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 state of Odisha has launched a portal for registration of migrant workers to contain the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, as over five lakh migrant workers are expected to return to the state after lifting the lock-down.
Forms are available in the portal covid19.odisha.gov.in and in every gram panchayat for registration of names and address of the workers who want to return to Odisha.

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 UN body for Trade and Development, UNCTAD recently released a report titled ‘From the Great Lockdown to the Great Meltdown’.
In the report, the agency highlights that the repayment of the developing countries towards their public debt will amount to between $2.6 trillion and $3.4 trillion in 2020 and 2021. It also proposed a global debt deal to prevent Covid-19 pandemic from aggravating economic disaster.

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 Prime Minister of India recently launched the SWAMITVA Scheme, on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj day. It was in news recently, as the Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Narendra Singh Tomar issued guidelines regarding the scheme.
SWAMITVA scheme aims to provide rural people with the right to document their residential properties by engaging the latest Drone surveying technology. It is currently being implemented in six states – Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Notes:
The Government Hospital of Ernakulam, Kerala has deployed a robot named ‘KARMI-Bot’, to serve food and medicines to coronavirus patients in the Covid-19 isolation wards.
The robot has been introduced to reduce risk of the doctors and health workers from being contracted to the coronavirus. Asimov Robotics, a start-up company working under the Kerala start-up mission, has developed the robot. It is also designed to collect trash, disinfect the room and enable video call between the doctor and patients.

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.