Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
A 500-year-old ancient temple of Lord Vishnu that was submerged in Odisha’s Mahanadi river during 19th century has reappeared after 15 years.
The river is said to have been submerged due to change of course of the river. The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage’s archaeological survey team visited the village in Nayagarh district and said that the top of the Gopinath Dev temple was visible due to the reduction in the water-level of the river.

Notes:
The Aquatic Quarantine Facility (AQF), a premier institution of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture, MPEDA, Ministry of Commerce & Industry (RGCA-MPEDA), has received 3,600 numbers of L. vannamei (White-leg shrimp) brood stock imported by India’s shrimp hatchery operators from Hawaii.
The brood-stock were successfully quarantined for five days and handed over to the hatchery operators with 97.12 per cent survival. This has been achieved for the first time since the inception of the Aquatic Quarantine Facility.

Notes:
The Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) has extended a line of credit (LOC) worth USD 215.68 million to the Malawi government for drinking water supply schemes and other development projects.
With this recent agreement, EXIM bank has extended five LOCs to Malawi, with the total value of LOCs being USD 395.68 million. Under this LOC, the projects covered are supply of irrigation network, cotton processing plant, green belt initiative, construction of water supply system, among others.

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:
Facebook owned social media major WhatsApp has launched its ‘WhatsApp Pay’ for the first time in Brazil.
Two years ago, WhatsApp began testing the payments service in India, which enables users to send and receive money. However, the plan could not be materialised due to regulatory issues. WhatsApp has designed the payment system with a special six-digit PIN or fingerprint authorisation to prevent unauthorised transactions.

Notes:
India is ranked 43rd on the annual World Competitiveness Index compiled by the Institute for Management Development (IMD).
It has retained the same 43rd rank obtained in the previous edition. In the 2020 list that ranks 63 nations, Singapore has retained its top spot. It is followed by Denmark and Switzerland. However, the United States moved down from 3rd place to 10th place. While India improved in high-tech exports, foreign currency reserves etc, it degraded in areas like exchange rate stability, real GDP growth.

Notes:
Indian software major, Infosys signed on to ‘The Climate Pledge’, an initiative by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Global Optimism founder and former United Nations climate chief Christian Figueres.
The initiative seeks to fast-track the transition to a low carbon economy. Infosys also announced that it will make its business net zero carbon by 2040, ten years ahead of the deadline set out by the Paris Agreement. US-based Verizon and British firm Reckitt Benckiser also signed on the climate pledge.

Notes:
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) took over the powers to regulate HFCs from the National Housing Bank (NHB) in August 2019.
Recently, RBI proposed to modify the rules of housing finance firms, which includes the formal definition of housing finance as “financing, for purchase/ construction/ reconstruction/ renovation/ repairs of residential dwelling unit”. RBI also proposed to classify HFCs as systemically important HFCs and non-systemically important HFCs.

Notes:
US President Donald Trump signed an act to authorise sanctions against Chinese officials over the mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims and other minorities.
The legislation requires the US administration to determine which Chinese officials are responsible for the arbitrary detention, torture and harassment of the minorities. Then, the U.S would freeze any assets held by the officials in the country and would also ban their entry into the U.S. As per some activists, over one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims are being homogenised in China.

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.