Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

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:
According to the recent data of the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s foreign exchange reserves increased by USD 1.73 billion to USD 487.04 billion in the week to May 15. The increase in reserves was due to a rise in foreign currency assets (FCA).
Also, the Special drawing rights (SDR) with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) increased by USD 2 million to USD 1.42 billion. SDRs are held by IMF member countries and they represent a claim to currency for which SDRs may be exchanged.

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:
World Metrology Day is celebrated every year on May 20, that commemorates the signature of the Metre Convention on 20 May 1875 by representatives of 17 countries.
This year, the theme for World Metrology Day 2020 is ‘Measurements for global trade’. The theme was chosen to create awareness of the role of measurement in facilitating fair global trade, ensuring standards and regulations of products.

Notes:
Every year, May 25 has been observed as the World Thyroid Day since 2008, across the world. The European Thyroid Association and American Thyroid Association established World Thyroid Day to promote public awareness of thyroid disease.
Thyroid is the most common endocrine disorder and a rapidly growing problem across the world. Jal Shakti Ministry has said that water plays a crucial role in treating the symptoms of thyroid and helping in weight loss.

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 rating agency Fitch Ratings has made further slashed world GDP forecasts in its latest Global Economic Outlook (GEO).
The biggest estimate cut was for India, where the rating agency forecasts a contract of growth by 5%, which means -5% growth in 2020-21. Earlier, Fitch had estimated India’s growth to be 0.8% for FY21. The global GDP is also estimated to fall by 4.6% in 2020.

Notes:
India’s Covid-19 contact tracing app ‘Aarogya Setu’ was made an open source application by its think tank NITI Aayog.
After several privacy concerns were raised over the app, it has been open sourced so that researchers can identify any vulnerability in the app to make it more secure. National Informatics Centre (NIC), which had developed the app has announced a bug bounty programme to incentivise those who find flaws in the app.

Notes:
Former Deputy Economy Minister of Brazil, Marcos Prado Troyjo has been selected as the new President of the Shanghai-based New Development Bank’s (NDB).
He is to replace the veteran Indian banker KV Kamath as the President of the multilateral financial institution set up by the BRICS countries. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman attended the special board of Governors of NDB meeting through video-conference. Another Indian Anil Kishora was selected as the Vice President of NDB during the conference.

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.