Test: April 2020 Weekly Current Affair - 3 - UPSC MCQ

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has given its approval for pool testing to Uttar Pradesh (UP), making latter the first state to do so. The decision has been taken to maximize the sample testing on a daily basis as the cases of COVID-19 positive patients are increasing in the state. As of April 13, 2020, the tally for coronavirus positive cases in the state is 558.

Jim Corbett National Park, the India’s oldest forested wildlife sanctuary located in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, has become the India’s 1st quarantine centre for animals with symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19).

In order to reach out to people amid COVID-19 lockdown, the Ministry of Tourism launched a webinar series called “DekhoApnaDesh”, which is based on tourism awareness and social history. The title of the first series is ‘City of Cities – Delhi’s Personal Diary’.

SpiceJet on April 7, 2020 operated the country’s first cargo-on-seat flight to carry essentials amid Covid-19.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) in partnership with the State Bank of India (SBI) has launched a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) based payment platform, Bharat InstaPay to enable all types of channel partners of BSNL to digitize their payment transactions on a round the clock basis/ real- time basis.

Poker Stars India has appointed former Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni as its new brand ambassador. Prior to MS Dhoni’s appointment popular Bollywood actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui was the brand ambassador of the company.

Tata Power company limited’s ‘Club Enerji #Switchoff2SwitchOn’ campaign, which is India’s 1st, energy & resource conservation club has won silver in the Edison Award 2020 under Social innovation’s subcategory, social energy solution. The company’s ‘Club Enerji’ is a 12-year old sustainability initiative which targets school children.

The government-appointed 8-member committee of experts headed by IBBI (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India) Chairperson M S Sahoo has submitted a report on “valuation professionals” and proposed an institutional framework for valuers by setting up National Institute of Valuers (NIV). In this regard the committee has submitted its report to the Government of India on March 31, 2020 along with Draft Valuers Bill, 2020, recommending establishing a National Institute of Valuers, which is now open for comments till May 14, 2020.

The Pragati initiative of Facebook will incubate and accelerate early-stage women-led non-profits that are working to drive women entrepreneurship and to spread awareness and adoption of technology among women in India. Facebook Pragati will award four grants of up to ₹50 lakh for each non-profit to scale their work.

Paytm, a major digital payment system and financial service platform, appoints Vineet Arora as the Managing Director (MD) & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Paytm General Insurance Limited (Ltd).

As informed by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), “SuChek” has been developed with financial assistance from ICMR, which is 100% indigenous glucometer suitable for diverse climatic conditions, affordable and validated as per International standards. Another indigenous device developed as a part of ICMR study for HbA1c testing is under validation.

For earthquakes, CubeSat Imaging Radar for Earth Sciences (CIRES)’s new kind of radar can sound the alarm of an earthquake before the cataclysm hits which was NASA’s satellite & bulging phenomenon occurs before a volcanic eruption. Magma accumulates and the ground slightly inflates. interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) can observe this inflation and warn about a particular volcano erupting in that specific area.

The International Day of Mathematics (IDM) was celebrated for the first time on March 14, 2020 globally. On this day all countries will be invited to participate through activities for both students and the general public in schools, museums, libraries and other spaces. The day was proclaimed by UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) on the 40th session of the General Conference, November 26, 2019. Theme for the year 2020: Mathematics is Everywhere.

The Cyber Coordination Centre (CyCord), under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), has issued an advisory to safeguard private individuals who use the video-conferencing app, Zoom for private purposes like a meeting platform & states that it is not for use by government officers/officials for official purposes.

Mumbai is the first city in India to make masks compulsory. “All person must wear a three-ply mask or a cloth mask in public places.

RBI been decided to reduce the fixed reverse repo rate under liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) by 25 basis points (bps) from 4% to 3.75% with immediate effect to maintain more liquidity in the banking system. On the other hand, repo rate remained unchanged to 4.40%, but it could be reduced as inflation is likely to fall below its target in a couple of months. Following table shows the Policy Rates of RBI as of April 17, 2020:

5-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand was appointed as ambassador of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) India’s environment education programme.

In accordance with the Gartner 2019 Digital Workplace Survey, India has become the world’s most digitally dexterous (skilful) country in the world as it has a vast Gen Z workforce who are keen to learn new digitally powered skills in the workplace. India is followed by the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US). It should be noted that Generation Z or Gen Z are the ones born between 1995 and 2009.India Digitally dexterous country The digital workforce in India and Singapore use real-time messaging and social media networks more frequently for real-time collaboration than the workforce of China, France, Germany, the US and the UK.

Google has launched a new braille keyboard named TalkBack to simplify smartphone typing for those who are suffering from visual impairment. “TalkBack braille keyboard is a new virtual braille keyboard integrated directly into Android.

A book titled “Shuttling to the Top: The Story of P V Sindhu” authored by Krishnaswamy V was published by HarperCollins in Amazon digital platform along with other two books, amid the lockdown due to Coronavirus.

According to the amendment of Credit Guarantee Fund for Micro Units (CGFMU) scheme as notified by the ministry of Finance states that the coverage of lender’s loss in case of loan default is increased to 75% from earlier 50%.

TVS (Thirukkurungudi Vengaram Sundram) Motor Company Ltd, an Indian multinational motorcycle company, has acquired the 122-year-old iconic British company Norton Motorcycle (UK) Ltd for Rs 153 crore (£16 million).

1st of its kind deal, where Indian movie producer and distributor Eros International (which is also the holding company of the Lulla’s-promoted Eros Group) a NYSE-listed announced an all-share merger with 6-year-old, privately held Hollywood’s STX Entertainment to create an equally-held global entertainment company with a value of USD 1 billion.

In the wake of increasing death toll, the central government has constituted high-level task force for vaccine and drug testing for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) co-chaired by Vinod Paul, member NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog, and Professor Krishnaswamy VijayRaghavan, principal scientific advisor to the government. The task force members include Director General of Health Services, Dr. Rajiv Garg, Drug Controller General of India, Dr. VG Somani and representatives of Ayush ministry, ICMR, department of biotechnology, among others. Department of biotechnology would act as a nodal agency for the development of the vaccine to fight COVID-19 and to provide government facilitation. The objective of the task force is to catalyze national and international efforts towards vaccine development to treat Covid-19.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) became the first state in the country to geotag its 7,368 community kitchens and community shelters across 75 districts which produce 12 lakh food packets a day, due to the sudden onset of COVID-19 lockdown. The Yogi Adityanath State government has also tied up with Google to “Geo-map” for the location of all these establishments through the Google Maps app for ease of beneficiaries.