Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
For the year 2020, Russia is the Chair of the BRICS bloc, which has 5 members namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Recently, Russia chaired the BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting on coronavirus, conducted through video conferencing. Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also participated in the virtual meeting. The representatives discussed on the significance of joint vaccine production and strategic partnerships within the BRICS.

Notes:
The United States has placed 10 countries including India on the ‘Priority Watch List’ for lack of sufficient improvements to its intellectual property framework.
The US placed 10 countries, including India and China, and alleged that enforcement of the intellectual properties have weakened or remained inadequate in those countries. The US also highlighted that because of the weak IP enforcement, Americans find it difficult to have an equitable market access.

Notes:
The Centre has recently launched a ‘Project Monitoring Unit’ (PMU) to help obtain various clearances required from the Centre and state government authorities for operationalisation of coal mines, as announced by the Ministry of Coal.
This decision is expected to enable the allocatees of coal mines to obtain timely approvals for operationalising the mines, thereby promoting the ease of doing business in India. This is also expected to improve the production of coal in the country.

Notes:
The Bombay Reorganization Act, which came into effect on May 1, 1960, divided the then Bombay province into two separate states namely Maharashtra and Gujarat, on the basis of language.
People who were speaking Marathi and Konkani became a part of Maharashtra while those speaking Gujarati and Kutchi became a part of Gujarat. Hence May 1 is celebrated as the statehood day of Maharashtra and Gujarat every year.

Notes:
The All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), under Ministry of AYUSH organised a programme called AYURAKSHA, in collaboration with the Police Department of New Delhi.
The programme, which was titled AYURAKSHA “Corona Se Jung- Delhi Police Ke Sang”, was launched with an aim of fighting Covid-19 using Ayurveda immunity boosting measures, as per the advisory issued by the Ministry of AYUSH. Police officials with co morbid conditions like Diabetes, Stress, Hypertension will be identified by AIIA.

Notes:
National Science and Technology Management Information (NSTMIS), Department of Science and Technology (DST) has conducted a survey on Research and Development Statistics and Indicators 2019-20.
As per the survey, India is placed at the third position in terms of number of scientific publications. The number of researchers per million population has doubled since 2000 and India’s gross expenditure in R&D has tripled between 2008 and 2018, during the year the expenditure stood at Rs 1,13,825 crores.

Notes:
Mumbai based think tank, the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has recently released its report on unemployment rates of the country in various parts.
As per the report, unemployment rate of India has risen to 27.11% for the week ended May 3, against 7% in the month of March. The monthly unemployment rate is 23.52% in April. It also highlighted that the unemployment rate was the highest in urban areas and the lowest in hilly areas.

Notes:
The State government of Andhra Pradesh has launched a scheme called YSR Matsyakara Bharosa amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under the scheme, the government will provide a financial assistance of ₹10,000 to each fisherman family. This would help the fishermen community during the lock-down period and during the marine ban period. The monetary relief of fishermen venturing into the sea has also been raised from ₹4,000 to ₹10,000 per head.

Notes:
When a polymer plant in Vishakhapatnam resumed its operations after lock down, there was a leakage of styrene gas, that has killed about 11 people. Thousands of people were evacuated from around the plant and many of them were hospitalised.
The styrene gas is a poisonous, inflammable gas used in plastic engineering industry, which caused nausea and dizziness. As per the experts, the gas could have triggered a series of explosions from the LG Polymers plant, which manufactures polystyrene.

Notes:
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has recently approved the abolition of 9,304 posts in the Military Engineering Service. MES is a government Defence infrastructure development agency.
As per the recommendations of the Committee of Experts, headed by Lieutenant General Shekatkar, and the proposal of the Engineer-in-Chief of MES, the posts in the basic and industrial workforce have been scrapped, which will improve the combat capability and trim the defence expenditure.