Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir, the astronauts of US- based National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Oleg Skripochka, the cosmonaut of Russian space agency Roscosmos, were seen in news recently, as they returned to earth from the International Space Station.
The space mission of Morgan began from July 20, 2019. He carried out experiments during his 272-day flight with a total of 4,352 Earth orbits. Meir and Skripochka were launched on the spacecraft in September 2019 and had spent 205 days in space. The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

Notes:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has recently announced that the two NASA astronauts will be sent to the space station on May 27,
The mission is set to be carried out aboard the Falcon 9 rocket of SpaceX, the US-based private space company owned by Elon Musk. After ending its 30-year space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has been relying on the Russian space agency Rocosmos for launching its astronauts to space station.

Notes:
The United Nation has six official languages namely Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. It celebrates special days for all the languages to celebrate multilingualism and promote the usage of all languages in the organisation.
Chinese was established as an official language of the UN in 1946. April 20 is celebrated as the Chinese Day. The date of the Chinese day is selected to honour and pay tribute to Cangjie, who is claimed to be the inventor of Chinese characters. The people of China celebrate the day of Guyu to commemorate Cangjei.

Notes:
The United Nations specialised agency with a mandate to protect the refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland.
It was seen in news recently, as the UNHCR has recently announced that protection of refugees and displaced women should be the first priority of the world, as they are facing a huge risk of gender-based violence, during the lock-down. UNHCR is providing emergency cash to survivors and women who are the risk of violence.

Notes:
The Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) has recently released information on the sales of the electric vehicles in the country in 2019-20.
As per SMEV, electric vehicles registered a 20 per cent increase in sales in 2019-20, when compared to the sales of previous year. The major portion of the sales is occupied by the low-speed scooters, which do not require registration with the transport authorities. About 97% of the electric two-wheelers sold was scooters.

Notes:
West Texas Intermediate (WTI), which is a particular grade of crude oil, is the underlying commodity of oil futures contract of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).
Brent Crude, Dubai Crude and WTI Crude are the three major benchmarks in the pricing of oils in the global market. It was recently seen in news, as for the first time in history, the price of the May futures contract of WTI crude fell to a negative price of -$37.63 per barrel. This was due to the low demand of oil amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Notes:
The Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank launched VidyaDaan 2.0 program virtually in New Delhi.
The scheme is aimed at inviting people and organisations to contribute resources for e-learning, for both school and higher education. During the prevailing Covid-19 crisis, there is a need to integrate the content of e-learning with schools. The content will be used on the DIKSHA learning application of the HRD Ministry.

Notes:
The state of Mizoram has launched a mobile application named ‘mCOVID19’, which enables easy transportation of essential goods by the truck drivers to the state from other states.
The new application will act as the online license or pass for the truck drivers. The drivers of the interstate-vehicles will be screened at the entry point. On registering with the application, they will be generated a license called mPASS. An sms with information about the goods and place, will be sent along with a mPASS id, which will be stored at the entry point.

Notes:
Kolkata-based veteran theatre personality and Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee, Usha Ganguly recently passed away in Kolkata, at the age of 75.
Usha Ganguly was the founder of the unique theatre group named ‘Rangakarmee’ in 1976. She was famous for introducing an alternative Hindi theatre form in West Bengal, where people were only acquainted to Bengali theatre and English theatre.

Notes:
English Language Day at the United Nations is celebrated annually on 23 April, the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare. English is one of the two working languages of the UN, while UN has six official languages.
Along with English language day, Spanish Language Day is also celebrated, to raise awareness about the history, culture and use of Spanish. April 23 is also the death anniversary of the Spanish legend Miguel de Cervantes.