Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
The Union Government has approved 445 crore rupees for implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in Chhattisgarh during 2020-21, to provide tap connections to 20 lakh households.
The aim of Jal Jeevan Mission is to provide potable drinking water on a long-term basis to every rural household of the country by 2024. During the Union Budget 2020, 3.6 lakh crores has been allocated for this scheme. The migrant labourers returned to Chhattisgarh will be involved in the jobs related to water supply.

Notes:
Russia, that currently holds the BRICS Presidency, hosted the meeting of the Heads of Tax Authorities of the BRICS countries.
Though the meeting was originally scheduled to be held in Moscow, owing to Covid-19 restrictions, it was held through video conferencing. The Finance Secretary of India Ajay Bhushan Pandey represented India at the meeting. Possibilities of exploring areas of cooperation in tax matters and response of tax authorities were discussed.

Notes:
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has nominated Indian cricket star Rohit Sharma for the prestigious Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award.
Other stars including Ishant Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Deepti Yadav have been shortlisted by the BCCI for the Arjuna Award. The period of consideration for the awards is between January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2019. Rohit Sharma has been named the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year for 2019.

Notes:
Chinese mobile communication cum consumer electronics company OPPO has recently partnered with Indian start-up incubator T-Hub to support start-up ecosystem in India.
Under the partnership, the start-ups specialising in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, 5G, Battery, Camera and Image Processing will be scaled up. The selected start-up firms will receive incubation support and market access from OPPO as well as mentorship from T-Hub.

Notes:
The large group of asteroids that share the Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun are commonly called as Trojan asteroids or Jupiter Trojans. The trojans follow the same orbit of planet but stay either around 60 degrees ahead or 60 degrees behind along the orbit.
Recently, a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii and Queen’s University Belfast have found that 2019 LD2 is the first known Jupiter trojan asteroid to have a comet-like tail. It was first discovered in June 2019 by the ATLAS system funded by NASA. But it could not be observed then, as it passed behind the sun.

Notes:
Global credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service has currently degraded India’s foreign currency and local currency long-term issuer ratings to Baa3.
The agency had previously rated India’s ratings as Baa2. The reason for the downgrade of ratings was the high challenges to be faced by the policy-making institutions in enacting and implementing policies for sustainable growth in the country. Moody’s had upgraded India’s ratings to Baa2 in November 2017.

Notes:
The Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju has recently launched a 25-day Khelo India Community Coach Development Programme.
The programme seeks to train about 15,000 Physical Education Teachers and Community Coaches across India. Sports Ministry will collaborate with the Human Resources Ministry to implement this programme in all school in India.

Notes:
The Central Government has initiated a consultation process for formulation of a new national Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP 2020).
To formulate this policy, the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) have jointly initiated a decentralised process. This is the 5th Science and Technology policy of the country.

Notes:
Veteran filmmaker and screen-writer Basu Chatterjee, passed away recently due to age related illness, at 93 years.
The film maker was known for his critically acclaimed films such as ‘Chhoti Si Baat’, ‘Baaton Baaton Mein’, ‘Ek Ruka Hua Faisla’ and ‘Rajnigandha’ among others. He was famous among the middle-class audience in the 70s for his unique film -making.

Notes:
The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has recently released its annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
As per the PLFS report, the unemployment rate of India during July 2018- June 2019 fell to 5.8%, as compared to 6.1% rate recorded during the same period of 2017-18. The report also said that the labour force participation rate rose to 37.5% from 36.9%; the worker population ratio increased to 35.3% as against 34.7%; female participation rate improved to 18.6% in 2018-19 from 17.5%.