Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
The Democratic party of the United States has selected former Vice President Joe Biden as the nominee for the American Presidential Election.
Earlier, US Senator Bernie Sanders announced that he is not participating in the upcoming elections, which are due in November. Hence Joe Biden became the official Democratic nominee for the election to take on the incumbent US President Donald Trump.

Notes:
Representatives of SAARC had a discussion on the impact of Covid-19 situation on intra-regional trade through video-conferencing.
The senior trade officials of all SAARC countries except Pakistan, also discussed the impact of travel restrictions. This is the follow-up of the first virtual meeting held on March 15. The eight member countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Notes:
England all-rounder Ben Stokes has been recently named the ‘Leading Cricketer in the World’ in the 2020 edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. He becomes the first English cricketer to win the award since 2005 after Andrew Flintoff.
Ben Stokes replaced the Indian skipper Virat Kohli who had won the award three straight times till last year’s edition. Australian all-rounder Ellyse Perry won the leading woman player in the world award. England’s Jofra Archer, South Africa’s Simon Harmer, Australians Pat Cummins, Marnus Labuschagne and Ellyse Perry were named as the five Wisden Cricketers of the year.

Notes:
According to a recent online survey conducted by the technology community website owned by Times Internet-TechGig, most IT professionals prefer Bengaluru as the best city to work for.
Bengaluru has been voted by over 40 per cent of the professionals, mainly for the high living standards, highest appraisal and career growth opportunities it provide. While Hyderabad and Pune secured the second and third spots respectively, Delhi-NCR secured the least votes among the chart.

Notes:
According to a recent report released by the government, India’s fiscal deficit stood at 5.07% of gross domestic product (GDP) in February. Industrial output, measured in terms of Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was also at 4.5% in February.
The Government has revised its fiscal deficit target of 3.8% of GDP for FY20, during the 2020 Union Budget presentation. With a 5.07% fiscal deficit, it is expected that the revised target for the year 2019-20 would be difficult to be achieved.

Notes:
The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India (PFRDA) recently announced that the National Pension System (NPS) subscribers will be allowed partial withdrawal for covering expenses related to COVID-19 treatment.
It also announced that COVID-19 would be declared as a critical illness which is life threatening in nature. PFRDA also announced that there is no provision for partial withdrawal for Atal Pension Yojana (APY) customers at present. Both NPS and APY are managed and run by PFRDA.

Notes:
E-commerce marketplace Flipkart has launched an exclusive insurance policy to cover COVID-19, in association with ICICI Lombard and Go Digit General Insurance. The two health insurance policies, which provide instant claim benefits, do not require any medical tests at the time of purchase.
The COVID-19 Protection Cover by ICICI Lombard provides ₹25,000 benefit, on positive diagnosis of COVID-19, at an annual premium of ₹159. The cover by Digit Insurance provides hospitalization cover up to a sum assured of ₹1 lakh with an annual premium of ₹511.

Notes:
India’s leading Private sector lender Karnataka Bank announced that it has received approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for reappointment of Mahabaleshwara M S as its MD and CEO for next three years, with effect from April 15.
The Reserve Bank has also approved the reappointment of P Jayarama Bhat as Non-executive Chairman up to November 13, 2021.

Notes:
Technology giants Apple and Google recently announced a joint initiative to develop a technology solution for Contact Tracing activity, which will help the governments and health agencies to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The system which will use the Bluetooth technology, will identify people who are in contact with an infected person and provide alert message to the user. The companies also clarified that the system will be developed without compromising the privacy of the user.

Notes:
Google has recently announced that it has launched a Braille keyboard named ‘TalkBack’, for assisting the visually challenged users.
This new type of keyboard is integrated directly into its Android operating system and the visually challenged users can use the keyboard easily without having to install any extra hardware. The keyboard uses a six-key layout, wherein each key represents one among the six Braille dots.