Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
According to the BP Statistical Review released recently, India’s energy consumption in 2019 was third largest behind China (141.70 EJ) and US (94.65 EJ).
While World primary energy consumption rose to 583.90 Exajoules (EJ), India’s consumption increased 2.3 per cent to 34.06 EJ. The growth was lower than 5.2 per cent in 2018. It also said that India was second biggest growth driver of primary energy consumption in the world, behind China, in 2019.

Notes:
In the month of February, the Cabinet approved to build the Vadhavan port at Palgarh district in Maharashtra at an estimated cost of Rs. 65544 crores.
Recently, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has said that ports as an industry are allowed in the ecologically sensitive Dahanu taluka area, which includes the Vadhavan in Palgarh district. The port will be developed on landlord model by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to be formed with Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) as the lead partner.

Notes:
The Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani is the world’s ninth richest billionaire on the Forbes Real-time Billionaires List.
With a net worth of $64.6 billion, he is ahead of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The market capitalisation of Reliance Industries (RIL) crossed the Rs 11-trillion mark recently. The company also announced itself net debt free while it had net debt of Rs 1.61 trillion in March 2020. In the same month, Ambani was ranked 21st on Forbes’ annual billionaire list.

Notes:
Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has recently inaugurated the India Pavilion at the Cannes Film Market 2020 virtually.
The Indian pavilion at Cannes Film Market has been jointly set up by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). The Minister also informed that the Marathi movie titled ‘Mai Ghat’ and the Gujarati movie ‘Hellaro’ are the official entrants to be showcased in the Cannes film festival this year.

Notes:
Veteran Indian economist and Nobel-laureate Amartya Sen has won the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
The 86-year-old economist has been named for the award for his decades-long work on global justice and social inequality. The German Publishers and Booksellers Association, Börsenverein constituted the award. The association also mentioned Amartya Sen’s three significant concepts: ‘Human Development Index’, the ‘capabilities approach’ and the notion of ‘missing women’.

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:
The World Karate Federation (WKF) has provisionally de-recognised the Karate Association of India with immediate effect.
The decision has been taken after an inquiry found that the association involved in infighting and violating the world body’s laws during its elections last year. As the election process was considered to be flawed by the WKF, it has de-recognised with immediate effect in accordance with the WKF rules.

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:
As per the India Ratings and Research, India’s economy is estimated to contract by 5.3 per cent this fiscal year.
As per Ind-Ra, this is the lowest GDP growth in the Indian history and the sixth instance of economic contraction. It also revealed that though some activities have started now, tourism and hospitality sectors will not allow the economic activity to return to normalcy throughout FY21 due to the disruptions caused by Covid-19 pandemic.

Notes:
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved setting up of Animal Husbandry Infrastructure Development Fund (AHIDF).
The corpus of the fund is Rs. 15000 crore and would incentivise the investments in establishment of infrastructure for dairy and meat processing. The eligible beneficiaries under the Scheme are Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), MSMEs, Private Companies among others. The Government will provide 3% interest subvention to eligible beneficiaries.