Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
The President of Asian Development Bank (ADB) Masatsugu Asakawa has launched a high-level panel of leading experts to help Southeast Asian economies tackle COVID-19 pandemic.
The panel is moderated by the ADB Vice-President Ahmed M. Saeed. Former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India Raghuram Rajan features in the list among the experts of finance, health and economy. The panel will focus on structural reforms, innovation in domestic resource mobilization among others.

Notes:
The Union Government has recently constituted an Empowered Group of Secretaries to facilitate investment in the country.
The committee, which is to be headed by the Cabinet Secretary, will identify potential investors and help in accelerating investment in key sectors of the economy. The committee will also recommend specific incentive packages for both domestic and foreign investors. The 7-member empowered group has CEO of NITI Aayog along with secretaries of DPIIT, Commerce, Revenue and Economic Affairs as its members.

Notes:
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) jointly released a report titled ‘COVID-19 and Child labour: A Time of Crisis, A Time to Act’.
The report highlights that millions of children are in the risk of being pushed into child labour as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The report also warned that the decrease in child labour by 94 million since 2000 is now at risk. Due to the reduction in family income amid Covid-19 crisis, many more children will get into Child labour.

Notes:
Leading payments bank of India, Airtel Payments Bank has recently launched a salary account for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME).
Named as the ‘Suraksha Salary’ account, it will enable MSMEs and other organisations to make cashless payments. It also provides Hospicash Insurance and Personal Accidental insurance cover. As of now, it is only available to new customers and will be extended to existing account holders soon.

Notes:
Great Wall Motor (GWM), the Chinese carmaker recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra government.
GWM, also the latest Chinese automaker to enter the Indian market agreed to invest in modernising its Talegaon manufacturing plant. This investment is expected to generate employment for 3,000 people. The company also confirmed its plan to invest USD 1 billion in the Indian market.

Notes:
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has recently approved an additional $750 million loan to strengthen India’s fight against Covid-19.
This loan would be co-financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The funds will be utilised for boosting the businesses in informal sector, providing social security for the deserving and strengthening the health care systems of India.

Notes:
Scientists in UK have claimed that the generic steroid drug dexamethasone has reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill hospitalised patients, affected by COVID-19.
This result is a part of one of the world’s largest randomised trial of drugs to treat COVID-19 patients, that also showed hydroxychloroquine was not working against the coronavirus. The drug is shown to cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators and a fifth for those on oxygen. However, World Health Organisation said that the drug is reserved for severely ill and critical patients.

Notes:
Napoli, the Italian professional football club based in Naples, won the Italian cup after it scored 4-2 on penalties after a 0-0 draw.
Italian Cup also called as Coppa Italia was restarted after a three-month pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gennaro Gattuso is the Coach of the football team, who has bagged his first major trophy of his managerial career. Napoli has won the title for the sixth time.

Notes:
In the month of February, the Cabinet approved to build the Vadhavan port at Palgarh district in Maharashtra at an estimated cost of Rs. 65544 crores.
Recently, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has said that ports as an industry are allowed in the ecologically sensitive Dahanu taluka area, which includes the Vadhavan in Palgarh district. The port will be developed on landlord model by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to be formed with Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) as the lead partner.

Notes:
Reliance Industries has recently become the first Indian company to be valued at $150 billion. It also became the first company to be valued at over Rs 11 lakh crore, in rupee terms.
Reliance Industries is among the most valued energy companies in the world, at present. In the last two months, the company raised about Rs 1.69 lakh crore from global investors and a rights issue. As per the company’s release, Reliance had a net debt of Rs 1,61,035 crore as on March 31, 2020 and with these investments, RIL has become net debt-free.