Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2021

Notes:
The “Estimates of Global E Commerce Report 2019” has been released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which is headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland.
The report has noted that, due to COVID restrictions, there was a dramatic rise in in e-commerce and online retail sales. The report further stated that The United States, followed by Japan and China, continues to dominate the overall e-commerce market in the globe.

Notes:
The crops that are sown in the rainy season are called kharif crops in India. They are also known as the summer or monsoon crop. Kharif crops are usually sown with the beginning of the first rains in July, during the south-west monsoon season.
Tur/arhar (pigeon pea), urad (black matpe) and moong (green gram) are the major pulses in this season. The Ministry of Agriculture has recently formulated a special Kharif strategy to attain self-sufficiency in the production of pulses.

Notes:
The Asian Development Bank has proposed a 5 Point Agenda, aimed at stronger recovery of the Asia Pacific Region. It was spelt out by the ADB’s president Masatsugu Asakawa.
Ambitious climate actions, addressing inequality, promotion of high-quality green infrastructure, deepening regional cooperation and strengthening of domestic resource mobilization are the 5 major points charted down by ADB.

Notes:
Scientists have discovered the oldest known human burial in Africa, at a location named “Panga ya Saidi”. It is an archaeological cave site located in South-Eastern Kenya.
It is a burial of a child aged 2-1/2 or 3 years old, buried in a shallow grave with its head resting on a pillow. The burial is said to be more than 78,000 old.

Notes:
“The Global Report on Food Crises 2020” has been released recently, which is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises. It is an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger.
The report analyses the factors which contribute to food crises across the globe, and explains how COVID pandemic could worsen the crisis.

Notes:
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is a rebel group which operates in African countries including northern Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Recently in a landmark judgment, the international criminal court has sentenced a former militia leader from Uganda and commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Notes:
World Red Cross Day, also known as Red Crescent Day is celebrated on May 8 every year. This date marks the birth anniversary of Henry Dunant, the founder of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The day is celebrated by the Red Cross society across all the countries. The theme of World Red Cross Day 2021 is ‘Together we are unstoppable’!.

Notes:
Glyphosate is a herbicide, which used to kill weeds, especially used in cotton farms and to kill annual broadleaf weeds and grasses that compete with crops.
The Telangana Government has imposed a total ban on glyphosate, a controversial herbicide, as the chemical’s rampant use, especially in cotton, is polluting soil and causing health hazards to human beings.

Notes:
The California condor is a vulture species belonging to ‘New World’ vulture species. It is the largest North American land bird. The bird is said to have become extinct in the wild in 1987.
Recently, a flock of over 15 endangered California condors has reportedly descended on a house in the city of Tehachapi in California. There are believed to be fewer than 500 such condors in the US, and as many as 160 are recorded in California.

Notes:
The debris of China’s biggest rocket landed in the Indian Ocean, after most of its components destroyed during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Long March 5B rocket, launched the main module of China’s next space station, Tiangong, in April. There were speculations for long days about where would the debris hit on the Earth. Last year, pieces from the first Long March 5B fell on Ivory Coast.