Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

Notes:
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to launch a Rs 50,000 crore employment scheme named ‘Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyan’ from a village of Bihar.
The scheme aims to provide income support to migrant workers who returned to their home states during the coronavirus lockdown. It will primarily focus on six states Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Odisha, where maximum migrant workers have returned. This scheme aims to provide livelihood for 125 days to 25,000 migrant workers of 116 districts.

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 State Department of Archaeology Team of the Kodumanal excavation has identified 250 cairn-circles at the village in Erode district of Tamil Nadu.
The team has recently found around 10 pots and bowls, instead of the usual 3-4 pots, placed outside three-chambered burial cists. It is expected to be of the head of the community. Pots filled with grains were placed outside the chambers as it was believed that the deceased will get a new life after death. This has revealed about the burial rituals and the belief of afterlife in megalithic culture.

Notes:
Veteran Social worker Vidyaben Shah passed away recently at the age of 98, at her residence in Delhi.
She was regarded as the pioneer in the field of child welfare, as she established the first Bal Bhavan in Rajkot during 1940s. She also served as the president of the Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW). She was awarded the Padma Shri in 1992 and received the National Award for outstanding services in the field of child welfare in 1986.

Notes:
The students and researchers of IIT-Bombay has recently developed a homegrown receiver chip – Dhruva.
The chip can be used in smartphones and navigation devices to find locations and routes within the country. It will receive signals from NAVIC group of navigation satellites of India, as well as the US Global Positioning System-based satellites to determine a person’s location precisely.

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:
A Japanese broadcaster had reported that the Ishigaki City assembly in Okinawa, in Japan, had passed a bill to change the name of the administrative area covering the islands to Tonoshiro Senkaku from Tonoshiro.
China has recently said that it reserved the right to respond to the city’s decision to rename the area that includes remote islands claimed by both China and Japan. The disputed islands are known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. It also warned that Japan should not interfere in Beijing’s internal affairs.

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:
Information Technology firm Intuit India was placed in the top spot in the list of India’s Best Companies to Work for – 2020.
The list is released by Great Place to Work Institute, a global research, consulting firm that helps organisations identify great workplaces. Intuit India is followed by DHL Express (India) and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd SBU-B, the first plantation company and Kerala’s first company to feature in the Top 5 list, bagged 4th place.

Notes:
The Forest Department of Uttar Pradesh has announced that the State has recorded an increase in the population of elephant in its wildlife division.
The elephant census in Uttar Pradesh was conducted in collaboration with the forest officials of Uttarakhand. As per the recent data, the count of elephants reached 352 in the state. The previous operation in the year 2017 recorded only 232 elephants.