Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

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:
The United Nations General Assembly has recently elected Turkish diplomat Volkan Bozkir to be its president. He is the first Turkish national to head the General Assembly.
This decision has been taken ahead of the 75th General Assembly in September. Volkan Bozkir is serving as the head of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. He had also served as Turkey’s Minister of European Affairs and Chief Negotiator. He would assume office in September 2020 and hold the post for one year.

Notes:
Napoli, the Italian professional football club based in Naples, won the Italian cup after it scored 4-2 on penalties after a 0-0 draw.
Italian Cup also called as Coppa Italia was restarted after a three-month pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gennaro Gattuso is the Coach of the football team, who has bagged his first major trophy of his managerial career. Napoli has won the title for the sixth time.

Notes:
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan has recently launched India’s first mobile lab for COVID-19 testing to promote last mile testing access in rural India.
The Infectious Disease Diagnostic Lab (I-LAB) has been launched with the support of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, under the COVID command strategy. This mobile lab will be deployed in the remote and inaccessible parts of the country. It can perform 25 RT-PCR tests and 300 ELISA tests per day.

Notes:
Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro announced that his book titled ‘Klara and the Sun’ will be released in March 2021. He is a British novelist born in Japan.
The theme of the book is ‘what does it mean to love’. This is the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His previous literary works have earned several prestigious awards including the Booker Prize. He has also won the highest honorary awards from France and Japan.

Notes:
The UN Agency for refugees, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has released its Annual report on displacement.
As per the report, nearly 80 million people were forcibly displaced by the end of 2019 globally. The main reason for displacement has been war, violence, persecution and other emergencies. This count is almost double the total figure of the past decade. The report also revealed that an additional 11 million people were newly displaced in 2019 alone.

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 World’s first Quantum communications satellite, Micius was launched by China in the year 2016. It has pioneered in the field of quantum encryption.
The satellite was seen in news recently, as it sends particles of light to Earth to establish the world’s most secure communication link. This is considered to be a milestone in the research, as long-range secure communication can be obtained without the help of traditional communication satellites. Secure long-distance links such will be the foundation of the future global network called the quantum internet.

Notes:
Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel has been appointed as Chairman of the economic think tank, the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP).
Urjit Patel will be the Chairperson of NIPFP for a four-year term from June 22, 2020. He will replace Vijay Laxman Kelkar, who had been the Chairman of the think-tank since 2014. Urjit Patel served as the Deputy Governor of RBI in 2013 and Governor of RBI from 2016 to 2018.

Notes:
The United States Senate has named that veteran Indian-American scientist Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan as the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
NSF is a top American body, that promotes fundamental research in non-medical fields of science and engineering. The 58-year old Scientist is the Chief Research and Innovation Officer at Arizona State University, at present. He is to replace France Cordova as the 15th Director of the NSF. He is also the second Indian-American ever to be nominated for the position.