Daily Current Affairs of 26th, 27th & 28th May 2020
International Current Affairs
- Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) discovered a 9th-century monolithic sandstone Shiva Ling during the ongoing conservation project at Vietnam's Cham Temple Complex.
- External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar announced the find on Twitter, saying the development underscored "civilisational connect" between the countries.
- Japan has added India and 10 other countries to its entry ban list to contain the spread of coronavirus, PM Shinzo Abe announced today.
- The total number of countries and regions included in Japan's entry ban list climbed to 111.
- The move means foreign nationals who've been to these countries within the last 14 days will be denied entry into Japan.
- The National People's Congress voted 2,878 to 1 in favour of the decision to empower its standing committee to draft the legislation.
- The legislation is expected to prohibit treason, sedition and subversion of the Chinese government in Hong Kong.
- The Supreme Court today took suo motu cognizance of "problems and miseries of migrant labourers" who had been stranded in different parts of the country.
- Saying there have been inadequacies and lapses on part of central and state governments in assisting the labourers, the apex court issued notices seeking their response. The next hearing will take place on May 28.
- The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has suggested that schools in Orange and Green Zones could be opened and students from Classes 8 to 12 can be brought in a staggered manner when the lockdown is lifted.
- These suggestions were made after the HRD Ministry asked it to set-up a task-force on ways of reopening schools.
- The government has announced it will stop selling its savings bonds that offered an interest rate of 7.75% on a taxable basis, also known as RBI 7.75% bonds, from Friday.
- They will cease for subscription with effect from the close of banking business on Thursday.
- These bonds have a tenure of 7 years and minimum value of investment is ₹1,000.
- The European Commission has proposed a €750 billion recovery fund to help the European Union (EU) countries to deal with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
- The fund is made up of €500 billion in grants and €250 billion in loans. Monetary grants from the fund to be linked to domestic economic reform in countries applying for it.
- India's economy is estimated to have grown at 1.2% for the quarter ended March 2020, said the SBI's Ecowrap report.
- It said the economic activity in the last seven days of March was completely suspended due to lockdown, causing an estimated loss of around ₹1.4 lakh crore.
- Subsequently, it projected the annual GDP growth for 2019-20 to be around 4.2%.
- LATAM Airlines Group, Latin America's largest carrier, has announced that the company and its affiliates in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and the US have filed for bankruptcy protection in the US.
- This comes two weeks after Latin America's second-largest airline Avianca filed for bankruptcy.
- Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has announced India is looking at storing some low priced US oil in facilities there as the local storage is full.
- Pradhan added India had already filled its 5.33 million tonnes of strategic storage.
- Note : Last month, Australia said it would build an emergency oil stockpile, initially by buying crude to store in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
- Arogya Setu, India's Covid-19 contact tracing, syndromic mapping and self assessment mobile app is now open source.
- Announcing it in New Delhi, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said, transparency, privacy and security have been the core design principles of Araogya Setu since it's inception and opening of the source code upto the developer community signifies Government of India's continuing commitment to this principle.
- Officials from India and Israel recently held discussions on scientific cooperation between the two countries to develop rapid diagnosis for COVID-19 based on AI.
- Elon Musk's SpaceX will be launching two NASA astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, in its Crew Dragon to the International Space Station.
- This will be the first crewed flight to launch from the US since 2011.
- Using data from NASA's MAVEN spacecraft, researchers have created the first-ever map of the electric current systems in the Martian atmosphere.
- Unlike Earth, Mars lacks a protective global magnetic field to shield its upper atmosphere from the solar wind. Instead, the magnetic field in the solar wind wraps around the red planet.
- This creates an induced magnetosphere, generating electric currents.
- Govinda Rajulu Chintala took charge as Chairman of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) today.
- His tenure will last till his superannuation (July 31, 2022) or until further orders, whichever is earlier.
- Previously, he was the Managing Director of NABFINS, a subsidiary of NABARD headquartered in Bengaluru.
- Note : Along with Chintala, the government has also appointed KV Shaji (General Manager, Canara Bank) and PVS Suryakumar (Chief General Manager, NABARD) as Deputy Managing Directors (DMDs) of NABARD.
- KV Kamath's five-year term as the president of the New Development Bank led by the five BRICS member countries came to an end today.
- Brazil's Marcos Troyjo will be replacing Kamath as its new president while India's Anil Kishora will be the new vice-president.
- British independent manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers Aston Martin has announced that its CEO Andy Palmer stepped down and will be replaced by CEO of Mercedes-AMG Tobias Moers on August 1.
- VP Keith Stanton will serve as the interim CEO until Moers takes over.
- Marie Cau, a transgender woman in France, won an election in her village in northern France to become the country's first openly transgender mayor.
- Former Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh High Court and former acting Governor of Himachal Pradesh, Justice Viswanathan Rattanam (87) passed away due to coronavirus.
- Indian Army Major Suman Gawani will be the 1st Indian recipient of the UN Military Gender Advocate award.
- She had been serving as a UN peacekeeper in South Sudan since 2018.
- Indian-American scientist Rajiv Joshi has bagged the "Inventor of the Year Award" in recognition of his "pioneering work in advancing the electronic industry and improving artificial intelligence capabilities" by the New York Intellectual Property Law Association.
- Joshi has more than 250 patented inventions in the US and he works at the IBM Thomson Watson Research Center in New York.
- Download January 2020 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from HERE
- Download February 2020 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from HERE
- Download March 2020 Month's Current Affairs PDF File from HERE
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