Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
Uttarakhand government has recently launched a portal named ‘HOPE’ – Helping Out People Everywhere, to assist the workers of the state to find suitable employment.
The portal has started to collect data on the youngsters of the state and migrant workers returned from other states. The workers can upload their skill-sets on the website and based on that, they will be able to find suitable jobs at home-state. The data collected will be used for implementing the Mukhyamantri Swarojgar Yojana, implemented by the state earlier.

Notes:
Ministry of Human and Resource Development has developed an e-Governance platform, SAMARTH- Enterprises Resource Planning (ERP).
The platform has been developed under National Mission of Education in Information and Communication Technology Scheme (NMEICT). SAMARTH is an open source automation engine for Universities and Higher Educational Institutions. It has been launched at National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, to automate the processes of the Institute.

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 the recent economic stimulus package, the Finance Minister announced that the government is taking steps to make India a global Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) hub of aircraft.
As the aircraft component repairs and airframe maintenance is set to increase from Rs 800 crore to Rs 2,000 crore in three years, India can make use of the opportunity. Major engine manufacturers in the world are expected to set up engine repair facilities in India in future. The Minister also announced auctioning of six more airports on public-private partnership (PPP) basis.

Notes:
As a part of the economic stimulus package, the Union Finance Minister proposed that the Electricity distribution companies (Discoms) in the Union Territories (UTs) would be privatised.
As of now, Delhi is the only Union Territory which has private power Discoms namely Reliance Infrastructure’s BSES and Tata Power Delhi Distribution. Earlier, the draft amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003 were announced, which included the proposal of private participation in electricity distribution.

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:
According to a recent study published in the journal MycoKeys, the researchers found an image of a millipede in Twitter and noticed some tiny dots near the creature’s head.
It has never been seen on the American millipedes and the newly discovered parasitic fungus has now been officially named as Troglomyces twitteri in Latin. The team discovered several specimens of the same fungus on some American millipedes found in the Natural History Museum.

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:
Every year, May 18 is celebrated to acknowledge and thank the medical community and scientists who have been working to find a safe AIDS vaccine. It also creates awareness about urgent need for a vaccine, safe practices, discouraging sharing of needles and early testing of people at risk.
AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) is one of the most serious health conditions of the globe, which has affected nearly 2.1 million people in India. The disease is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which affects the T lymphocytes in the body.

Notes:
As a part of the stimulus package, the Union Minister announced the auction of Coal Bed Methane (CBM) blocks from Coal India and auction of 50 coal blocks immediately for commercial mining.
Coal Bed Methane (CBM) is a form of natural gas extracted from coal beds. Recently, Coal India has appointed its exploration arm, Central Mine Planning and Design Institute (CMPDIL) as its principal implementing agency to auction CBM extraction rights for all new mines. The auction will be based on a revenue sharing basis.