Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
The First Observance of the International Tea Day under the theme ‘Harnessing benefits for all from field to cup’ was held on 21 May 2020. The Day brings together the countries where tea cultivation is an important source of jobs and incomes.
Last year, the United Nations General Assembly has designated May 21 as International Tea Day on the basis of the proposal moved by India at the FAO Intergovernmental Group (IGG). The first International Tea Day was celebrated virtually and was attended by FAO head, QU Dongyu

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.

Notes:
The Ministry of Electronics and IT has recently integrated seven services of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) services on the “UMANG App”.
The services are Current Weather, Nowcast, City Forecast, Rainfall Information, Tourism Forecast, Warnings & Cyclone. UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is a mobile application lunched by the Government of India in 2017 for delivering services online on a single unified platform.

Notes:
The Mizoram Cabinet has recently granted industry status to sports, amidst the gradual lifting of lock-down, following the sports policy in many countries.
This decision is expected to promote employment generation in the state. This was announced by the state’s Chief Minister Zoramthanga. The Sports and Youth Services department had advised the State government to grant the status. Mizoram has a good group of Football players who represent several important clubs.

Notes:
Africa Day is celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity, which was established 57 years ago, on May 25th, 1963 and its successor organization is the African Union, which was established in 2002.
The day highlights and celebrates the vitality and diversity of Africa and to promote African unity. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the day is celebrated virtually. As of now, Africa has 1.5 percent of the reported cases of COVID-19 in the world and less than 0.1 percent of the world’s deaths.

Notes:
The first unmanned helicopter drone of China, named AR500C was seen in news as the helicopter made its first successful flight recently.
It has been designed to fly in plateau areas and capable of firing and conducting investigation from a high altitude. The unmanned helicopter is expected to be deployed along the country’s borders with India, to safe-guard the southwestern borders in Tibet.

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:
Multinational service network Deloitte recently conducted ‘Global State of the Consumer Tracker’ survey using an online panel, among the people across the world aged above 18.
As per the study, consumers in India are the most worried during these uncertain times and are placed at the top of the Global anxiety index with a score of 33. India was followed by Mexico and Spain. However, the anxiety score of India has gradually declined during the month of May.

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:
Global technology major Facebook has recently launched an experimental short music videos application called ‘Collab’.
The videos created using Collab app can be published on other platforms including Instagram and Facebook Stories. The research team of Facebook, NPE Teams has developed this application. Earlier, the team had developed some other experimental apps including CatchUp and Hobbi.