Top Best Current Affairs 21 May 2020

South Central Railway (SCR) zone developed a robotic device, "RAIL-BOT" (R-BOT) to assist in hospital management functions towards patient care in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak. The R-BOT robotic device was developed by Hem Singh Banoth, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Hyderabad Division, SCR & his team.

American brokerage Goldman Sachs expects the Indian economy to contract by 5% in FY21 (i.e -5%), which will be the deepest compared to all recessions India has ever experienced since 1979. It is against its earlier forecast of 0.4% contraction before revising it down to a level it shares with Japanese brokerage Nomura.

In Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), the Union territory (UT) administration has initiated a slew of measures under "Samagra Shiksha programme" to facilitate students with complete access to education through technological interventions and other viable means in wake of COVID-19 lockdown.

Accenture plc, an Irish-domiciled multinational professional services company, has acquired Ahmedabad (Gujarat)-based AI (Artificial Intelligence) startup Byte Prophecy for an undisclosed sum. Byte Prophecy has been a part of the Accenture Ventures program since 2018 and has done a lot of work on collaboration and innovation, with Accenture and its Asia Pacific clients on advanced data and analytics projects.

There are many who want to be a "personnel in uniform" and experience the military life but did not want a full career in the Army. For them, in a game changer move, our Indian army is considering a proposal to allow civilians, including young working professionals, to join the force for 3 years as officers and in other ranks (ORs) in areas like logistics and front-line formations under the "Tour of Duty" or "Three-Year Short Service" Scheme.

Jaipur-based company 'Club First' has developed India's first service robots named as "Sona 1.5 and Sona .5" to help health workers in conducting a thermal screening of the people amid COVID-19 crisis. The robot which is 95 per cent made in India is the first in the world to be based on spine technology.

The Bundesliga primary football league of Germany becomes the world's first major sports event to resume after COVID-19 lockdown. The Bundesliga games began with empty stadium though the stadium had the capacity to hold more than 80,000 players. Bundesliga means "Federal League".The Bundesliga is the primary football league in Germany. The game was begun in 1963.

The Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has been elected as the chairman of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Executive Board. He will assume the charge on 22 May 2020. He will succeed Dr. Hiroki Nakatani of Japan, who is the current Chairman of the WHO Executive Board. The proposal to appoint India's nominee to the executive board was signed by the 194-nation World Health Assembly (WHA).