Current Affairs

On 2nd December, 2020, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)released the Production Gap Report, 2020.

India is likely to press Biden Administration for early restoration of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade privilege for India.

On 29th October, 2020, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) released a report which warns future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases.

On 7th October, 2020, Oxfam International along with the Development Finance International(DFI) published the third(previous two in 2017 and 2018) edition of The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index(CRI) Index-2020.

According to a new report titled- Confronting Carbon Inequality, by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the extreme carbon inequality in recent decades that has driven the world to the climate brink.

According to a recent research paper published in the journal Science - China, which has now gone over a month without any locally transmitted Covid-19 cases, was able to contain Covid-19 due to its ability to manage the ‘serial interval’.

• On 15^th August, 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new method of testing for Covid-19 — processing saliva samples — and termed it “ground-breaking”.

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against “vaccine nationalism”, cautioning richer countries that if they keep treatments to themselves they cannot expect to remain safe if poor nations remain exposed.

• On 28^th June, 2020, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors has approved USD 500 million Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States Program (STARS) to improve quality and governance of school education in six Indian states.

• On 23^rd June 2020, the US President signed an executive order extending the ban on immigrant and non-immigrant worker visas.