Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2021

Notes:
Yazidism is a monotheistic ethnic religion followed by Yazidis, whose population are estimated at around 7 lakhs around the world. They are a historically misunderstood group and are ethnically Kurdish in a majority.
Majority of the group are concentrated in northern Iraq, in and around Sinjar. Recently, the U.N team investigating atrocities in Iraq announced that it has found evidence that Islamic State extremists committed genocide against the Yazidi minority in 2014.

Notes:
The Mariana Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. Recently, the locations where the seafloor bottoms out in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Southern oceans were mapped by the Five Deeps Expedition.
It found the deepest trench in the Indian Ocean was found at a depth of 7,187m. It is 387km from where previous data had suggested the deepest point could be.

Notes:
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which was launched in the year 2016 to collect samples from the asteroid “Bennu”, has commenced its journey back to the Earth.
The spacecraft has collected samples from the asteroid, which is 320 million km from Earth and is expected to reach the Earth in 2 years.

Notes:
Padmakumar M Nair of State Bank of India (SBI) will be the Chief executive officer of National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL).
NARCL, also called as the ‘bad’ bank, is expected to be operational in June 2021. It is a proposed entity for taking over bad loans of lenders, predominantly public sector banks.

Notes:
Business risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft has recently released a report on the cities which are most vulnerable to environmental hazards. As per the report, among the top 100 vulnerable cities, 99 are located in Asia.
Jakarta has topped the list and Delhi has been ranked at No.2. More than 400 large cities across the globe with a total population of 1.5 billion are at “high” or “extreme” risk, as per the report.

Notes:
The Market regulator – Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), has proposed rationalisation of the definition of ‘promoter group’. It has proposed to move towards the concept of ‘person in control’.
This has been communicated in a consultative paper, and SEBI has sought for comments from the public on this proposal, by June 10th 2021.

Notes:
The state Government of Chhattisgarh has launched the scheme named “Chhattisgarh Mahtari Dular Yojna”. Under this scheme, the state would bear the education expenses of the children who have lost parents to COVID-19.
A stipend of Rs.500 per month will be paid to such children who are studying in Classes 1 to 8 and Rs.1000 per month for Classes 9 to 12. This scheme is applicable for children studying in both Government and Private schools.

Notes:
In 1993, the UN General Assembly declared that 15 May of every year should be observed as The International Day of Families.
The theme of this year’s observance is ‘Families and New Technologies’. It focuses on the impacts of new technologies on the well-being of families.

Notes:
The Chinese government has announced that all synthetic cannabinoids will be included in the list of banned drugs.
Synthetic cannabinoids come under the category of manufactured chemicals that target the same receptors in the brain as the natural cannabinoids in marijuana. The authorities announced a ban on 18 other psychoactive substances.

Notes:
The Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM KISAN) was launched to augment income of farming households in India, by providing them with an amount of Rs.6000/- per year in three instalments of Rs.2000/- each.
Recently, the Government of India has released the 8th instalment of ₹2,000 to each farmer since the launch of the scheme, which were directed to the farmers of West Bengal.