Current Affairs Quiz - November, 2020

Notes:
The 59th National Pharmacy Week (NPW) is celebrated throughout the country from November 16-22, 2020.
This year, the theme of the National Pharmacy Week (NPW) is “Pharmacists: Frontline Health Professionals”. The Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) is the national professional body of pharmacists, which leads the celebrations.

Notes:
The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF announced that around 2 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines will be sent to developing countries next year.
UNICEF has partnered with 350 airlines and freight companies to deliver vaccines and 1 billion syringes to poor countries, as part of COVAX initiative. Under the initiative led by GAVI vaccine group and WHO among others aims to deter hoarding Covid-19 vaccines.

Notes:
Technology Giant Google has paid Rs 33,737 crore to Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL) digital subsidiary, Jio Platforms Ltd.
Google will now hold 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms and has joined the list of global investors including Facebook, Silver Lake, General Atlantic among others. This is also the biggest-ever investment of Google in an Indian company.

Notes:
The 49-year-old billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has become the world’s second-richest person, after passing Bill Gates.
The CEO of SpaceX recorded a net worth of USD 127.9 billion, by adding USD 100.3 billion to his net worth this year, which is the highest addition by anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His increase in wealth is largely driven by Tesla, whose market value is approaching USD 500 billion.

Notes:
As per the recent report released by ‘Transparency International’, as many as 74 per cent of the respondents said corruption is one of the biggest problems in their country.
The report also highlighted that around 19 % paid a bribe in the last 12 months, to access public service and youngsters are more likely to pay a bribe or use personal connection to avail public service.

Notes:
The United Nations Humanitarian Chief has released 25 million US dollars from its emergency fund to support women-led organisations fighting gender-based violence.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will receive USD 17 million and UN Women will get USD 8 million. The funding was announced at the beginning of the ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence’, from November 25 to December 10.

Notes:
November 26 is celebrated as the National Milk Day across the country, to commemorate the birth anniversary of Verghese Kurien.
He is also called the ‘Father of the White Revolution’ and the ‘Milk Man of India’. He was known his contribution in launching ‘Operation Flood’ in India, which made a milk-deficit country to the largest milk producer of the world. He was the Chairman of National Dairy Development Bard and ‘AMUL’.

Notes:
The United Kingdom is set to impose a new competition regime next year to prevent Google and Facebook from using their dominance on smaller firms.
The regime is set to be enforced by a unit within the Britain’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Google and Facebook accounted for around 80% of 14 billion pounds spent in the country in 2019.

Notes:
Faqir Chand Kohli, the founder and the first CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, has recently passed away at the age of 96.
He was also called as the ‘Father of Indian IT Industry’, for his contribution towards the development of IT industry and for pioneering the country’s ‘Technology Revolution’. He received several honours including the Padma Bhushan.

Notes:
The Government of France has decided to re-introduce tax on big Digital firms like Facebook, Amazon, Google etc.
In the early 2020, France suspended the tax on such big digital firms in exchange for a promise by USA to reduce taxation on French products. Since the US administration pulled out of the negotiation, France has decided to reintroduce levy of tax on digital firms.