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 Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare recently released the 3rd Advance Estimates of production of major crops for 2019-20.
As per the estimates, the total food-grain production in the country is estimated at record 295.67 million tonnes in the 2019-20 crop year. This projected production is higher by 10.46 million tonnes from previous year. The total production of Rice and Wheat during 2019-20 is estimated at around 118 million tonnes and 107 million tonnes respectively.

Notes:
Veteran Bengali author Debesh Roy passed away recently at the age of 84, after he suffered from a massive cardiac arrest.
The author was actively writing articles in several Bengali dailies and had participated in protests against the attack on liberals. He had won several awards during his five-decade long writing career. He was conferred the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel ‘Teesta Parer Brittanto’. His other famous works are ‘Borisaler Jogen Mondal’, ‘Manush Khun Kore Keno’ and ‘Samay Asamayer Brittanto’.

Notes:
Every year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) celebrates the International Day of Light (IDL) on 16 May, to raise awareness on the role of light-based technologies.
The day marks the anniversary of the first successful operation of the laser in 1960 by physicist and engineer, Theodore Maiman. The UN observed International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies in 2015. After the success, it was proposed to celebrate a specific day and the first IDL was held on May 16, 2018.

Notes:
The Social-media giant Facebook has recently acquired the popular GIF-making and sharing website GIPHY. Facebook is also planning to integrate its GIF library Instagram, its photo-sharing app.
GIPHY, one of the most popular GIF-making and sharing sites on the internet, allows users to create, share and remix GIFs. Several platforms including Apple, Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit use Giphy’s API for providing GIFs.

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:
The Union Finance Minister recently announced to raise the minimum threshold to initiate insolvency proceeding to Rs 1 crore from the present limit Rs 1 lakh to benefit MSMEs.
This move will give relief to the companies that default on loans due to the Covid-19 stress. It was also announced that no fresh insolvency will be initiated for one year under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the Covid-19 related debt will be excluded from the definition of default. She also proposed decriminalisation of the Companies Act for violations involving minor technical and procedural defaults.

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:
The World Hypertension Day observed on May 17 across the world every year. This year the World Hypertension League (WHL) has postponed the celebration of World Hypertension Day (WHD) 2020 to October 17, 2020, due to global COVID-19 pandemic.
The theme for World Hypertension Day is “Measure Your Blood Pressure, Control It, Live Longer”. Hypertension, also called as elevated blood pressure, is a serious medical condition that increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney failure and blindness.