Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
Ace Indian weight-lifter, Mirabai Chanu set a new national record in the National Weightlifting Championships in Kolkata, by improving her previous record. The former world champion and common wealth gold medallist belongs to the state of Manipur.
Mirabai lifted a total of 203kg to win the 49kg gold, which was better than her previous best- 201 kg, which she had achieved at the World Championships at Thailand, in September last year. The 25-year-old weight-lifter was placed fourth in the world rankings. Jeremy Lalrinnunga, another top weight-lifter from India won the men’s 67kg title in the Championship.

Notes:
Indian Oil and Gas company, the Indian Oil Corporation recently signed an MoU with Russian energy firm, Rosneft for importing Crude Oil from Russia.
The crude oil purchase agreement was signed during a meeting between Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan and the Chairman and CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin. Under the agreement, Russia would export 2 million tonnes of crude oil to India this year. Rosneft bought Essar Oil in 2017, which is now Nayara Energy and holds 49 per cent stake in the firm.

Notes:
The Prince of Britain, Charles has recently unveiled a new children’s protection fund for India. This fund is a part of the charity founded by him in 2007, the British Asian Trust. The trust was founded to fight poverty in South Asia.
Noted American singer Katy Perry was named as the ambassador of the new fund. The Protection fund will focus on reducing the exploitation of children by 50 per cent in India over 10 years. The Children’s Protection Fund will primarily cover child sexual abuse, child labour and trafficking. School safety nets are also proposed to be aet up through child-friendly village models.

Notes:
The United States recently launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance, which is aimed at protecting and preserving religious freedom across the world.
The U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the formal launch of the alliance. As many as 27 countries have joined the alliance and the prominent countries among them are Australia, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Greece. He also announced that the next ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom will be hosted by Poland in Warsaw, in July 2020.

Notes:
The Pink City of India, Jaipur was formally certified as a World Heritage site by the Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay. The World Heritage City certificate was presented at a ceremony held at the historic Albert Hall of Jaipur.
It was also announced that UNESCO would collaborate with the Tourism department of Rajasthan Government to promote tourism sector in Western Rajasthan. The walled city of Jaipur was named as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July 2019, at the 43rd Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan.

Notes:
Indian President Ramnath Govind recently conferred the International Gandhi Awards for Leprosy on Dr N.S. Dharmashaktu under the Indian nomination (individual) category. Dr N.S. Dharmashaktu was the former Principal adviser (Public health), Ministry of Health and family welfare.
The Leprosy Mission Trust was presented the award under the institutional category. The President also announced that India has accomplished the level of leprosy elimination which is defined as less than one case per ten thousand population.

Notes:
The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 was legislated to protect the scheduled communities from harassments and atrocities.
In March 2018, the Supreme court gave a judgement diluting the original act and it even granted anticipatory bail for those booked in the atrocity case. After huge protest, the government amended the original act and passed the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018. This amendment has been upheld by the apex court.

Notes:
European countries witnessed a devastating storm named ‘Ciara’, which caused huge damage and killed as many as six people. The hurricane-force winds and heavy rains damaged several thousand buildings in the region.
The storm moved on near Germany, after hitting Britain and Ireland. It was called as ‘Ciara’ by the Irish weather service and dubbed as ‘Sabine’ in Germany. Flood warnings are given and flight operations are suspended in the countries.

Notes:
Jiri Vesely of Czech Republic clinched the Tata Open Maharashtra 2020, held recently in Pune. He won the title after five years of his maiden ATP Tour title in Auckland.
He also become only the eighth player since 2013 to save six match points across two matches in a row, towards winning the ATP Tour crown. The tournament had been previously conducted at Chennai.

Notes:
State Bank of India (SBI) recently partnered with the mobile phone manufacturer Realme, to offer credit facilities. The partnership is made under the bank’s electronic lending product- Electronic Dealer Financing Scheme (e-DFS).
Under this MoU, the dealers and distributors of Realme would get access to credit facilities at low interest rates and minimum collateral. The inventory transactions could also be reported real-time, using the product.