Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
India’s first aerospace firm and a laboratory of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) has developed a portable non-invasive ventilator, ‘SwasthVayu’.
SwasthVayu is a microcontroller-based control system, that has a potential use to treat moderate or mid-stage patients. It can be used in wards, Make shift Hospitals, dispensaries and homes. The ventilator has been developed by NAL in record 36 days.

Notes:
Recently, Haryana submitted its action plan to the Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation and committed to provide tap water connection to all rural households by December, 2022 under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM). Haryana plans to provide tap connections in 7 lakh households by 2020-21.
The UT of Jammu and Kashmir also has planned to provide tap water connection to all rural households by December, 2022 under JJM. The national target under the scheme is to reach all households by 2024-25.

Notes:
The World Economic Forum has recently released the global ‘Energy Transition Index’. The index ranks 115 economies on the current performance of their energy systems and their readiness for transition to secure and sustainable energy systems.
India has moved up two positions to rank 74th from previous year, and has improved on all key parameters. Sweden has topped the Energy Transition Index (ETI) for the third consecutive year. Switzerland and Finland were ranked in the next two positions.

Notes:
The World Health Organisation recently released its flagship annual report ‘Global Nutrition Report’. The report highlighted that India and 87 other countries are likely to miss the global nutrition targets by 2025.
It also revealed that India has the highest rates of domestic inequalities in malnutrition. India would miss targets for all four nutritional indicators including stunting among under-5 children, anaemia among women of reproductive age, childhood overweight and exclusive breastfeeding. It also said that 37.9% of children under 5 years are stunted and 20.8% are wasted.

Notes:
As a part of the economic stimulus package, the Government has revised the definition of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The revised guidelines introduced a new criterion called ‘Annual turnover’.
For micro enterprises, the classification covers up to Rs 1 crore in investment and Rs 5 crore in turnover. Earlier, it was investment of 25 lakh in manufacturing and 10 lakh in services. 10 Crore investment and 50 Crore turnover is the criteria for Small enterprises and 20 Crore investment and 100 Crore turnover is the criteria for Medium enterprises.

Notes:
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh digitally commissioned a ship and two interceptor boats of the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) in Goa.
Indigenously built Indian Coast Guard Ship ‘Sachet’ is the first in the series of five offshore patrol vessels, that has been designed and built by Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL). The interceptor boats C-450 and C- 451 are indigenously designed and built by L&T Shipyard, Hazira (Gujarat). The Indian Coast Guard has reached a landmark of 150 ships and boats and 62 aircraft.

Notes:
The Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the launch of ‘Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS)’.
The outlay of the scheme is Rs.400 crore and the scheme would be implemented for a term of five years. The scheme aims to set up six to eight new test facilities in partnership with private industry and boost the domestic defence and aerospace manufacturing. The projects will be granted 75 percent funding from the government and the remaining will be borne by the SPVs.

Notes:
The state of Gujarat is set to implement sensor-based service delivery monitoring system for rural drinking water under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM).
It has already implemented a pilot project in two districts of the state to monitor whether potable water in prescribed quantity and quality is provided to every rural household regularly. The state has planned to provide 11.15 lakh household tap connections in the rural areas during 2020-21.

Notes:
The Prime Minister of Sikkim appealed to the Indian Parliament for making Sikkim a state of India, in the year 1975. A referendum was held in Sikkim and 97.5 per cent of the people voted to abolish the monarchy. Sikkim became the 22nd state of the Indian Union, on 16 May 1975.
The 36th amendment of the Indian constitution made Sikkim as a full state of India and added its name in the to the First Schedule of the Constitution. Every year, the state celebrates May 16 as Sikkim statehood day.

Notes:
In its effort to boost the economy and provide work to migrants returning from other states to home villages, the Central government allocated an additional Rs 40,000 crore to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for 2020-21.
In the Union Budget 2020-21, the total allocation made for MGNREGS was Rs 61500 Crore. Hence with this additional fund, the total allocation of this scheme for the present year becomes Rs 1.015 trillion. Out of the total fund, Rs 11,500 crore has to be spent on clearing pending dues from the previous year.