Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2020

Notes:
As per the recent report of the United Nations, over 117 million children in 37 countries around the world would miss to receive the measles vaccine, amid the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the World Health for Organization and the UNICEF, the immunisation campaigns for eliminating measles have already been delayed in 24 countries and more campaigns will be postponed. WHO has released guidelines to sustain the immunisation process in several countries.

Notes:
The Delhi government has launched a new application called ‘Assess Koro Na’ and has directed its officials to use the new app to conduct door-to-door survey.
The survey is carried out in coronavirus containment zones, and with the real-time information collected through the app, the control centres can decide quickly if they require ambulances and medical equipment.

Notes:
The Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has recently launched a mobile application named ‘Kisan Rath’, for better transportation of perishable agricultural goods during lockdown.
Developed by the National Informatics, the mobile application assists the farmers to find transport facility. The app is expected to include as many as 5 lakh trucks and 20,000 tractors in the chain, to transport the agricultural goods to markets. Recently, a nation-wide call centre has also been launched for the same purpose.

Notes:
The Matterhorn mountain is a famous mountain located in the Alps range with a height of 4478 meters. It is one of the highest summits of the Alps and spans between two European countries Switzerland and Italy.
The summit was seen in news recently, as a famous Swiss light artist Gerry Hofstetter lit up the mountain with the Indian flag to express their solidarity for India, in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. The summit has been illuminated with the flags of various countries for nearly 3 weeks, as a part of nightly series.

Notes:
The 44th session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO was initially scheduled to be held from June 29 to July 9, in the Chinese city of Fuzhou, the capital of the country’s Fujian province.
As per the recent announcement of the Education Ministry of China, the 44th session has been postponed to a later date. This unanimous decision has been made in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The date of the postponed session has not yet been announced.

Notes:
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is an international organisation comprising of 57 member nations, with 53 Muslim-majority countries. The headquarters of OIC is located in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The organisation was recently in news, as it had recently urged India to take immediate steps to protect the rights of minority Muslim community in India, who are being stigmatized. It also asked the Indian government to intervene and prevent the incidents of hatred expressed towards Muslims.

Notes:
As per the recent announcement of the Chief Minister of Goa, it is the first state in the country to become coronavirus-free.
The state had seven patients who had contracted the coronavirus and all the 7 patients have been discharged. As the repeat samples of the patients were tested negative, they will be quarantined for further observation. After Goa, Manipur has also become a green state, free of coronavirus infections.

Notes:
Union Finance Minister of India Nirmala Sitharaman participated in the 5th Annual Meeting of Board of Governors of New Development Bank (NDB).
The Finance Minister also appreciated the efforts of NDB in granting an emergency financial assistance of about $5 billion to BRICS countries including an assistance of $1 billion to India, for fighting the coronavirus pandemic. The Minister also suggested to upgrade the assistance to $10 billion.

Notes:
On April 21, 1947 the first Home Minister of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel addressed the probationers of Administrative Services Officers in 1947.
While delivering the historical address at the Metcalf House, Delhi, he described the Civil servants as ‘steel frame of India’. To commemorate this occasion, April 21 has been observed as the Civil Services Day every year, across the country.

Notes:
After the meeting of National Biofuel Coordination Committee (NBCC) under the chairmanship of Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, it has been decided to convert the surplus rice available with Food Corporation of India (FCI) into ethanol for manufacturing alcohol-based hand sanitisers.
It is also approved to use the ethanol for Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) programme, for blending with petrol. This approval has been made under the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018, which provides that the surplus food-grains can be converted to ethanol after approval of NBCC.