19th May 2020 Daily Current Affairs

Daily Current Affairs of 19th May 2020

International Current Affairs

India was today elected to the WHO's Executive Board.
- Botswana, Colombia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Oman, Republic of Korea, Russia and the UK are the other nations elected to the Executive Board.
- The main functions of the Executive Board are to give effect to the decisions and policies of Health Assembly, to advise it and to facilitate its work.
South Korea's Centre for Disease Control (KCDC) has announced that coronavirus patients who test positive for the virus after recovering aren't capable of transmitting the infection.
- The KCDC investigated 790 people who had come into contact with 285 patients who tested positive again post-recovery.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to make his temporary freeze of US funding to WHO permanent if "WHO doesn't commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days" in light of its response to coronavirus.
- He also said he will reconsider US' membership in the organisation.

National Current Affairs

As many as 4,970 coronavirus cases were confirmed in India in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases in the country to 1,01,139.
- Important Note : India's cases doubled to over one lakh from 50,000 in 12 days. This is more than twice the number of days when compared to the US and Spain, as per statistics by Worldometers.
Punjab government has decided to broadcast the curriculum of state-run schools on DD Punjabi channel.
- The decision has been taken to prevent students from loss of studies due to the lockdown.
- The timing of the telecast for students of Class 10 will be 11.15 am to 1.45 pm, starting from May 19.
The Odisha and West Bengal governments have started evacuating vulnerable people from coastal areas amid the warning of strong winds and heavy rains due to cyclone Amphan.
- The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has deployed 37 teams in the coastal areas of the two states. The cyclone is expected to make landfall on May 20 afternoon.

Banking, Business & Economic Affairs

Attackers have launched a trojan malware campaign to target co-operative banks by using COVID-19 as a decoy to send phishing emails claiming to be from RBI or a nationalised bank, Seqrite reported.
- The email consists of COVID-19 guidelines with an attachment containing the malware.
- The malware can take over users' devices, steal their information and carry out financial fraud.
India has contributed $2 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine Refugees to support the agency's core programmes amid the coronavirus crisis.
- India had increased its contribution to UNRWA from $1.25 million in 2016 to $5 million in 2018 and 2019 and pledged another $5 million for 2020.

Science & Technology

Health and Family Welfare Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan today announced that National Chemical Laboratory, Pune has designed face masks that can filter out up to 99.9 per cent bacteria and 92.6 percent of the particulate.
- These masks are made up of hydrophobic polypropylene a medical grade cloth suitable for blocking droplets containing corona virus.

New Appointments

Kevin Mayer, the Chairman of Disney's direct-to-consumer and international business, is stepping down to become the 1st CEO of video-sharing app TikTok.
- He has also been named as the COO of TikTok's Chinese parent firm ByteDance.

Deaths

National Award-winning Marathi writer Ratnakar Matkari (81), passed away due to COVID-19.
- The director-producer, who was considered a pioneer of children's drama movement in Marathi, was cremated at Mumbai's Bhoiwada crematorium on Monday in the presence of his family members. Matkari's work included 39 plays, 20 books on short stories, 13 novels and 16 children's full-length plays.

Awards & Honors

US President Donald Trump honoured a 10-year-old Indian-American girl, Sravya Annappareddy, for donating cookies to nurses and firefighters and sending personalised greeting cards to healthcare workers amid COVID-19 pandemic.
- Sravya was among the three 10-year-old Girl Scouts honoured by Trump for their help.
6 cities have been awarded the 5-Star rating in 'Garbage Free Cities Rating' by the government.
- The cities include Ambikapur, Rajkot, Surat, Mysuru, Indore and Navi Mumbai.
- Note : The Star Rating Protocol was launched by the government in January 2018 to institutionalise a mechanism for cities to achieve Garbage Free status and to motivate cities to achieve higher degrees of cleanliness.

Sports Current Affairs

Anil Kumble-led ICC Cricket Committee has recommended that use of saliva to shine the ball should be prohibited due to an elevated risk of transmission of coronavirus through saliva.
- As per the medical advice, sweat will be allowed to shine the ball, the committee added.
- Further, non-neutral match officials should be permitted "in short term" due to logistics, it recommended.