Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
In the economic stimulus package, the Finance Minister proposed an ‘Agriculture Infrastructure Fund’, which will be created immediately with an outlay of Rs. 1 lakh crore.
The fund aims to address the lack of adequate cold chain and Post-Harvest Management infrastructure. Financial assistance will be provided for funding Agriculture Infrastructure Projects at farm-gate and aggregation points including Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), Farmers Producer Organisations (FPO), Agriculture entrepreneurs, Start-ups, etc.

Notes:
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) recently announced that its Director-General of Roberto Azevedo will step down on August 31, 2020 on personal grounds. This is a year before the end of his second term as he has completed 7 years as the WTO chief.
The Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO) was founded in the year 1995 and India is one of the founder members of this body. The main objective of WTO is to frame rules for global exports and imports and regulate international trade by reducing barriers.

Notes:
The nation-wide electronic agriculture trading portal, e-NAM has recently reached milestone of 1000 mandis (markets) across 18 states and three union territories.
e-NAM was launched in 2016, with the objective of connecting the existing mandis on a common online market platform for agricultural produce in the country. With the recent addition of 38 mandis, it has reached the milestone of 1000 mandis, for which May 15 was fixed as the deadline. Amid the lock-down, trade through e-NAM reduces human intervention in the process.

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.

Notes:
The President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani and his political rival Abdullah Abdullah have recently signed a power-sharing agreement.
This political step has been finalised two months after both the leaders declared themselves the winner of the presidential election held last September. As per the spokesperson, the political deal seeks Ghani to remain the Afghan President and Abdullah to lead the country’s National Reconciliation High Council.

Notes:
Bundesliga, the professional football league in Germany is the first tournament to resume after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The German Football Association (DFL) has planned to complete the season by June 30. The German government approved the league to conduct the matches. On March 13, the Bundesliga was suspended owing to the pandemic. Now, all games will be held behind closed doors as there is a ban in Germany for mass gatherings. Bundesliga is known for the world’s highest average audience in the stadium.

Notes:
About 88 Nobel laureates across the world including the Indian Nobel prize winner Kailash Satyarthi united and called for governments to spend USD 1 trillion for marginalised children, during the lock-down imposed due to Covid-19.
Other notable personalities who signed this agreement were Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Human rights activist Desmond Tutu, among others. The assistance would cancel two years of debt repayments from low-income countries and fund 2 years of the global gap to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Notes:
The former executive of Walt Disney, who led the successful launch of the Disney streaming service, Kevin Mayer is set to become the chief executive officer of TikTok, the popular micro video sharing platform.
TikTok platform is owned by China-based ByteDance Technology. The appointment of Kevin Mayer will be made effective from June 1. He will also serve in the ByteDance as the Chief Operating Officer. Disney named a company veteran Rebecca Campbell to replace Mayer as head of the division led by him.

Notes:
The state of Madhya Pradesh has recently launched a new initiative, the first in the country named Charan Paduka campaign.
The campaign seeks to assist the migrant labourers who are walking barefoot by providing foot-wears to them. It was started from a Police station at Indore and is being implemented with the help of civilians, across the state. This scheme has been launched amid several accidents of the state involving migrants.

Notes:
The Jammu & Kashmir government notified Jammu and Kashmir Grant of Domicile Certificate (Procedure) Rules, 2020. There shall be a timeline of 15 days for issuance of the certificate after which the applicant can approach an Appellate Authority.
According to that, all people who have resided in the UT for 15 years, or have studied for 7 years and appeared in class 10th or 12th examination there and their children, Children of Government officials who have served in the UT for 10 years are eligible. Now, West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs), sanitation workers and children of women married outside Jammu and Kashmir shall also be eligible for Domicile Certificate.