Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
The forest department of Uttarakhand has dedicated a biodiversity park in Haldwani to the people of state and country.
The park is named as the ‘Sarv Dharm Vatika’, which spans over 18-acre area with 40 different sections and 479 plant species associated with all religions. It also possesses living fossils and a soil museum, that displays the earth from tropical, subtropical, temperature and alpine zones. It also has Jurassic garden with various living plant families of the Jurassic period.

Notes:
Multinational professional services network Deloitte is partnering with Google cloud to help Indian firms in leveraging digital technology.
The firms have extended their global alliance to India to enable the Indian enterprises modernize cloud technology adoption. It will also provide solutions in field such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Contact Center AI.

Notes:
The World Bank has provided Rs. 1,950 crore loans to the state of West Bengal for tackling COVID crisis and developmental work in the state.
Announcing the news about the loan, the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that out of the total loan, Rs. 1,100 crore will be spent for creating Industrial infrastructures and remaining Rs. 850 crore has been allocated for social-Welfare schemes.

Notes:
The QS World University Rankings has been released by global higher education consultancy QS Quacquarelli Symonds.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the list for the ninth consecutive year, followed by Stanford University and Harvard University all being American. Only three Indian institutions namely IIT-Bombay (172nd), IISc Bangalore (185th) and IIT Delhi (193rd) feature among the top 200 in the list, with none in the top-100.

Notes:
The colour of water in Lonar lake in Maharashtra has changed to pink recently. It is a tourist destination located in Buldhana district, about 500 km from Mumbai.
The lake is a notified national geo-heritage monument, which is said to have formed after a meteorite hit the Earth some 50,000 years ago. Some experts opine the reason as the increased salinity while others attribute the reason to the presence of algae in the lake.

Notes:
Indian-American soil scientist Dr Rattan Lal has won the prestigious World Food Prize. The award is considered to be equivalent to a Nobel Prize in agriculture.
Dr Rattan Lal has been awarded for his contribution in assisting small farmers to improve their soil’s health. This has let the global food supply to increase considerably. He has promoted soil-saving techniques which has benefitted the livelihoods of more than 500 million small farmers.

Notes:
The lower house of Nepal parliament, Pratinidhi Sabha passed bill to include India’s territories of Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand in its new map.
Nepal’s upper house of parliament has also endorsed proposal to update its political map that includes the Indian territories. However, India has claimed that the updated map is not based on historical facts and evidence and that the move is violative of the current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues.

Notes:
Leading private bank ICICI Bank has launched an overdraft (OD) facility named ‘Insta FlexiCash’, for its salaried account customers who are facing a cash crunch.
The specified customers can initiate this facility by applying online using the bank’s Internet banking platform and can avail short-term instant credit within 48 hours. The product has been launched to help the bank’s Salary Account customers from missing their Equated Monthly Instalments (EMIs) or cheque bounces due to insufficient funds.

Notes:
India has recently joined the Global Partnership for Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) as its founding member, along with USA, UK, EU, Australia among others.
Union minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad announced that this multi-stakeholder international partnership will promote responsible human centric development and use of Artificial Intelligence. India has recently launched the National AI Strategy and also launched its dedicated National AI Portal.

Notes:
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Indian Embassy, Nepal’s Ministry of Federal Affairs & General Administration and Kathmandu Metropolitan City for the construction of the sanitation facility at the Pashupatinath Temple of Nepal.
The famous temple is also listed under the UNESCO World Heritage site. India has pledged to construct a Rs 2.33 crore sanitation facility at the Temple complex to improve the infrastructure for the pilgrims.