Current Affairs Quiz - February, 2020

Notes:
The Scientists at Indian Veterinary Research Institute (ICAR-IVRI), an institute of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, have recently developed a low-cost vaccine for the classical swine fever. Swine fever is a disease associated with high mortality and illness in pigs.
Until now, the swine fever vaccines have been imported for domestic usage and moreover the imported vaccines are to be administered once in every six months. But a single shot of the new indigenous vaccine would be sufficient for the animal’s life time. This would be an affordable option for the farmers and also assist in pork production and export.

Notes:
India’s leading woman Tennis player Ankita Raina won the women’s singles title in the $25,000 ITF Thailand Championship. This is her first ITF singles title of the season and 10th of her sport career.
The 27-year-old third-seeded Ankita Raina beat Chloe Paquet of France 6-3, 7-5 in the summit clash, to clinch the title. Ankita had also won the doubles title of the tournament, along with Bibiane Schoofs of the Netherlands. Earlier this year, she had also reached the semi-finals at another $25000 event in Canberra.

Notes:
A National Level Rural Technical Festival titled ‘Antahpragnya 2020’ was recently organised in the state of Telangana at Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies-Basar (RGUKT-Basar). This is the country’s biggest technical festival.
The three-day technical fest was conducted with the theme ‘Spot and encourage rural tech innovators’. It hosted more than 200 technical events including Campus Farming competition, Robo Racing, Development of Ideal Villages and National Science Fair. Nearly 50,000 people from nearby places and institutions participated in the event.

Notes:
Bhutan imposes a Sustainable Development Fee on international tourists, except those from India, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. The current rate is USD 100 per person per night, effective from September 1, 2023 to August 31, 2027, as a 50% discount from the earlier USD 200. Indian tourists pay INR 1,200 per person per night. The fee funds conservation and infrastructure.

Notes:
Moody’s Investors Service recently released its estimates for India’s GDP growth in the upcoming fiscals. It lowered the real GDP growth projection for the next 2020-21 fiscal to 5.5 per cent, from its previous estimate of 6.3 per cent. The government’s Economic survey has projected a growth rate of 6-6.5% for the next fiscal.
It also stated that the GDP growth for the current fiscal ending March 31 would be 4.9 percent, which is slightly lower than the estimate of the government. For the fiscal 2021-22, it predicted a growth rate of 6 per cent, down from 6.7 per cent which was projected earlier.

Notes:
Top Striker of the Indian Hockey team Navneet Kaur was seen in news recently, as she scored two crucial goals against the host New Zealand and led the country to a 3-0 win in the last game of the five-match tour.
In the tour, India began with a 4-0 win over New Zealand Development squad and two subsequent loses. In the fourth match against Great Britain, the Indian skipper Rani Rampal, who was recently chosen as the ‘World Games Athlete of the year’, scored a goal to lead India to the 1-0 win.

Notes:
Rakhi Halder, the Indian weight-lifter from West Bengal was seen in news recently as she bagged gold medal in 64kg category at the 35th edition of the Senior Women’s National Weightlifting Championships, being held at Kolkata.
Rakhi Halder, who is an Indian Railways employee, had clinched gold in the Commonwealth Championship in June 2019 and the bronze medal at the Qatar International Cup. Earlier, former World champion Mirabai Chanu from Manipur set a new national record in the 49-kg category and won gold medal.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently projected the economic growth of the country to grow by 6 per cent during the next financial year. This is the lower end of the growth projection as announced by the government in the economic survey, which estimated a rate of 6-6.5 per cent. RBI also stated that the Indian economy continues to be weak.
The first half of the year would grow in the range of 5.5-6.0 per cent and the third quarter at 6.2 per cent, as per the RBI. But this projection is higher than the GDP growth projection of 5%, made in the monetary policy statement of December 2019.

Notes:
Indian weight-lifter Pardeep Singh was seen in news recently, as he won the men’s 102kg gold medal in the National weightlifting championships, recently held in Kolkata.
He improved his performance than what he did in the Asian championships in China, last year. Another leading lifter Vikas Thakur won gold medal in the men’s 96kg category. Both the lifters are in the promising list for the upcoming Asian championships in Kazakhstan. Mirabai Chanu and Jeremy Lalrinnunga were named as ‘Best Lifters’ of the championships.

Notes:
Ministry of Corporate Affairs is replacing the existing SPICe (Simplified Proforma for Incorporating Company Electronically) form with a new web form called SPICe+. The existing form, which is used for reservation of name, company incorporation, DIN allotment, and application for PAN/TAN, in its new avatar, would offer 10 services by three central government ministries and departments.