Latest Current Affairs: 7 April 2020

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Current Affairs
7th APRIL 2020
April 7: World Health Day
April 7 is marked as the World Health Day.
The day is marked to celebrate the work of midwives and nurses for their role
in keeping the world safety and healthy. This year, 2020, has added
significance of marking the World Health Day for the year being celebrated as
International Year of Nurse and Midwife.
The World Health Day is marked by World
Health Organization along with several other organizations. On the world health
day, the State of World Nursing Report, 2020 is to be released. Every year, the
theme of the World Health Day is selected by WHO. This year the day is to be
marked under the theme.
Theme: Support Nurses and Midwives
Cabinet: Ordinance to cut salary of PM and MPs by 30% approved
  • The Union Cabinet approved to cut the salary of Prime Minister and other
    MPs by 30%. Apart from them, the salaries of president, governor and vice
    president are also to be cut.
  • The amount cut from the members are to go to consolidated fund of India.
    The Cabinet has also approved that the MPLADS are to be suspended for 2 years
    that is between 2020-21 and 2021-22. With this move, Government of India has
    saved 7,900 crores.

A Tiger tests
positive of COVID-19 in the US: Zoos on high alert in the country
  • The Central Zoo
    Authority of the United States asked all the zoos to stay on high alert after a
    tiger tested positive of COVID-19. This is the first time COVID-19 infections
    are reported on an animal.
  • A four-year-old
    Malayan tiger in the Bronx Zoo of New York has tested positive of Corona
    Virus.  It is still not known how the
    disease will develop in cats.
  • This is because
    different species behave differently. Till date there is no evidence that
    animals play a major role in COVID-19 transmission.
  • Also, there is no
    evidence that a human can be infected by the virus from animals.

Lifeline UDAN
  • The Lifeline UDAN was launched by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to help
    India fight against COVID-19.
  • Under this initiative, flights were operated in transporting essential
    equipment and medicines all over the country.
  • The Lifeline UDAN initiative was a huge success as in just 5 days of its
    launch, more than 15.4 tonnes of essential supplies have been transported in 62
    aircrafts.
  • The products transported included masks and gloves, consumables, etc. In
    order help public to track Lifeline Udan flights, the status of the flights
    were uploaded in a portal. The portal was developed by National Informatics
    Centre.
  • The initiative provided a special focus to the north-eastern region and
    to the Ladakh region. For the ease of flight operation, the flight hubs were
    set up in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.

Established by Government of India to support startups working on
COVID-19: CAWACH
  • The Department of Science and Technology has
    set up a Centre for Augmenting WAR with COVID-19 Health crisis. The center is
    to be established at Rs. 56.
  • The CAWACH is being established by the DST to
    support the start-ups. It is to be implemented by SINE, IIT Bombay. The
    initiative will help identify innovative solutions to address the country’s
    need in diagnostics, ventilators and therapeutics.
  • The Programme will also guide the startups if
    in need at various stages. The expertise of DST will be deployed to support the
    startups in order to fast track the journey and scale up across geographies.

Testing, treatment is free for Ayushman Bharat beneficiaries

  • National Health Authority (NHA) announced
    that more than 50 crore eligible citizens under the health insurance scheme
    of  Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan
    Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) will avail free testing through private labs and
    treatment for COVID-19 in empanelled hospitals to increase the supply of
    testing and treatment facilities in the country.

Central government constitutes 10-member group headed by NITI Aayog CEO
Amitabh kant to fight corona
  • In order to deal with this coronavirus
    (COVID-19) epidemic, the central government has constituted a 10-member group
    under the chairmanship of NITI (National Institution for Transforming India)
    Aayog CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Amitabh Kant.
  • The work of this group will primarily
    identify issues through 3 groups of stakeholders, then present effective
    measures to address solutions to the issues related to the formulation of plans
    for counter-activities related to COVID-19. The 3 groups includes
  1. The UN agencies, World Bank, Asian
    Development Bank (ADB)
  2. Civil Society Organisations and development
    partners
  3. Industry associations – CII (Confederation of
    Indian Industry), FICCI ( Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
    Industry), ASSOCHAM (Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India),
    NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies).
  • NITI Aayog write to the over 92,000 NGOs
    (Non-governmental organizations) / CSOs (civil society organization) registered
    on its ‘Darpan’ portal to help the government identify hotspots, the elderly,
    the differently-abled, children & other vulnerable groups to fight against
    the virus.
  • Other members of Committee include Dr
    Vijayaraghavan, PSA, Kamal Kishore (Member, NDMA); Sandeep Mohan Bhatnagar
    (Member, CBIC); Anil Malik (AS, MHA); Vikram Doraiswami, (AS, MEA); P. Harish
    (AS, MEA); Gopal Baglay (JS, PMO); Aishvarya Singh (DS, PMO); Tina Soni (DS,
    Cabinet Secretariat); and Sanyukta Samaddar (Adviser, SDG, NITI Aayog).

Short
Notes
  • Hockey India donates additional 75
    lakh rupees towards PM-CARES Fund.
  • Ministry of Human Resource and
    Development had launch “MHRD AICTE COVID-19 Student Helpline portal”.
  • The state of Tamil Nadu has topped
    the all-India level for micro-irrigation (MI), under Pradhan Mantri Krishi
    Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), with a coverage of 2,06,853.25 ha for the year
    financial year 2019-20.
  • Naveen Patnaik conferred PETA’s
    “Hero to Animals Award”for feeding community animals.
  • Start-up Aerobiosys Innovations at
    IIT-Hyderabad develops low-cost ventilator called ‘Jeevan Lite’

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