Current Affairs Quiz - June, 2020

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:
According to the data from the US Treasury Department, India has become the 12th largest holder of US government securities at the end of April.
Japan stood at the first position by holding securities worth 157.4 billion dollars. It is followed by China at 1.1 trillion dollars and the UK at 368.5 billion dollars. At the end of April, India had an exposure of 157.4 billion dollars.

Notes:
The state government of Tripura is launching an initiative named ‘Ektu Khelo, Ektu Padho’, to promote learning process of school students.
The proposed scheme is to be started from June 25, for students up to class 8. As per the state’s guidelines, assignments will be sent to students on mobile phones every morning, and feedback on their performance is to be collected in the afternoon. In the state, as many as five lakh students study in 4,733 government schools.

Notes:
As per the recent data from Vietnam, the 36th ASEAN Summit will be held via video conference on June 26.
Vietnam is the chair of ASEAN in 2020 and its Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will chair the opening session, plenary session and special sessions on woman empowerment in digital era among other meetings. The 36th ASEAN Summit, which had been scheduled to be held in April, has been postponed to June end due to COVID-19.

Notes:
The Uttar Pradesh Government has started using rail coaches as isolation units for COVID-19 suspected patients.
COVID coaches are deployed at Mau junction in Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in a first in the country. Indian Railways is ready to offer as many as 5,231 isolation coaches to the states and the respective zonal railways have converted the coaches as quarantine facilities. After Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh have also been using rail coaches.

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:
Major technology company Microsoft has recently announced to shut its video game streaming service Mixer.
Microsoft partnered with Facebook to enable the users of Mixer to transit to Facebook Gaming. If the user is voluntary to switch over to Gaming service of Facebook, it has been made easy. Earlier, Apple rejected Facebook Gaming app on the iOS App Store. However, Microsoft is working on their new project ‘xCloud’.

Notes:
The United Nations observes 23 June as International Widows Day since 2011. The theme of ‘International Widows Day’ 2020 is ‘Invisible Women, Invisible Problems’.
The day highlights the necessity to provide them access to Inheritance rights, pension and social protection, decent work and equal pay. UN also urges governments to ensure the rights of widows as per international laws including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

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:
Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister has approved a scheme for interest subvention of 2% to all Shishu loan accounts under Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY).
The subvention is applicable to eligible borrowers, for a period of 12 months. The scheme will incentivize people who will make regular repayments of loans. The estimated cost of the Scheme would be approximately Rs. 1542 crore, which would be provided by the Union Government. Loans for activities up to Rs. 50,000 are termed as Shishu loans.