Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to invest $100 million equivalent in the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund-NIIF’s Fund of Funds.
ADB joins the Government of India (GOI) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as an investor in one of the instruments of NIIF of India. NIIF is an investment platform for Indian and international investors where they are mandated to invest equity capital in domestic infrastructure.

Notes:
The Department of Science and Technology has released Rs. 1 Crore to an incubatee firm called Science and Technology park also called as Scitech park.
The Pune-based Scitech park has developed a novel air-purifying technology, which is expected to be used during the ongoing response of the country against Covid-19. The production of the new purifier called ‘Scitech Airon’ is to be scaled up and 1000 units will be soon installed in hospitals.

Notes:
The Government of India lowered the interest rates on various small savings schemes for the first quarter of 2020-21.
As per the revision, the interest rate for the flagship Sukanya Samriddhi Account scheme has been reduced to 7.6% against 8.4% earlier. Investments in PPF will earn 7.1% against 7.9%; the five-year National Savings Certificate will earn 6.8% against 7.9% earlier; KVP will earn 6.9% against 7.6% earlier and five-year Senior Citizens Savings Scheme will return 7.6% against 8.6% earlier.

Notes:
On April 1, the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Diplomatic relations between India and China was celebrated on April 1.
As per the release of the Union External Affairs Ministry, the Presidents, Prime Ministers and External Affairs Ministers of India and China exchanged messages of felicitation to mark the 70th anniversary. India was the first non-Communist country in Asia to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on April 1, 1950.

Notes:
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has registered its first overseas case and has started investigation into the terrorist attack on a gurdwara at Kabul, Afghanistan.
On March 25, 2020, some gunmen entered a gurdwara in Kabul and fired, which killed 27 devotees and injured several others. The recent amendments in NIA Act have permitted NIA to investigate cases against the Indian citizens or affecting the interest of India, which are committed at places outside India.

Notes:
The Government of India has recently launched a mobile application named ‘Aarogya Setu’, to enable people assess the risk of coronavirus infection.
The app is built in a public-private partnership mode and has been launched on both the Google Play Store and the Apple Store. The app assesses the risk of a person based on their interactions, by using Bluetooth technology and Artificial intelligence. The app will detect other devices with the same app installed near-by.

Notes:
The Union Agriculture Minister launched new features of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform amid the lockdown, which includes Warehouse based trading module in e-NAM software, FPO trading module in e-NAM where FPOs can trade their produce from the collection centre and enhanced version of logistic module.
e-NAM platform was launched in India on 14 April 2016 as a nation-wide electronic trade portal, which links APMCs across the state. 585 mandis in 16 States and 2 Union Territories have been integrated on e-NAM portal.

Notes:
Technological major Google has recently shut down its neighbourhood community app called Neighbourly, which will be completely closed on May 12, 2020.
The application which was launched two years ago, hasn’t gained much userbase as expected and hence it has been shut down. The users will be able to download the content of the application until October 12 of this year.

Notes:
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has notified three incentive schemes to boost electronics manufacturing namely Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI), Electronics Manufacturing Clusters 2.0 (EMC 2.0), Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronics Components and Semiconductors (SPECS).
The schemes which were cleared by the Cabinet last month, include incentives worth more than Rs 48,000 crore. PLI is the largest scheme with an outlay of Rs 40,000 crore which will give incentives of 4-6% on incremental sales on mobile phones and specified electronic components.

Notes:
One of the leading aid agencies in the world, USAID of the United States government, has announced a grant of USD 2.9 million to India to help it tackle the effect of coronavirus pandemic.
This assistance was announced by the US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster. The aid agency will also support the World Health Organization (WHO) initiatives in India. The proposed funds will help the Indian Government of India in curbing the spread of COVID-19.