Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
The Union Government publishes the annual Status Paper on Government Debt, that provides a detailed account of the overall debt position of the country.
As per the 9th edition of the paper recently released, Central Government Debt stood at 45.7 per cent of GDP at 2018-19 yearend. It is a marginal decline against the previous year debt of 45.8 per cent. 94.1 per cent of total Central Government debt was domestic debt and Sovereign external debt was 2.7 per cent of GDP at the yearend.

Notes:
Veteran Physician and former head of the Department of Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Dr Jitendra Nath Pande recently passed away at the age of 79.
He and his wife had earlier contracted corona virus and remained in home isolation. He has contributed a lot in the field of pulmonology. He studied in the AIIMS and retired as the HOD of Medicine in the same institute. Even after retirement, he continued to mentor the practicing doctors and surgeons at AIIMS.

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:
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:
Narmada Basin Projects Company Ltd. (NBPCL) is a wholly-owned company of Madhya Pradesh government. Central PSU under Ministry of Power, Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has recently partnered with NBPCL to fund projects worth ₹22,000 crore in Madhya Pradesh.
Hydroelectric projects and power components of 12 major multipurpose projects are to be set up by deploying the funds. Major multipurpose projects, which are to be financed include Basaniya Multipurpose Project, Chinki Boras Multipurpose Project Dudhi Project, among others.

Notes:
Leading E-commerce platform Flipkart has signed a MoU with Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Corporation, to enable farmers to sell their fresh fruits online.
Under the agreement, India Post would function as the last-mile delivery partner during this season. Mango Board, Farmer Producer Organisations, sellers, growers, and traders can enrol themselves in the Flipkart platform to supply several varieties of mangoes across the state.

Notes:
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has officially launched the instant Permanent Account Number (PAN) facility which uses Aadhaar number-based e-KYC.
This was announced during the 2020 budget along with an interchangeable Aadhar and PAN feature. The Income tax department launched the beta facility on their e-filing website in February 2020. As this a paperless and real-time facility, the turn-around time taken for allotting the PAN through this facility is only about 10 minutes.

Notes:
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal participated in the Digital Summit on Exports organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
During his address through video- conferencing, the Minister said that he expects the decline in exports to narrow to 8-10 per cent in the month of June. In the month of April, 28 out of 30 major product groups have witnessed huge decline in exports up to 99 per cent.

Notes:
Manushi Chillar, who won the title of Miss World in 2017 has joined hands with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to spread awareness about menstrual hygiene.
Manushi runs an initiative on menstrual hygiene named Project Shakti. With this partnership, she will promote the efforts to educate girls about menstrual hygiene and to construct sanitation facilities. On May 28, World Menstrual Hygiene Day, she participated in UNICEF global initiative called the Red Dot Challenge.

Notes:
The United States has recently joined the G7 Artificial Intelligence group, an international panel for setting ethical guidelines for usage of artificial intelligence.
As per the announcement from the White House, this move was to counter China in threatening civil liberties using technologies. The heads of France and Canada proposed this global group to guide the adoption of AI, which was rejected by the US President Donald Trump. Now US is the last nation to join the Global Partnership on AI.