Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
The 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act passed by the Parliament in April 24 1992 provided constitutional status to the Panchayati Raj Institutions of the country.
The status was given through inserting Article 243 to Part IX of the Indian Constitution. To commemorate the occasion, 24 April is celebrated as the Panchayati Raj Day, across the country. The act added certain provisions in constitution including forming Gram Sabha in a village or group of villages; constitution of Panchayats at village levels and direct elections to all seats in Panchayats.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh YS Jagan Mohan Reddy recently launched a scheme in Amaravati, which seeks to provide loans to the women Self Help Groups (SHGs) of the state, at zero percent interest.
The Chief Minister released about ₹1,400 crore for the scheme, which is expected to benefit nearly 8.78 lakh SHGs. The interest component of ₹20,000 to ₹40,000 will be borne by the state government. At present, the SHGs borrow from banks at interest rate of 7 to 13 per cent.

Notes:
According to the report titled “World Leaders on Facebook” released by global communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe), US President Donald Trump topped the rankings for the most interactions in his Facebook page over the past 12 months, with 309 million comments, likes and shares on his Facebook page.
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro with 205 million interactions, followed Trump. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most popular world leader on Facebook with 44.7 million likes on his page. 721 Facebook pages of the international heads were analysed using the CrowdTangle tool of Facebook.

Notes:
The World Immunization Week 2020 is being celebrated from April 24 to 30, this year by the World Health Organisation.
The day is celebrated with an aim to promote the use of vaccines for protecting people across the world from diseases. The theme of this year’s week is Vaccines Work for All. The theme highlights the importance of vaccines and the persons developing them. WHO also announced that about 20 million children in the world today remain unvaccinated.

Notes:
The World Intellectual Property Day 2020 is celebrated every year on April 26, across the world. The Geneva-based UN specialised agency, World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) leads the celebration.
This year, the theme of the World Intellectual Property Day 2020 is ‘Innovate for a Green Future’. While the WIPO could not organise any physical event amidst the Covid Pandemic, it highlights innovation and the IP rights as the main tools to create a green future. It encouraged its offices to celebrate the day through virtual channels.

Notes:
According to the recent annual report of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the United States continue to be the highest military spender in the world in 2019 with $732 bn.
This is the first time two Asian countries China and India occupied the top-three positions. The military expenditure of China reached $261 billion in 2019, which is a 5.1% increase from the previous year. India’s expenditure rose by 6.8% to reach 71.1 billion.

Notes:
Pitch Black is a biennial multilateral air combat training exercise hosted by the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).
The exercise was recently in news as Australia has informed India recently that the training exercise Pitch Black 2020, which was scheduled from July 27 to August 14 has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The next edition of the exercise is scheduled in the year 2022.

Notes:
The CRISIL rating agency has recently released a report, which slashed the GDP forecast of India to nearly half from its previous estimate to 1.8 per cent for 2020-21.
The agency also estimated that the total losses to be faced by the country would be Rs 10 lakh crore or Rs 7,000 per person due to the impact of the lockdown imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19. The agency also asked the government to increase the stimulus response and support.

Notes:
Bio-con Founder cum Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has recently been named in the ‘Medicine Maker Power List 2020’.
The list celebrates 60 leaders across the world, who had significantly contributed and innovated in the field of biopharmaceuticals. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has been ranked in the prestigious list for six years in a row, since 2015.Recently, she has received EY’s ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ award.

Notes:
The Ministry of Shipping in its recent statement has announced a compensation of Rs 50 lakh for people employed with major ports in the country.
Under the plan, direct employees as well as contractual labourers are covered. In case they lose their lives to Covid-19, the government will pay an ex-gratia compensation to the dependent members or legal heirs of the port employees. India has 12 major ports situated along the eastern and western coasts.