Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia was named as the World Book Capital for the year 2020 by UNESCO.
Every year, April 23 is celebrated as the World Book and Copyright Day across the world. UNESCO along with the international organizations associated with publishers, booksellers and libraries, select the World Book Capital for a year. This year, Kuala Lumpur has been named for 2020.

Notes:
China has named its Mars exploration mission, proposed to be launched this year as ‘Tianwen-1’. It named its first Mars mission on the occasion of the Space Day, which marked the 50th anniversary of the country’s first satellite Dong Fang Hong-1.
‘Tianwen’ in Chinese means Questions to Heaven, as per a Chinese poet Qu Yuan Aiming. India, U.S., Russia and the European Union have previously launched Mars mission. On the same lines, China’s mission aims to complete orbiting, landing and roving in a single mission.

Notes:
One of the largest Asset Management companies in India, the Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund has recently announced to have shut down six of its funds owing to market disruptions amid Covid-19.
The Association of National Exchange Members of India (ANMI) sought the intervention of the SEBI and Finance Ministry to protect investor capital in six mutual fund schemes. These funds collectively managed a corpus of over ₹25,000 crore.

Notes:
On April 24, 1990 NASA had launched Hubble Space Telescope, which is one of the longest-living observatories of the space agency.
Hubble is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space. NASA runs the observatory in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). The agency also announced that they will continue to operate Hubble as long it remains productive.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh has launched a new scheme called ‘Jeevan Shakti Yojana’, which aims to encourage urban women to make masks and provide them a financial assistance to sustain their livelihood.
The urban women of the state who are interested in joining this scheme will have to register themselves through the Call centres. Then, as per the orders they receive they can start making cotton masks and submit to nodal officers. A payment of Rs.11 per mask will be credited to their bank account.

Notes:
Veteran Congress leader and former Governor of Bihar and Tripura, Devanand Konwar passed away recently at the age of 86. He served as the governor of Bihar from 2009 to 2013 and the Governor of Tripura from 2013 to 2014.
He had also served as governor (additional charge) of West Bengal from 2009 to 2010. He was the Cabinet Minister in the state of Assam. Prior to that, he was an advocate in the Supreme Court of India and a Government Advocate for many North-Eastern states in the Guwahati High Court.

Notes:
India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced a ₹50,000-crore special liquidity facility for mutual funds.
The package has been released at the backdrop of the shutting down of six debt funds by the Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund. Banks can borrow the 90-day funds from RBI at the current repo rate of 4.4% and use it to exclusively on-lend to mutual funds. The banks can also purchase investment grade corporate papers held by Mutual Funds.

Notes:
A unit of the top IT firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), TCS iON, has recently launched a free online self-certification course for frontline health workers, named ‘Corona Warriors’.
The health workers who are dealing with COVID-19 patients will be offered profession-specific modules. The digital course is available in English and it is offered through TCS iON Digital Learning Hub. The software venture of TCS, Digitate has also announced a platform called ‘ignio Cognitive Procurement’ to assist enterprises in decision making of purchases.

Notes:
‘World Day for Safety and Health at Work’ is being celebrated on 28 April, every year since 2003, across the world.
This year the theme/campaign on this special day is ‘Stop the pandemic: Safety and health at work can save lives’. The aim of celebration of this day is to highlight the prevention of accidents and diseases at work. 28 April is also the ‘International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers’.

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.