Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), a lab of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have entered into a partnership to commercialise the FNCAS9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay, FELUDA test kit developed by IGIB.
Under the agreement, the licensing of KNOW-HOW for rapid and accurate diagnosis of COVID-19 will also be undertaken. The FELUDA kit is affordable, easy to use and not dependant on the expensive Q-PCR machines. It uses Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) based technology and paper strip model of chemistry.

Notes:
The evacuation exercise of India, considered to be one of the largest, has been named the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’, will engage about 64 flights to bring home Indian nationals stranded abroad.
Several countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, UK, Singapore and the US will be covered. In the first week of repatriation, the Gulf countries will be focussed. The highest number of flights to bring back people, were allotted for the states of Kerala (15), Tamil Nadu (11) and Delhi (11).

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:
NITI Aayog and the Department of Biotechnology have launched the Consortium for Affordable & Rapid Diagnostics (CARD) project.
The project aims to scale up India’s capacity to make coronavirus testing kits. The primary goal is to manufacture at least 10 million rapid antibody tests for Covid-19 by July. It also aims to expand RT-PCR test kits in India. The announcement has come after quality issues faced with Chinese-made antibody testing kits.

Notes:
The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) recently announced a research collaboration with Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Ltd (BBIL) to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
The virus stains that had been isolated at the National Institute of Virology, Pune (an ICMR institute), have been transferred to the Biotech firm. The ICMR and BBIL will seek approvals to speed-up vaccine development, subsequent animal studies and clinical evaluation of the indigenous vaccine.

Notes:
According to the data released by the Registrar General of India in its Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin based on data collected for 2018, the infant mortality rate was found to be 32 per thousand of the population. The national birth rate and death rate stood at 20 and 6.2 respectively.
Madhya Pradesh has worst infant mortality rate in the country with 48 per thousand while Nagaland has the best IMR (4). Bihar continues to top the birth rate list with Andaman and Nicobar Islands at the bottom. Chhattisgarh has the highest death rate, while Delhi has the lowest.

Notes:
China recently won the inaugural $180,000 FIDE Chess.com Online Nations Cup, whereas India settled in the fifth place.
On the basis of highest points in the round-robin stage, China was declared the winner as it drew 2-2 against USA, which bagged the second position. China won 48,000, USA 36,000 and others received $24,000 each. Representing India, Humpy won Olga Girya and P. Harikrishna drew with Sergey Karjakin.

Notes:
Every year the International Nurses Day is celebrated on May 12. It is celebrated to mark the birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. 2020 also marks the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale. World Health Organization (WHO) has declared 2020 as the ‘Year of the Nurse and the Midwife’.
This year, the theme of the International Nurses Day is “Nursing the World to Health”. As per the WHO, Nurses account for more than half of health workers and still 5.9 million more nurses are needed across the world.

Notes:
The social security scheme of Government of India ‘Atal Pension Yojana’ (APY) has completed five years of successful implementation. The scheme has witnessed 2.23 Crore enrolments since its launch.
It was launched in the year 2015 by the Indian Prime Minister to deliver a minimum guaranteed pension to workers in unorganised sector. The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) administers the scheme.

Notes:
As per the Lancet report titled ‘India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative’, 68% of the under-five deaths in India are caused due to child and maternal malnutrition.
The report has the first comprehensive estimates of district-level trends of child mortality in India since 2000. It also highlighted that 83% of the neonatal deaths were due to low birth weight and short gestation. Though the child mortality has improved across the country from 2000 to 2017, inequalities among the districts have also raised.