Current Affairs Quiz - May, 2020

Notes:
In the economic stimulus package, the Finance Minister proposed an ‘Agriculture Infrastructure Fund’, which will be created immediately with an outlay of Rs. 1 lakh crore.
The fund aims to address the lack of adequate cold chain and Post-Harvest Management infrastructure. Financial assistance will be provided for funding Agriculture Infrastructure Projects at farm-gate and aggregation points including Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS), Farmers Producer Organisations (FPO), Agriculture entrepreneurs, Start-ups, etc.

Notes:
In the economic stimulus package announced, the Finance Minister said that the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana will be launched for development of marine and inland fisheries.
The scheme was originally proposed during the Union Budget 2020. But the guidelines were announced during the stimulus package. The total outlay of the PMMSY will be Rs. 20000 Crore, out of which Rs 11,000 Cr will be earmarked for activities in Marine, Inland fisheries and Aquaculture and Rs. 9000 Cr for Infrastructure of Fishing Harbours, Cold chain, Markets etc.

Notes:
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has developed an online dashboard on the existing NDMA-GIS portal named ‘National Migrant Information System (NMIS)’.
The objective of launching this portal is to capture the information about movement of migrants and to enable them to transit across the states in a better manner. As per the communication from the Home Ministry, the portal equipped with a central repository will help in faster communication between the states.

Notes:
In its effort to boost the economy and provide work to migrants returning from other states to home villages, the Central government allocated an additional Rs 40,000 crore to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) for 2020-21.
In the Union Budget 2020-21, the total allocation made for MGNREGS was Rs 61500 Crore. Hence with this additional fund, the total allocation of this scheme for the present year becomes Rs 1.015 trillion. Out of the total fund, Rs 11,500 crore has to be spent on clearing pending dues from the previous year.

Notes:
The Union Finance Minister recently announced to raise the minimum threshold to initiate insolvency proceeding to Rs 1 crore from the present limit Rs 1 lakh to benefit MSMEs.
This move will give relief to the companies that default on loans due to the Covid-19 stress. It was also announced that no fresh insolvency will be initiated for one year under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the Covid-19 related debt will be excluded from the definition of default. She also proposed decriminalisation of the Companies Act for violations involving minor technical and procedural defaults.

Notes:
The parliament of Israel recently sworn in its new government led by the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.
Israel was functioning without a stable government for over 500 days and held three inconclusive elections. The law-makers of the country have approved the coalition of Netanyahu-Gantz. Benny Gantz was a former rival of Netanyahu. This step is expected to end the longest political crisis in the country’s history.

Notes:
The United Nations has been celebrating the World Bee Day on May 20, every year, to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators. The day also highlights the threats faced by pollinators and their contribution to sustainable development.
This year, World Bee Day focusses on bee production and practices adopted by beekeepers to support their livelihoods. A virtual event was planned for celebrating Bee day under theme “Bee Engaged”. This will highlight the importance of traditional knowledge related to beekeeping and the use of bee-derived products and services.

Notes:
Union Government has recently launched a scheme for complete solarization of Konark Sun Temple and Konark town in Odisha. It will be implemented by the Odisha Renewable Energy Development Agency. The project outlay of Rs. 25 crore will be provided by the Centre.
As per the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the scheme aims to set up 10 Mega Watt grid connected solar project and solar applications like solar trees and solar drinking water kiosks, to implement the scheme.

Notes:
The Finance Ministry recently announced that those companies with a turnover of over ₹50 crore and involved in only B2B (business to business) transactions are exempted from the mandatory requirement of accepting payments only by electronic modes like RuPay cards, BHIM-UPI or UPI-QR.
Section 269SU was inserted in the Finance Act, 2019 to encourage digital transactions in the country, which mandated the businesses with sales/turn over above Rs 50 Crore to accept only e-payments. Since these e-payment has a maximum limit and the B2B businesses receive maximum payments through RTGS or NEFT, the exemption is cancelled.

Notes:
Technology major Google has recently bagged the prestigious Cloud project with the U.S. Department of Defense.
This US Government project is the pilot project of Google with DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). The project is about building secure cloud management solution to detect and protect against cyber threats worldwide. Earlier, Google had lost the $10 billion Pentagon Cloud project which was won by its counterpart Microsoft.