Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
Union Minister Jitendra Singh has recently launched India’s first indigenous physiological parameter monitoring system for COVID-19 patients named COVID BEEP.
The COVID BEEP (Continuous Oxygenation & Vital Information Detection Biomed ECIL ESIC Pod) system has been developed by ESIC Medical College Hyderabad in collaboration with IIT Hyderabad and Department of Atomic Energy. The latest version of COVID BEEP has also been fixed with the ECG monitor.

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:
The International Football Federation FIFA has released its global FIFA ranks recently. Belgium retained its top spot in the list.
Belgium is followed by France and Brazil. The fourth and fifth positions are occupied by England and Uruguay respectively. Indian football team has retained the 108th spot in the ranking. The Covid-19 pandemic has remained an obstacle to the staging of international matches and the ranking remains unchanged.

Notes:
The Union Defence Ministry has recently extended the delivery period for all existing capital acquisition contracts with Indian vendors by four months.
As per the Defence Minster, ‘force majeure shall be applicable for a period of four months i.e. 25th March 2020 to 24th July 2020’. A force majeure refers to unexpected circumstances that prevent someone from fulfilling a contract. This step has been taken because of supply chain crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

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 World Blood Donor Day is celebrated on June 14, every year across the world. The day is celebrated to raise awareness about the need for safe blood and blood products.
On this day, general public and other institutions thank blood donors. The theme of ‘World Blood Donor day 2020’ is – Safe blood saves lives. In the year 2005, the World Health Assembly designated this date to thank blood donors and encourage more people to donate blood. It also calls governments to provide resources for blood collection.

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:
Chinese internet company ByteDance has recently announced that it is set to discontinue two of its applications Vigo Video and Vigo Lite.
The applications that allow users to create and share short videos, will be discontinued in India at the end of October 2020. ByteDance also said the users can opt to transfer their videos to TikTok, download or delete all their Vigo data from the app.

Notes:
South Korea recently said that North Korea has blown up the inter-Korean liaison office building, that is located north of the Korean border.
This serious incident followed the recent degradation in the relations between the two countries. North Korea has earlier threatened to engage in military action at the border with South Korea. The two countries jointly set up a liaison office at Kaesong in North Korea in 2003. The Kaesong Industrial Complex is a joint industrial zone operated by both North Koreans and South Koreans.

Notes:
In a violent conflict that took place in the Galwan Valley located in the Union Territory of Ladakh, as many as 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
As per the statement of the Indian Army, the two sides disengaged from the area where the fight happened. The US media reported that its intelligent officials quoted about 35 Chinese troops have been killed. The infrastructure projects that India has undertaken recently, a strategic road through the Galwan Valley, connecting the region to an airstrip, has escalated the conflict.