Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) signed a USD 145 million agreement with the Government of India and West Bengal Government for a project.
The project aims to improve the irrigation services and flood management in the Damodar Valley Command Area in West Bengal. The total value of the project is over 413 million dollars and will benefit about 27 lakh farmers from five districts of the state.

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 Union Finance Minister launched a scheme named ‘PM e Vidya’, as a part of the Stimulus package, in order to promote digital education in the country.
This comprehensive program will include DIKSHA (one nation-one digital platform), through which quality e-content will be provided to all school children; a dedicated educational channel for each class from 1 to 12; Community Radio and CBSE’s Shiksha Vani podcast. It also includes study material for the differently abled developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY).

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:
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:
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 Cabinet of Nepal has recently approved their new political map including Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura under its territory.
Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali announced that the official map of Nepal will be released by the Ministry of Land Management soon. The announcement has been made amid a border dispute between India and Nepal. Both the countries claim Kalapani as an integral part of their territory.

Notes:
High Commissioner of India to Bangladesh signed an addendum to the ‘Protocol on Inland Water Transit and Trade’ with the Shipping Ministry of Bangladesh, in Dhaka.
It was signed to operationalise five new ports of call and two more protocol routes to enhance trade and connectivity between the two countries. The number of Indo-Bangladesh Protocol (IBP) routes are also being increased from 8 to 10. Among the newly added ports of call, Dhulian, Maia, Kolaghat, Sonamura and Jogigopha are in India while Rajshahi, Sultanganj, Chilmari, Daudkandi and Bahadurabad are in Bangladesh.

Notes:
As per the recent data of the Reserve Bank of India, the Bank credit increased 6.52 per cent year-on-year to Rs 102.52 trillion and Bank deposits grew 10.64 per cent to Rs 138.50 trillion in the fortnight ended May 8.
The data also highlighted that Private sector banks made the highest credit expansion and their share in total credit expanded to 35.7 per cent, 32 per cent and 30 per cent in 2019, 2018 and 2017 respectively. The data also revealed that bank credit growth (y-o-y) decelerated for the fourth successive quarter in December 2019.

Notes:
Leading Public Sector Enterprises Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and NTPC Ltd signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU), to set up a joint venture company for the renewable energy business.
As per the MoU, NTPC and ONGC will explore and set up renewable power projects including offshore wind in India and in other countries. The enterprises will also roll-out their expertise in the fields of sustainability, storage, e-mobility and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) compliant projects.