Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
April 18 is observed as World Heritage Day every year, to promote cultural heritage across the world. The celebrations are led by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
The proposal of the ICOMOS to celebrate April 18 as Heritage Day had been accepted by the UNESCO in 1983. The theme of this year’s observance is ‘Shared Cultures, Shared Heritage, Shared Responsibility’.

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 Scientists at the Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST), Mohali, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, have recently discovered that fish gills can be used to develop efficient electro-catalyst used in building energy conversion devices.
The devices thus developed are claimed to be more affordable and environment friendly. It is also expected to work better than the commercial Platinum on carbon (Pt/C) catalyst. The study has been published in the American Chemical Society’s ‘Inorganic Chemistry’ journal.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India has stipulated all its regulated entities to carry out periodical risk assessment exercise of money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF).
This notification has been included in the central bank’s Master Directions on Know your Customer (KYC). The regulated entities of RBI include banks, NBFCs, All India Financial institutions and payment system providers. The vulnerabilities should be assessed as per the directions of RBI.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India recently notified that it has decided to revise Ways and Means Advances (WMA) for the period of April 2020 to September 2020, to Rs 2 lakh crore. The limit has been extended from the previous limit of Rs. 1.2 lakh crore.
Ways and Means advances, WMA is a mechanism by which state governments receive short-term funding from the Reserve Bank of India, which is to be repaid in 3 months. The funds are used for balancing temporary mismatches and are usually granted at the repo rate.

Notes:
As per the recent statement of the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in India, the country has asked India to revise the recent amendments in the Foreign Direct Investment policy.
Recently, India amended its FDI policy and mandated all countries sharing land borders with India to invest only under Government route. China said that India should promote a fair and equitable trade environment and this restriction violates the norms of World Trade Organisation.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren has launched a mobile application named Jharkhand Bazar, which aims to deliver essential commodities to the people of the state amidst the lock-down and control the spread of Covid-19 outbreak.
The application has been developed by the Department of Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs of the state. The state had earlier launched ‘Jharkhand Sahayta App’ to assist migrant workers in receiving the financial assistance of Rs.1000 and Rs.2000. It has been used by more than 2 lakh workers, as per the state.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India recently directed all banks to extend the benefit of interest subvention and prompt repayment incentive to short term crop loans, to the accounts which have become due or will become due between March and May 2020.
The government offers an interest subvention of two percent per annum to banks and an additional 3 per cent interest subvention to farmers who pay their loans promptly. Hence the effective rate of interest is 4 per cent.

Notes:
The UN General Assembly resolution adopted a resolution, drafted by Mexico, on fair, transparent and equitable access to essential medical supplies and any future vaccines developed to fight COVID-19.
India along with another 174 countries co-sponsored the resolution, among the 193 members of the assembly. The resolution was titled ‘International cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to face COVID-19’.

Notes:
World Champion and ace Tennis star of India P V Sindhu has been named as one of the ambassadors for Badminton World Federation (BWF)’s ‘i am badminton’ awareness campaign.
The campaign is aimed at highlighting the efforts of the Federation towards honesty in the game. The Badminton World Federation formed Integrity Unit five years ago. Several other shuttlers of Canada, China, England and Germany were also named along with Sindhu