Current Affairs, June 2020

• “Environmental Performance Index (EPI) 2020” has been released by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Yale University, and Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University. The Environmental Performance Index 2020 was topped by Denmark with an EPI score of 82.5. India was ranked 168th in the 2020 Environmental Performance Index.
• India has been elected as the non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
• Uttar Pradesh has become the top state in India to provide employment to the workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA). According to the data released, 57,12,975 workers got employment in around 57,000 village panchayats of the state which is 18% of the total work generated under the MGNREGA in the country.
• NITI Aayog will launch the “Decarbonising Transport in India” project in collaboration with International Transport Forum (ITF) to develop a pathway towards a low-carbon transport system for India.
• Uttarakhand forest department has opened the state’s biggest biodiversity park in Haldwani.
• Uttarakhand forest department has developed India’s first lichen park in Kumaon’s Munsiyari, Pithoragarh district. A lichen is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.
• Gairsain in Chamoli district has been formally declared as the summer capital of Uttarakhand.
• Raja Parba festival celebrated in Odisha. It is a 3-days unique festival in which the onset of monsoon and the earth’s womanhood is celebrated by the state. It is believed that during this time the Mother Earth or Bhudevi undergoes menstruation.
• IAS Vini Mahajan has become the 1st woman chief secretary of Punjab.
• Raveesh Kumar has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Finland. He is presently serving as the Joint Secretary in the Ministry.
• Rajeev Topno has been appointed as the Senior Advisor to the Executive Director (ED) of World Bank, in Washington DC.
• Javed Akhtar has become 1st Indian to be honoured with the Richard Dawkins Award 2020 for critical thinking, holding religious dogma up to scrutiny, advancing human progress and humanist values.
• World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates World No Tobacco Day every year on 31st May.
• World Environment Day is observed globally on 5th June every year. World Environment Day 2020 will be celebrated with the theme Biodiversity. In year 2020, Colombia will host the World Environment Day.
• World Day Against Child Labour is observed globally on 12th June every year.
• NASA has announced that its headquarters in Washington, D.C., will be named after Mary W. Jackson, one of its history-making engineers.