Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

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:
As per the recent notification of the Reserve Bank of India, the Centre has extended the tenure of Reserve Bank Deputy Governor B P Kanungo by a year with effect from April 3, 2020.
Kanungo assumed charge as a Deputy Governor in 2017 and his term was to end at April 2. Now he has been re-appointed as the Deputy Governor for a period of 1 year. Other three Deputy Governors are N S Vishwanathan, M K Jain and Michael Debabrata Patra.

Notes:
Domestic payment company BharatPe has partnered with ICICI Lombard General Insurance to launch the country’s first coronavirus insurance cover for merchants.
The insurance policy which can be purchased from the BharatPe mobile application aims to cover about 40 lakh shop-keepers, who are more prone to the coronavirus infection amid the lock-down. The health cover pays out 100% of the sum insured if they are tested positive for the pandemic for a premium of ₹199 for a ₹25,000 cover for one year.

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 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:
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 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:
In the last financial year 2019-20, Tamil Nadu has topped the micro-irrigation coverage in the financial year 2019-20.
This has been achieved as part of implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY). While Tamil Nadu has topped the coverage in the year 2019-20, in the cumulative total coverage under the PMKSY during 2015-2020, Tamil Nadu is in the fourth place, where the list is topped by Karnataka.

Notes:
The former Prime Minister of Libya, Mahmoud Jibril passed away recently at the age of 68, after contracting coronavirus.
He was the founder of the National Forces Alliance and the former head of the Libyan rebel government that overthrew the country’s long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. He had also been the interim leader until Libya conducted its first free elections in 2012.

Notes:
Facebook-owned Instant messaging platform WhatsApp recently announced that it has limited the sharing of frequently forwarded messages to only one chat at a time.
This step has been taken to curb spreading of misinformation and fake news amid the coronavirus pandemic. WhatsApp also launched the WHO Coronavirus Health Alert service for people across the world and MyGov Corona Helpdesk in India in partnership with the Indian government.