Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

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:
An annular solar eclipse would occur on 21 June this year. The annular phase is expected to be visible from some places of the country.
It would be seen as partial solar eclipse from the rest part of the country. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the earth and blocks the light of the sun from reaching the earth. As a result, the shadow of the moon is cast on the earth. Annular eclipse happens when the moon is farthest from the earth and a ring of fire structure is seen.

Notes:
As per the official confirmation, the US Open tennis championships will be held as scheduled in the month of August.
The championships will be held without spectators, in Queens, New York from August 31 to September 13. The New York Governor Andrew Cuomo formally gave approval to the event. There was uncertainty around the tournament, as the location is the epicentre of Covid-19 crisis in the US. Safety procedures and sanitation protocols would be followed.

Notes:
Manila-based Asian Development Bank recently announced that the economy of India would contract by 4% in the financial year 2020-21.
In its earlier outlook released in the month of April, it had estimated that India would grow at 4%. But it has been reduced to -4%. It also projected that the GDP of India would grow at 5.0% in the following year, as compared to 6.2% projected in April. A growth of 0.1% is expected for the whole Developing economies of Asian region.

Notes:
Indian Railways Central Railway zone has installed an automated ticket kiosk called ATMA – Automated Ticket Checking & Managing Access machine.
The innovative machine has been introduced at the Nagpur railway station, under the New, Innovative Non-Fare Revenue Ideas Scheme (NINFRIS) policy to prevent transmission of COVID-19. The system has features for automated boarding protocol by ticket checking, human body temperature checking, and face mask checking.

Notes:
Technology major Facebook has recently acquired Swedish mapping technology company Mapillary, as per official sources.
Mapillary crowd-sources the images, collects pictures contributed from smart phones and other types of cameras. It then uses computer vision technology to stack them together into a real-time 3-D map. This technology is expected to support Facebook products under development like augmented reality glasses and virtual reality headsets.

Notes:
The Government of India has proposed to appoint two transaction advisors for assisting the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) in preparing the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation of India.
In the Union Budget 2020, Finance Minister proposed that the government will sell a part of its holding in LIC through an initial public offering. This IPO is expected to be the largest ever in the country and the advisors are asked to submit their bids till July 13.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs along with FICCI and two private healthcare institutes organised a webinar titled ‘National Sickle Cell Conclave’, to mark World Sickle Cell Day.
Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda addressed the webinar and announced that the government has launched a new portal with registration facility, information about the disease and various government initiatives undertaken. The Ministry has initiated ‘Action Research’ project for helping SCD patients. A report titled ‘Stepping out of the shadows – Combating Sickle Cell Disease in India’ was released.

Notes:
The manufacturing know-how of a PPE Suit being named ‘NavRakshak’ has been licensed by National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) to 5 five MSMEs.
The manufacturers are expected to mass produce more than 10 million PPEs per year, to meet the demand of quality PPE kits across the country. This know-how has been developed at the Mumbai-based Innovation Cell of the Institute of Naval Medicine. Intellectual property rights are also to be obtained.

Notes:
As per a new study published in the journal Nature, the 68 million-year-old egg found nine years ago, might belong to Mosasaur.
The fossilised egg is the second-largest to be discovered in the world. It is also the largest soft-shelled egg to be found in Antarctica. Mosasaurs are an extinct species of large marine reptiles which lived in the dinosaur era in Antarctica.