Current Affairs - 2019-20

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In Finland, 2,000 unemployed people are being provided with monetary compensation each month for a span of two years with very little or no preconditions.

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Currently (June, 2018), Apollo Global Management LLC tops the list of the world’s top 10 private equity firms, with just under $150 billion in total private equity assets under management(AUM) for 2015. Blackstone is the world’s second biggest private equity firm. 

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India and Switzerland have signed two pacts for technical cooperation in the field of Railways after delegation level talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting President of Swiss Confederation Doris Leuthard in New Delhi. The aim of pacts is to cooperate in the areas of traction rolling stock, EMU and Train sets, traction propulsion equipments, freight and passenger cars, etc. To boost bilateral ties, Swiss president, Doris Leuthard is on a 3-day visit to India. The visit is significant as Switzerland is the chair of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) where India has been seeking membership. The main theme of the presidential visit is the Treaty of Friendship signed between Switzerland and India in 1948, in which the two countries gave assurances of “perpetual peace” and “unalterable friendship”.

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Chandrayaan was launched on October 22nd 2008 and successfully reached the lunar surface on November 14, 2008. The ISRO lost communication with Chandrayaan-1 on August 29, 2009, almost a year after it was launched on October 22, 2008. It operated for 312 days.
In 2017 NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have found India’s first lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1 which was considered lost, is still orbiting the moon.

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Germany is the largest economy in Europe, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over 3.87 trillion Euros in 2022. The United Kingdom and France are the second and third largest economies in Europe, respectively. The other top six largest national economies in Europe are: Russia, Italy, Spain.
The European Union’s GDP was estimated to be around $16.6 trillion in 2022, which is about one sixth of the global economy.

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National Highway Authority of India was awarded with Best Design Pavilion Award in the recently concluded 105th Indian Science Congress held in Imphal.

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The Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently approved the launch of Ayushman Bharat -National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) in New Delhi on March 21, 2018. The scheme has the benefit cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year. The target beneficiaries under the scheme will be over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families. The benefits of the scheme are portable across the country. A beneficiary will be allowed to take cashless benefits from any public and private empaneled hospitals across the country. The AB-NHPM will subsume the ongoing centrally sponsored schemes- Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and senior citizen health insurance scheme.

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% Expenditure on transport and other items = (20 + 5) % = 25%.

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Major General Jose Eladio Alcain of Uruguayan Army has been appointed new Head of Mission and Chief Military Observer for UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). He will succeed Major General Per Gustaf Lodin of Sweden, who will complete his two year assignment in July 2018. In 1948, the UN Security Council (UNSC) established the UN Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP) to investigate the dispute between India and Pakistan regarding the disputed state of Kashmir. In 1949, UNCIP was absorbed into the UNMOGIP, which supervises the ceasefire between India and Pakistan and to monitor the peace in Kashmir.

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Second option is the correct answer. The pollen seeds of this tree are said to cause respiratory problems.