomatic relations between India and China was celebrated on April 1.
As per the release of the Union External Affairs Ministry, the Presidents, Prime Ministers and External Affairs Ministers of India and China exchanged messages of felicitation to mark the 70th anniversary. India was the first non-Communist country in Asia to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on April 1, 1950.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation has launched a new initiative called ‘Lifeline Udan’ under which flights are operated to transport essential medical supplies across the country amid coronavirus lockdown.
The air carriers which are involved in Lifeline Udan operations include Air India, Alliance Air, Indian Air Force and Pawan Hans. Cargo hubs have been established at Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Kolkata

Notes:
The government of India recently announced the establishment of “cargo air-bridge” between India and China.
This air bridge uses regular cargo flights for transporting critical medical supplies between the two countries. This initiative is operated by Air India from April 3. This is implemented under the ‘Lifeline Udan’ initiative of the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Notes:
The 2021 World Games which were initially scheduled to be held in the city of Birmingham in the state of Alabama in the United States have now been rescheduled to 2022.
This postponement has been announced to avoid clashing with the Tokyo Olympics, which were also rescheduled to 2021, against this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The World Games are held every four years and comprises of 32 sports that are not included in the Olympic program.

Notes:
Following the lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, the Fitch Ratings has slashed India’s growth forecast for the current fiscal to 2 per cent.
This GDP forecast is the lowest prediction in the last 30 years of the agency’s estimates. The Ratings agency had earlier predicted that Indian economy would grow at 5.1 per cent. The Fitch Ratings also announced that it also expects a global recession this year.

Notes:
The Hercules aircraft of Indian Air Force recently delivered about 6.2 tonnes of essential medicines to Maldives as assistance to tackle the consequences of COVID 19.
The medicines were procured from various cities to be delivered to the neighbouring country. India has earlier sent a medical team along with essential medicines to Maldives. As the island country is mostly dependent on imports from India, essential food grains and consumables were also supplied.