Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
China is the largest manufacturer of personal protective equipment (PPE) body coveralls, that is considered as a crucial equipment to safeguard against the prevalent COVID-19 pandemic.
As per the announcement of the Ministry of Textiles, India has become the world’s second largest manufacturer of PPE body coveralls within a short time-span of two months. The ministry also said that it ensures that only certified manufacturers are allowed to supply PPEs to governments.

Notes:
The United Nations celebrates the International Day for Biological Diversity annually on May 22, across the world, to highlight the importance of biodiversity issues.
This year the theme of the day is “Our solutions are in nature”. The theme covers 3 topics during the week, which includes 18 May to cover the importance of knowledge and science; 19-21 May to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity; and May 22, the day of the observance, to issue a call to action.

Notes:
Samsung India has collaborated with social media major Facebook to train its offline retailers for adapting digital technologies and using platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp.
The two firms have already trained more than 800 offline retailers and more training sessions are going to be carried out in future. This will help the Samsung retail partners leverage technology and make them more accessible to their customers for inquiry about smartphones.

Notes:
HIL (India), a Public Sector Undertaking under Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers is to fast track the production and supply of pesticides for farming community.
HIL has signed an agreement with Ministry of Agriculture and Famers Welfare for the supply of Malathion Technical to Rajasthan and Gujarat for Locust Control Programme. It is an insecticide used in agriculture and public health pest control programs. HIL had manufactured and supplied nearly 67 MT of Malathion Technical till last week.

Notes:
Bev Q, a virtual queue management application developed by a Kochi-based start-up Faircode Technologies, has recently been approved by Google after two-level testing. This is to be implemented to manage queues of liquor shops.
The state government of Kerala announced that liquor shops would not be opened until a queue management system is implemented. The staff working at the shops are being trained through online and video tutorials in coordination with the Kerala State Beverages Corporation.

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:
Social media and technology giant Facebook has recently launched CatchUp application, that lets the users make free phone calls.
The application developed by internal R&D group of Facebook -NPE Team, allows the users to make phone calls up to 8 people simultaneously. It uses the Facebook account in the phone to coordinate the service. It is launched at the United States as a pilot service and expected to be launched across the world soon.

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:
As per the recent data of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Singapore was the largest source of FDI in India during 2019-20 with USD 14.67 billion worth investments. It was followed by Mauritius and the Netherlands.
The data also showed that FDI in India grew by 13 per cent to a record high USD 49.97 billion in 2019-20. Maximum foreign inflows were in service sector (USD 7.85 billion), followed by computer software and hardware.

Notes:
The foundation stone for setting up a Missile Park ‘Agneeprastha’ was recently laid at INS Kalinga, Visakhapatnam by Commodore Rajesh Debnath, who heads INS Kalinga.
A 2-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant was also commissioned at INS Kalinga by the Vice Admiral of Eastern Naval Command. This is the largest plant in the Eastern Naval Command and has an estimated life of 25 years. This step is in line with the National Solar Mission proposed by the Union Government to achieve 100 GW of solar power by 2022.