Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
India is the largest borrower of Asian Development Bank and the fourth largest shareholder of ADB. The institution has approved nearly $30 billion to India.
Recently, the Asian Development Bank has announced a 1.5 billion Covid-19 package for India to help funding the country’s response to tackle Covid-19. This is a part of the Covid Support program of ADB, under which the lender has provided nearly 20 bn to the Asian countries to revamp their economies.

Notes:
The Government of India constituted the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) in the year 2018, to address the dispute over sharing of Cauvery river water among Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.
Recently, the CWMA, which was earlier under the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, has been officially brought under the Jal Shakti Ministry. Along with CWMA, Godavari River Management Board and Krishna River Management Board are also brought under the Department of Water Resources River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation in the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

Notes:
National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC) which functions under the Department of Science & Technology (DST) has launched a programme on health and risk communication named ‘Year of Awareness on Science & Health (YASH)’.
The programme aims at promoting response on health and inculcate scientific temper and health consciousness among the general public. The programme also plans to involve academic, research, media and voluntary organizations in developing solutions to equip the society to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.

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:
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:
In a recent move, the Centre hiked the duties on petrol and diesel steeply and raised it to Rs 10 and Rs 13 per litre, respectively. It was also announced that there will be no change in the retail prices as the hike will be absorbed by the Oil Marketing companies.
Among the total hike, the Road and infrastructure cess will go the revenue of the Centre only whereas the special additional excise duty will be passed on to all states through devolution at 42%. This decision has been taken at the backdrop of falling crude oil prices in the global market and lower demand during the lock-down.

Notes:
The new Prime Minister of Iraq, Mustafa al-Kadhimi assumed office after the country’s parliament approved a new government. The parliament also approved 15 ministers in a vote of confidence and seven ministries including Foreign affairs and Oil were left empty.
There has been political crisis for more than six months in the country. The two previous nominees for the role of prime minister, Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and Adnan al-Zurfi failed to secure the required support from cabinet ministers.

Notes:
According to the ‘Digital in India’ report recently released by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there were more Internet users in rural areas when compared to those in urban areas for the first time.
As of last November, out of the total 504 million active internet users, there were 227 million active internet users in rural areas while there were 205 million in urban areas. But the time spent on internet is higher among the urban people. The report also highlighted that there was an increase of 21% in female internet users, higher than that of male users (9%).

Notes:
The National Anti-Doping Agency, a national organisation under the Ministry of Sports announced that it would conduct its disciplinary hearings online. It is responsible for promoting and monitoring the doping control programs in all forms of sports in India.
Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) and Anti-Doping Appeals Panel (ADAP) will start hearing cases online, due to the lockdown imposed. NADA will also launch an application to create awareness about anti-doping.

Notes:
French cybersecurity researcher and ethical hacker Robert Baptiste who writes in the pseudonym Elliot Alderson on Twitter, warned about the security issues in the Aarogya Setu application. He also explained how the application could be manipulated to retrieve data of people infected in a given area.
As per the recent announcement of the Indian government, more than 90 million people have downloaded the application. However, the team of Aarogya Setu assured that no data or security breach has been identified.