Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2020

Notes:
The electoral commission of the East African country Malawi has declared opposition alliance leader. Lazarus Chakwera, as the winner of the country’s presidential re-election.
The result of the previous May 2019 election has been declared invalid by the constitutional court, over allegations of irregularities. Lazarus Chakwera secured the required majority defeating the incumbent President Peter Mutharika, who has been in power since 2014.

Notes:
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is a United Nations office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, headquartered at Vienna, Austria.
According to the latest UNODC World Drug Report, about 26.9 crore people used drugs in 2018, which was 30% more than the 2009 count. The largest share of drug users comprised of adolescents and young adults. Overall opioid users in India is estimated to have increased five times, as compared to those in 2004.

Notes:
The 36-year-old Indian umpire Nitin Menon recently became the youngest member of the International Cricket Council’s Elite Panel of Umpires.
He replaced England’s Nigel Llong for the upcoming 2020-21 season. Nitin Menon has officiated in three Tests, 24 ODIs and 16 T20Is. He is only the third from India to enter the prestigious group after former captain Srinivas Venkatraghavan and Sundaram Ravi. Michael Gough of England (40), had been the youngest in the current panel.

Notes:
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is the parent organisation of Global Forum on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes.
According to the latest study by the Global Forum, India has been among the top-three jurisdictions to which Switzerland provided information about bank accounts and beneficiary ownership of entities, on request. The other two countries were France and Germany. The report recorded the requests during the period from July 2015 to June 2018.

Notes:
Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju has unveiled National Anti-Doping Agency’s first mobile application to provide information about prohibited substances and their use.
This application is expected to provide easily accessible information of NADA, so that the athletes and their coaches would remain cautious about the prohibited drugs and medicines. The app also provides means for easy process of conducting a dope test.

Notes:
The United Nations has raised USD 7.7 billion in humanitarian aid for the people affected by war in Syria.
The UN had organised a virtual donor conference with governments and non-official agencies. Among many countries that donated, Germany provided the single biggest country donation of 1.58 billion euros (USD 1.78 billion).

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Food and Public Distribution implements the “PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana” scheme.
The Minister for Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan has recently released the details of the 2nd Phase of PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana. Under the scheme, 5 kilograms of Wheat or Rice to every family member and 1 kilogram of Chana (Pulse) for each beneficiary family will be provided without price for five more months, till November.

Notes:
The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) has released its report on the Annual Marine Fish Landings in India for 2019.
As per the report, the marine fish production of India recorded a marginal rise of 2.1% in 2019, with 3.56 million tonnes in total landings. It also ranked Tamil Nadu in the first position with 7.75 lakh tonnes. It is followed by Gujarat and Kerala. Gujarat was at the top spot in the recent years.

Notes:
Two Central public sector undertakings under the Ministry of Coal, namely the NLC India Ltd and Coal India have signed an agreement to form a Joint Venture Company, to develop green power.
The JV company aims to develop solar and thermal power assets of 5000 MW (5 GW) across the country. In the proposed company, both the enterprises will invest in the ratio of 50:50. The expertise of both PSUs would be used for developing power sector.

Notes:
Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel has authored a book titled ‘Overdraft: Saving the Indian Saver’.
The book is set to be released by the end of July 2020. The book focusses on the non-performing assets (NPAs) issue that has caused huge distress to the country’s banking sector. It also highlights the causes of NPAs and the efforts of Urjit Patel to deal with the issue as the Governor of RBI.