Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
NASA has recently selected a new space capsule from Elon Musk-owned SpaceX to ferry cargo and supplies to be used in its proposed lunar space station.
The Lunar space station aims to build a permanent post on the moon and mount future missions to Mars. SpaceX will get a portion of a $7 billion NASA contract to send ‘Dragon-XL’ spacecraft by using its Falcon Heavy rocket.

Notes:
As per the recent notification from the country’s largest lender State Bank of India said Insurance Australia General (IAG) of Australia has exited from SBI General Insurance.
IAG sold its entire 26 per cent stake in the SBI General insurance, for USD 310 million (about Rs 2,325 crore) to Napean Opportunities and WP Honey Wheat Investment Ltd, which are subsidiaries of Premji Invest and Warburg Pincus group respectively. SBI owns 70 per cent stake in its insurance arm.

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:
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:
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:
Every year, the 2nd day of April has been observed as the World Autism Awareness Day, across the world.
According to the United Nations, the theme of the 2020 World Autism Awareness Day is “The Transition to Adulthood”. The UN Secretary General António Guterres announced that the rights of persons with autism must be taken into account in all responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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:
Technological major Google has recently shut down its neighbourhood community app called Neighbourly, which will be completely closed on May 12, 2020.
The application which was launched two years ago, hasn’t gained much userbase as expected and hence it has been shut down. The users will be able to download the content of the application until October 12 of this year.

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:
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.