Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
The richest online chess tournament in history held so far was recently organised by the World Chess champion Magnus Carlsen after live tournaments could not be held amidst the Covid-19 crisis.
Named the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, the 16-day contest comprised of a total prize fund of $250,000. Magnus Carlsen won the final match and bagged the winner prize of $70,000 after defeating his American counterpart Hikaru Nakamura 2.5:1.5. Live feeds were offered during the matches with live commentary from chess grandmasters.

Notes:
On 8 and 9 May every year, the United Nations commemorates the millions who lost their lives during the Second World War. The World War-II led to the formation of the United Nations.
The commemoration to pay tribute to all victims is officially called the “Time of Remembrance and Reconciliation for Those Who Lost Their Lives during the Second World War”. It was created by a General Assembly resolution in 2004.

Notes:
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR through its flagship New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) programme has approved a project towards development of human monoclonal antibodies (hmAbs).
The antibodies can neutralize the mutated virus SARS-CoV-2 and could be used for fighting future SARS-CoV infections. The team that is going to develop the therapeutic antibodies comprises of academic institutes and industries.

Notes:
The Union Budget 2020 proposed to reduce the stay period of an individual in India to 120 days, from the previous 182 days. But this reduction is only applicable to persons with less than Rs 15 lakh as Indian income during the Financial year.
Recently, Finance Ministry allowed a relief in determining the residential status during 2019-20, where a person came to India before 22nd March, 2020 and was unable to leave India on or before 31st March 2020, his period of stay in India from 22nd March to 31st March shall not be taken into account. Otherwise they shall have to file tax returns as Indian residents.

Notes:
India launched an outreach initiative named ‘Mission Sagar’, to assist Island nations in the Indian Ocean in tackling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Indian Naval Ship Kesari has departed for the five island nations: Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros, to deliver Food, Medicines including HCQ Tablets and Special Ayurvedic Medicines, related to Covid-19. A team of select medical personnel was also sent earlier to Maldives to help increase their preparedness.

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:
New Development Bank (NDB) was established by the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries in 2014. Its headquarters is Shangai and is headed by veteran Indian K V Kamath.
BRICS’ New Development Bank was seen in news recently, as it has provided $1 billion loan to India to fight COVID-19. The complete emergency funds have been disbursed by the development institution, to help India in containing the human and economic losses due to Covid-19.

Notes:
As per the recent analysis of World Economic Forum, the CO2 emissions of India have dropped for the first time in over 40 years.
WEF highlighted that the fall in emissions is due to the economic slowdown and growth in the renewable energy sector. Emissions dipped by around 1% in the fiscal year 2019-20. In the month of March, the emissions fell by 15% and it is expected to have fallen 30% in April 2020. As the pandemic has cut the electricity demand, coal consumption also flatlined.

Notes:
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently proposed Rs 50,000 crore of liquidity by reducing the TDS and TCS rates for certain payments including interest, dividend, rent payments and other payments by non-individuals.
The rates of Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) for non-salaried payments made to residents and rates of Tax Collection at Source (TCS) for receipts will be reduced by 25 per cent of the existing rates. This reduction in rates will be effective from 14.05.2020 to 31.03.2021.

Notes:
As per the recent report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), nearly 6 Crore Indian workers in the age group of 20-39 lost their jobs in April. It revealed that 12 crore jobs had been lost because of the lockdown.
As per the report, more than 2.7 crore young people in the age group 20-29 lost their jobs last month. Also, more than 3.3 crore people in the age group 30-39 lost their jobs. 11% of the young workers in the age group of 20-24 years, who accounted for 8.5% of total employed people in the country in 2019-20, lost their jobs.