Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
Australian tennis legend Ashley Cooper, who won four Grand Slam singles titles in the 1950s, has recently passed away due to illness at the age of 83.
Ashley Cooper won the Australian Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Grand slam in the year 1958, and achieved the rare feat of winning three Grand Slam championships in a calendar year. He won all four of his Grand Slam crowns by beating his fellow countrymen in the final. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991.

Notes:
CSIR-IIIM (Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine), Jammu a premier institute under the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has partnered with Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), to develop a new RT-LAMP based COVID-19 diagnostic kit.
The RT-LAMP (Reverse Transcriptase-Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification) kit is a nucleic acid- based test conducted from nasal/throat swab sample from patients. It is a rapid, affordable and accurate test. The components are easily available and can be completely manufactured in India.

Notes:
The Harry Potter fame author J K Rowling recently unveiled her story online for the kids across the world, during the lock-down.
The title of the story is ‘The Ickabog’ and it is her first children’s story not linked to Harry Potter. The chapters of the story will be published daily until July 10, in an exclusive website recently created for the story. The author also announced that she had written this story a decade ago.

Notes:
The historic first manned space flight of SpaceX for NASA is scheduled to take off for the International Space Station on May 27.
The mission is called Demo-2 and it will launch the two NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into orbit. The Crew Dragon spacecraft of SpaceX onboard a Falcon 9 rocket is used in this historic launch. Since 2011, NASA has sent all its astronauts through Russia’s Soyuz capsule.

Notes:
The Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Giriraj Singh addressed a conference on the “PMMSY – A scheme to bring about Blue Revolution through sustainable and responsible development of fisheries sector in India”.
The scheme was approved by the Union Cabinet on May 20. It aims to increase fish production to 220 lakh metric tons by 2024-25 from 137.58 lakh metric tons in 2018-19 at an average annual growth rate of 9%. There will be an estimated investment of Rs. 20,050 crores divided by the centre, states and beneficiaries.

Notes:
Social Media Giant Twitter recently labelled tweets from the United States President Donald Trump as misleading, by linking the tweets with a fact checking page.
Under the tweets by the President, there was a message displayed by Twitter which read, “Get the facts about mail-in ballots”. Though Twitter clarified that the move was to provide context to the tweets, the President alleged that Twitter is interfering in the 2020 presidential election.

Notes:
The Survey team of China became the first to climb and reach the peak Mt. Everest this year. This is a part of the project to remeasure the exact height of the Everest.
Both China and Nepal cancelled the ‘spring’ climbing season on the world’s tallest mountain in order to prevent the expedition teams from getting infected by coronavirus. Hence the Chinese survey team is likely the only team to reach the peak of Everest, this year.

Notes:
National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI), that operates retail payments and settlement systems in India has recently launched an artificial intelligence (AI) based chatbot named ‘PAi’.
The virtual assistant has been launched with an aim to create awareness about its flagship products like FASTag, RuPay, UPI, AePS on a real time basis. Users can send queries about the products and they get verified automated responses. Global RuPay Cardholders can access the chatbot.

Notes:
Central Institute of Plastics Engineering & Technology (CIPET) has been renamed as Central Institute of Petrochemicals Engineering & Technology (CIPET).
CIPET is a premier national institution under the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers. It is located at SIDCO Industrial Estate, Chennai. With expanded coverage, CIPET will undertake efforts to promote the entire petrochemical sector with a focus on Academics, Skill improvement and Research.

Notes:
Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman chaired the 22nd Meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) and reviewed the current global and domestic macro-economic situation and financial stability in the nation.
Union Finance Minister is the chairperson of FSDC, an autonomous regulatory body set up in the year 2010. Besides the ten members which includes the RBI Governor, Finance Secretary, Chief Economic Adviser, Chairpersons of SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, IBBI among others, the Finance Minister may invite any other required person.