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:
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has released an analysis report titled ‘The COVID-19 Shock to Developing Countries: Towards a ‘whatever it takes’ programme for the two-thirds of the world’s population being left behind’.
As per its analysis, the world economy will go into recession this year except India and China. The loss to be incurred is estimated to be several trillions of dollars due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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:
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 Indian state of Odisha was formed on 1st April 1936. Its statehood day is called as ‘Utkal Divas’, which is celebrated in the state and across the country.
On the memory of the formation of Odisha as a separate state from the earlier Bihar and Orissa province, the day has been celebrated. Due to the nation-wide lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, there were no prominent celebrations in the state.

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 current President of the United Nations Security Council is the Dominican Republic, which assumed rotating presidency of the council from China for the month of April.
As per the Ambassador of Dominican Republic, the 15-nation council is to meet for the first time before next week to discuss about the ongoing pandemic. The council has not held a meeting since the coronavirus pandemic hit the world and caused serious damages.

Notes:
An India-based non-profit organization ARMMAN has been awarded the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship 2020.
The NGO has been selected for its contribution towards the maternal and child health sector in India. Out of the five organisations which won this USD 1.5 million award, it is the only one selected from Asia and Africa. The NGO has been implementing mobile health programs in partnership with the Government of India.

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 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.