Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
India, which has been elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council recently, will serve as its president for the month of August, 2021.
India, Norway, Ireland, Mexico and Kenya were elected as the non-permanent members of the 15-nation-UNSC for a two-year term beginning January 1, 2021. Tunisia will begin 2021 as the President of the Council in January. It will be followed by each of the members in turn for one month, as per the English alphabetical order of the name of member states.

Notes:
The ‘Global Status Report on Preventing Violence Against Children 2020’ was launched by the World Health Organisation, the UNICEF, the UNESCO, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence against Children and End Violence Partnership.
As per the report, half of the world’s children, about a billion are affected by physical, sexual or psychological violence, suffering injuries and death. Though nearly 88% of the countries have laws to protect minors, only 47% of them strongly enforce the laws.

Notes:
The Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs along with FICCI and two private healthcare institutes organised a webinar titled ‘National Sickle Cell Conclave’, to mark World Sickle Cell Day.
Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda addressed the webinar and announced that the government has launched a new portal with registration facility, information about the disease and various government initiatives undertaken. The Ministry has initiated ‘Action Research’ project for helping SCD patients. A report titled ‘Stepping out of the shadows – Combating Sickle Cell Disease in India’ was released.

Notes:
Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani launched a special campaign titled ‘Empowering the Greater 50%’.
This campaign is an initiative of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and its division FICCI Ladies Organization (FLO). It seeks to create an ecosystem to support women entrepreneurship and empower as many as 1 lakh women in India over the next three years.

Notes:
The United Nations General Assembly designated June 21 as the ‘International Day of the Celebration of the Solstice’.
It considered that the celebration of solstice represents the unity of the cultural heritage across the world. Solstice is an event that occurs when the path of the sun stands still at a northern or southern limit before reversing direction. There are two solstices that occur annually namely the Summer Solstice around June 21 and Winter Solstice around December 21.

Notes:
Serbia is the first country in Europe to successfully conduct its national election in Europe during the coronavirus epidemic.
The voting, which had been initially planned for April, was postponed because of the pandemic. However, the turnout appeared lower compared to previous elections due to the fear of coronavirus. The ruling governing conservative party led by President Aleksandar Vucic is set to obtain a landslide victory.

Notes:
The state government of Rajasthan has signed a tripartite agreement with the Power Grid Corporation of India and the Educational Consultants India for establishing of smart classrooms.
The initiative has been taken to promote online education during the COVID-19 lockdown. As many as 100 schools are selected for setting up smart class rooms. The schools situated in remote areas and the recently selected government schools to be converted into English medium schools will be given top priority.

Notes:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting.
It has been attended by the Union External Affairs Minister of India S Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. This is the first time the foreign Ministers of India and China are virtually meeting through video conference after the recent standoff between their troops at Ladakh. On June 24, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh attends the Victory parade in Russia.

Notes:
Moody’s Investor Service has released the June update of its flagship Global Macro Outlook report. It has estimated that India’s GDP growth would be -3.1% this year.
It had earlier estimated the growth to be 0.2% in April. The report also projected that India’s GDP would grow at 6.9% in the fiscal year 2021-22, as compared to 6.2% estimated in the April update. It has lowered its estimates for all major economies.

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.