Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar represented India in the recently held eleventh session of Petersberg Climate Dialogue, along with is counterparts from 30 nations. Prior to this, the Minister also participated in an Indo German bilateral meeting through video conference.
This session of the Climate Dialogue is the first virtual Climate Dialogue. The Petersberg Dialogue has been hosted by Germany since 2010 to provide a global forum for informal political discussions on climate negotiations and climate action.

Notes:
Versatile Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan has recently passed away at a private hospital in Mumbai, at the age of 53.
Irrfan is considered as one of the finest actors in Hindi cinema. He won the National Award in 2013 for his outstanding performance in the sports drama ‘Paan Singh Tomar’. He was also awarded the prestigious Padma Shri award in 2011. He had also acted in famous Hollywood films like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘Jurassic World’, and ‘Life of Pi’.

Notes:
According to the recent data released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and its partners, seven million unintended pregnancies would occur in the coming months, as nearly 47 million women in low-income countries who would be unable to use modern contraceptives.
It also warned the number of women facing gender-based violence and other harmful practices would increase by several times. UNFPA is a UN organisation headquartered at New York, United States.

Notes:
The present Additional Secretary in Prime Minister’s Office and 1988 batch IAS officer, Tarun Bajaj recently assumed charge as the next Economic Affairs Secretary.
He is replacing Atanu Chakraborty who superannuated on April 30. Before having appointed in the Prime Minister’s Office, he served as the Joint Secretary in Economic Affairs Department, in charge of multilateral funding agencies division. He had also served as the Director in Department of Financial Services.

Notes:
The Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), a New Delhi-based laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has recently launched a mobile application named ‘Kisan Sabha’ to connect farmers to supply chain, amidst the nation-wide lockdown.
The application aims to provide logistics support to the farmers so that they can directly connect with the institutional buyers. This linkage with the freight transportation Management System would minimize middlemen and increase the profit of farmers

Notes:
Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department, IIT Bombay, Mr. Saurabh Lodha has received the Young Career Award in Nano Science and Technology for the year 2020 instituted by the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
He has been selected for the prestigious award for contributing in development of logic transistor technologies beyond the conventional silicon transistors and development of nano electronic devices based on two-dimensional ‘Van der Waals’ materials. His work has been presented at global device conferences and have been incorporated in semiconductor equipment for advanced transistor technologies.

Notes:
The state government of Tamil Nadu has recently raised the retirement age of State Government employees to 59 from 58.
The Government order comes to force with immediate effect, as per the notification released. This order will also apply to all teachers in government and government-aided schools and colleges, and employees working in State public sector undertakings.

Notes:
As a part of the humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR) outreach of the Indian Navy, the armed force has deployed five of its biggest amphibious warfare vessels on a mission to provide essential supplies to friendly Indian Ocean Region (IOR) countries.
Indian Naval Ship (INS) Kesari, INS Jalashwa, INS Magar, INS Airawat and INS Shardul are deployed in the operations. On their return journey some of them will bring back the stranded Indian nationals in those countries.

Notes:
India International Exchange Limited (India INX) is India’s first international stock exchange located in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) city and is a subsidiary of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
Recently the Union Finance Minister launched INR-USD futures and options contracts on the two international exchanges — BSE’s India INX and NSE’s NSE-IFSC, at GIFT city, Gandhinagar. This decision of allowing rupee derivatives will bring the rupee trading to our country, which are presently dominated by exchanges in Dubai and Singapore.

Notes:
Coir Board, a statutory body under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises has recently signed an MoU with the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, to establish a Centre of Excellence for Coir Applications.
As per the announcement of the MSME Ministry, Coir Board will provide a financial assistance of five crore rupees for two years for the establishment and running of the Centre of Excellence. The Centre will take up and develop the Research and Development work done in the coir sector.