Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the city corporation of Bengaluru has launched ‘Pranavayu programme’ to create awareness about self-examination of respiratory health for the city-dwellers.
The programme aims at educating people with low oxygen level in their blood to check themselves at an early stage. Under the programme, several advertisements are published in media about self-examination.

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:
The Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR and National Centre for Disease Control proposed to launch a population-based sero-survey at district level.
This operation is to be done in collaboration with key stakeholders and State Health Departments. It involves testing the blood serum predominantly. All population groups including outpatient attendees, pregnant women and health care workers will be tested.

Notes:
The TVS group and the Sundaram Medical Foundation collaborated with IIT-Madras to develop an affordable and automated respiratory assist device called The Sundaram Ventago.
This device has been developed in collaboration with hospitals like Madras Medical College and Kauvery Hospital along with guidance from institutions like MIT-Boston. The device uses automated squeezing of a self-inflating bag or AMBU bag to provide respiratory support to patients.

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, the Geographical Indication (GI) tag has been provided to Jharkhand’s Sohrai Khovar painting and Telangana’s Telia Rumal handloom cloth.
The painting is a traditional art that is created by tribal women with locally available soils of different colours. It is predominantly done in Hazaribagh district of Jharkhand. Telia Rumal cloth has intricate handmade work with cotton loom, with designs in red, black and white colours. Thanjavur Netti (pith) works that uses Aeschynomene aspera plant and Arumbavur Wood Carving also got G.I tag from Tamil Nadu.

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:
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:
Ecowrap is the research report of India’s largest lender State Bank of India. Recently, SBI released its latest Ecowrap report.
It has revised the baseline fiscal deficit to 7.9 per cent of the revised GDP in FY21, which is more than double to its previous estimate. The report had earlier estimated the fiscal deficit as 3.5 % of GDP. The reason for the revision is due to the lower revenues and higher expenditure against the backdrop of Covid-19 pandemic.

Notes:
World Bank has recently approved USD 1 billion ‘Accelerating India’s COVID-19 Social Protection Response Program’.
The program aims to support India in fighting Covid-19 and providing assistance to the poor and vulnerable people of the country who are affected by the pandemic. Last month, the World Bank had announced a USD 1 billion support for India and hence this step raises its total commitment for India to USD 2 billion, as of now.