Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
International Everest Day is celebrated on May 29, across the world every year. On the same day in the year 1953, Tenzing Norgay of Nepal and Edmund Hillary of New Zealand had successfully scaled the Mt. Everest.
The mountaineer duo were the first human beings to achieve the prestigious feat. Nepal decided to observe the day as International Everest Day since the climber Edmund Hillary passed away in the year 2008.

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:
As per the test report of the Animal Husbandry Department of the state of Uttarakhand, the quality of the state’s sheep wool compiled was similar to the Merino sheep wool.
The Merino sheep wool of Australia is famous across the world in the textile industry for its fine texture. India imports nearly 8000 MT of fine wool every year. Uttarakhand received 250 Merino sheep in Tehri Garhwal district under the national livestock scheme last year. With appropriate breeding programmes, Uttarakhand would produce high-quality fine Merino wool.

Notes:
The Union Government has recently launched a new micro-credit facility scheme named PM SVANIDHI – Pradhan Mantri Street Vendor’s Atmanirbhar Nidhi.
Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry launched the scheme, which aims to provide affordable loans to street vendors. The duration of the scheme is till March 2022 and is expected to benefit over 50 lakh street vendors. The vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to Rs 10000, which is repayable in monthly instalments in one-year tenure.

Notes:
The Agriculture Ministry has released its second advance estimates of total horticulture production in 2019-20.
As per the estimate, the total horticulture production would be 320.48 million tonnes in this year, which is 3.13% higher than last year. The production of fruits is estimated to be 99.07 million tonnes as compared to 97.97 million tonnes in 2018-19. The total production of vegetables is estimated to be 191.77 million tonnes as compared to 183.17 million tonnes in 2018-19.

Notes:
India is the sole contender for the Asia Pacific seat in non-permanent category of the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member.
The General Assembly of UNSC is to hold elections for the five non-permanent members of the Security Council on June 17. It has also proposed new secret ballot voting arrangements due to the Covid-19 restrictions. India has been elected as a non-permanent member of UNSC for seven terms starting from 1950-51 till 2011-12.

Notes:
During his first ever virtual bilateral summit with the Australian head, the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi signed a landmark agreement related to defence.
The agreement named ‘Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA)’ will allow the militaries of the two countries to use the bases of each other countries, for the purpose of repair and replenishment of supplies. India has already signed similar agreements with the US, France and Singapore. The countries also decided to re-engage on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA).

Notes:
The flagship programme of the Sports Ministry has partnered with the Department of School Education and Literacy of the HRD Ministry to launch a series of special film to promote 10 indigenous sports of India.
The programme is to be implemented under the Ek Bharat, Shrestha Bharat initiative, which aims to sensitise the youngsters about the cultural heritage of the state. The series of film will also create awareness among children about the heritage of the states to which the sports belong.

Notes:
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is an intergovernmental organization of 13 nations, headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
OPEC and allied nations including Russia are set to extend the cut in production of nearly 10 million barrels of oil a day till the end of July. This decision is expected to boost the price of oil which has been hit hard by Covid-19 crisis. Soon after they announced the decision, Oil prices rose more than 2%.

Notes:
The Government has allowed filing of NIL GST monthly return in FORM GSTR-3B through SMS. The taxpayers with NIL liability are not required to log on to the GST Portal.
This step is expected to make the tax compliance easy for over 22 lakh registered taxpayers who had to otherwise log into their account and file returns every month. India ranks 115 out of around 190 countries in ease of paying taxes.