Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
Veteran economist and former member of the Planning Commission, A.Vaidyanathan recently passed away.
He served as a Chairperson of the Government of India Task Force on Revival of Cooperative Credit Institutions in 2004. He joined the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in 1956. He also served in the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Rome. He played a crucial role in developing India’s statistical system and the National Sample Survey.

Notes:
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is an international agreement between governments. India is also a signatory to CITES. It seeks to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
The Environment ministry has issued rules for dealing with the import of exotic species and for assessing scale of possession within the country, as per the CITES agreement. Exotic live species are defined as plants and animals that are moved from their original habitat to a new one by human intervention.

Notes:
The Chief Minister of Gujarat has recently announced that the Phase-2 of the Saurashtra-Narmada Avataran Irrigation (SAUNI) Yojana will be completed before 15th of August.
The scheme was launched with an aim of providing adequate drinking water to the state and meet the drinking water and irrigation requirements of Saurashtra and Kutch regions from Narmada river. It is also expected to fill 115 water reservoirs of arid Saurashtra and Kutch region. The first phase of SAUNI Yojana was launched in the year 2016.

Notes:
India’s leading SUV and farm vehicle maker, Mahindra and Mahindra announced that it is set to exit from its US-based e- bike company GenZe.
As the firm suffered a substantial loss in the March quarter due to losses at foreign subsidiaries, it is also set to give up control of its Korean subsidiary SsangYong. The company said that it will stop investments in the loss-making SsangYong firm. Mahindra and Mahindra is also relooking all its ventures to reduce expenses.

Notes:
The Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal has constituted an Expert Advisory Committee to advise Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) related to COVID-19 management in Delhi.
The committee would advise on the challenges being faced in Delhi, suggest measures to develop medical infrastructure and to integrate measures of multiple agencies for effective curbing of Covid-19. The committee has Director General of ICMR and Director of AIIMS are among the members of the committee.

Notes:
As per the revised clinical management protocols released by the Union Health Ministry, Anosmia (called as Loss of smell) and Ageusia (called Loss of taste) has been added to the official list of COVID-19 symptoms.
These symptoms are being continuously reported by the coronavirus-infected patients before the beginning of respiratory symptoms. Health Ministry also approved use of Remdesivir to treat Covid-19 in moderate stage of criticality and use of HCQ (hydroxychloroquine) to treat Covid-19 in early stages.

Notes:
Technology Giant Microsoft has recently launched a new feature called ‘Teams for Education’, to support online education.
The new feature seeks to engage and prepare students and teachers for new remote learning ecosystem. It also has an expanded audience view of up to 49 participants, custom backgrounds and virtual breakout rooms among others. Students can digitally raise their hands during class meetings in the feature.

Notes:
The investment arm of NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development), NABVENTURES Fund I has made its first investment in rural fintech start-up Jai Kisan.
NABVENTURES was launched in May 2019 with a proposed corpus of over ₹500 crore. The investment was made in the Mumbai-based start-up as part of a ₹30 crore funding round. Jai Kisan plans to invest the capital for hiring personnel and investing in its technology platform.

Notes:
Leading social-media platform Twitter has recently launched a dedicated search prompt that will direct people looking for domestic violence-related keywords to authentic information from the Ministry of Women and Child Development and National Commission for Women.
The search prompt will be available on iOS, Android and will be in English and Hindi languages. The prompt will also direct them towards sources of help available on Twitter. This initiative is an expansion of #ThereIsHelp prompt, which was launched to provide information on critical issues.

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.