Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
National Book Trust (NBT) India has published the corona studies series titled “Psycho-Social impact of pandemic & lockdown and how to Cope With”.
Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank recently virtually launched the print and e-editions of the seven titles of the series. The series was prepared by a Study Group, that also has recommended strengthening of ‘Preventive Mental Health component’ of the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP), as a long-term strategy to prepare a post-Corona society.

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 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:
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:
As a part of the economic stimulus package, the Union Finance Minister launched an initiative called ‘Manodarpan’, which aims to provide psychosocial support to students, teachers and families, at the backdrop of the global pandemic, the time when students, teachers and their families need support for their mental well-being.
The initiative is proposed to be launched through a website, a toll-free helpline through a national directory of counsellors. In another step, top 100 universities are allowed to start online courses and online component in conventional Universities and programmes will also be raised from present 20% to 40%.

Notes:
As a part of the economic stimulus package, the Centre has increased the borrowing limit of states to 5% of Gross state domestic product (GSDP) in 2020-21.
The present limit of the state’s borrowing is 3% of their corresponding GSDP. This move is expected to make an additional Rs 4.28 lakh crore available to the states. But, the additional borrowing beyond the 3.5% of GDSP limit shall be linked to specific reforms carried out by the states, including ‘One Nation, One Ration card,’ ease of doing business and power distribution etc.

Notes:
The state government of Chhattisgarh is set to launch its ambitious Rajiv Gandhi Kisan Nyay Yojana on May 21, which marks the death anniversary of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The scheme has an aim of boosting the rural economy in the state and to recover them from the slowdown caused due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the scheme, the state will infuse Rs 5100 crore through Direct Benefit Transfer into the accounts of farmers. The farmers would be paid Rs 10,000 per acre for paddy, corn and sugarcane crops.

Notes:
The Government has recently accepted and implemented three important recommendations of Committee of Experts (CoE) under the Chairmanship of Lt General D B Shekatkar (Retd).
The three recommendations are related to border Infrastructure, which focusses on speeding up road construction. Another recommendation was to outsource the road construction projects that were beyond the optimal capacity of BRO. Engineering Procurement Contract (EPC) mode is to be adopted for execution of works costing above Rs 100 crore.

Notes:
International Museum Day is celebrated every year across the world on May 18, for the last 40 years. This year the theme of the International Museum Day is ‘Museums for Equality: Diversity and Inclusion’.
The objective of celebration of this day is to raise awareness about the importance of Museums in cultural exchange and mutual cooperation and peace among people. Development of Museums and Cultural Spaces of the Culture Ministry hosted a webinar on ‘Revitalising Museums and Cultural Spaces’ on the International Museum Day.

Notes:
The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced the results of garbage-free star rating for the cities.
The top ‘five-star garbage-free’ tag was given to six cities including Chhattisgarh’s Ambikapur, Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, Gujarat’s Rajkot and Surat, Karnataka’s Mysore and Maharashtra’s Navi Mumbai. As many as 141 cities were rated based on their garbage management. 65 cities were given three-star while 70 were given one-star.