Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act was making news recently, as the Supreme Court of India held that the quantity of the banned drug mixture will determine the punishment than its purity. Under the current provisions, higher punishment is awarded for possessing commercial quantity of the banned drugs than smaller quantity. The Act comes under the Finance Ministry.
A three-judge bench of Justices said that the 2008 verdict was not a good legislation which held that the actual weight of the banned substances to determine whether it is a small or commercial quantity under the NDPS act.

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.

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:
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:
International Delegate’s Day has been celebrated on April 25 for the first time in the year 2020. It marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the San Francisco Conference, a historic event which laid the foundations of the United Nations. It is also known as the United Nations Conference on International Organization.
The day is observed to raise awareness of the role of the representatives and delegates of the United Nations’ Member States.

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:
As per the latest data from the US Treasury Department, Japan was the largest holder of US securities worth over $1.268 trillion at February end.
It was followed by China with securities worth 1.092 trillion. India is at the 13th position in terms of holding securities. India’s holding of US government securities rose by 13 billion in a month to record high of 177.5 billion at February end. The overall holding of India increased by 33.2 billion in the last year.

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:
‘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 Union Ministry of Finance has established the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), which will be headquartered in Gandhinagar in Gujarat.
This body will regulate all financial products and financial services in International Financial Services Centres (IFSCs) in the country against multiple regulators including RBI, SEBI, IRDA and PFRDA. The IFSCA will have a chairperson and one member each nominated by the regulators. It will also include two members from the central government and full-time or part-time members.