Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

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:
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.

Notes:
The Rajya Sabha consists of not more 238 members representing the States and Union Territories, and 12 members nominated by the President. Each member is elected for a term of six years.
In the recent elections to 19 seats in 10 states, BJP won eight and Congress won four seats. The current strength of Rajya Sabha goes up to 244, of which BJP has 86 members and the National Democratic Alliance NDA’s tally is expected to cross 100. The Congress has 41 members while others have 27.

Notes:
China has recently provided a huge boost in trade with Bangladesh by offering them a tariff exemption for 97 per cent of their exports.
The exemption is to be made effective from July 1. Earlier, the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a discussion on upgrading their bilateral relations. With this exemption, as many as 8,256 products of Bangladesh will come under the 97 per cent of products that would be exempted.

Notes:
Government e-Marketplace (GeM), the online procurement platform for government bodies, has made the sellers mandatory to mention the ‘country of origin’ while registering all new products.
GeM is a special purpose vehicle under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Besides mandating fresh sellers, the GeM also mandates the sellers who had already uploaded their products to update the ‘country of origin’, with a warning that their products shall be removed if they fail to update.

Notes:
Technology major Google has announced that it has introduced a new feature called Fact-Checked’ labels for search images, to curb misinformation.
It will identify misleading photos in its specific search tool for images with the label. These fact-checking labels have been already used in its main search results and on video-streaming site YouTube. IT has now extended to images as well.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has recently launched an endowment fund.
The ‘IIM Ahmedabad Endowment Fund’ has been launched with an initial commitment of Rs 100 crore from 10 founding alumni. It aims to raise Rs 1,000 crore over a period of five years. The fund, which is to be managed by an independent committee including initial alumni contributors, will help in promoting growth of the institute.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet has recently approved a six-month extension to the commission appointed to examine sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes.
The Commission is headed by retired Delhi High Court Chief Justice G. Rohini. As per the extension, the commission will submit its report by January 31, 2021. The commission had been formed initially in October 2017. It was looking into the issues of communities that were not getting the benefits of reservation.

Notes:
The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval to declare Kushinagar airport as an international airport.
The airport is located in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Kushinagar is a Buddhist cultural site and its declaration as international airport will improve connectivity to several other Buddhist sites including Sravasti, Kapilvastu and Lumbini. As the place is near the international border, it would improve tourism and economic development of the region.