• The 193-member United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) votes for contenders to five non-permanent seats at the UN Security Council for 2021-22.
• India is standing unopposed as the nominee for the Asia-Pacific seat, and needs two-thirds of UNGA members, or 129 votes, to be confirmed.
• Mexico is also unopposed in its bid for the Latin American and Caribbean seat, while there is a straight contest between Kenya and late entrant Djibouti for the African seat.

UN Security Council

• The United Nations Charter established six main organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council.
• UN gives UNSC, the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security to the Security Council, which may meet whenever peace is threatened.
• All members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.
• While other organs of the United Nations make recommendations to member states, only the Security Council has the power to make decisions that member states are then obligated to implement under the Charter.

Non-Permanent Members

• Each year the General Assembly elects five non-permanent members (out of 10 in total) for a two-year term.
• The 10 non-permanent seats are distributed on a regional basis as follows: five for African and Asian States; one for Eastern European States; two for the Latin American and Caribbean States; and two for Western European and other States.

• Ireland has a unique position as a member of the European Union that is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) alliance.

• An annular solar eclipse will occur on 21 June, 2020.
• It is the deepest annular solar eclipse of this century, with the Sun appearing as a necklace of pearls.
• From India annular phase will be visible in the morning from some places within a narrow corridor of northern part of the country (parts of Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttarakhand) and it will be seen as partial solar eclipse from the rest part of the country.

Solar Eclipse

• A solar eclipse happens on a new moon day, whereas the lunar eclipse happens on a full moon day.
• A solar eclipse occurs on a new moon day when the Moon comes in between the Earth and the Sun and when all the three objects are aligned.
• An annular solar eclipse occurs when the apparent size of the Moon is slightly less than that of the Sun, which leaves the outer rim of the latter uncovered, giving the appearance of a “ring of fire”.

• India has recently pledged to construct Rs 2.33 crore sanitation facility at the iconic Pashupatinath Temple complex to improve the infrastructure in the holy shrine for the pilgrims.
• The project would be constructed under the Nepal-Bharat Maitri: Development Partnership as a high impact community development scheme by India.

Pashupatinath Temple Complex

• It is the largest temple complex in Nepal and stretches on both sides of the Bagmati River and sees thousands of worshippers from Nepal and India every day.
• The temple complex is also listed under the UNESCO World Heritage site.
• The temple built in the 5th century and later renovated by Malla kings is dedicated to Lord Shiva.

• Mobile payments and card transactions exceeded cash withdrawals from automated teller machines (ATMs) for the first time in 2019, indicating that the country’s push towards digital payments was bearing fruit, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s 2020 India Mobile Payments Market Report.
• Mobile payments, initiated by payment apps comprising account-to-account transfers and payments made from stored-value accounts, rose 163% to $287 billion in 2019.
• By comparison, point-of-sale transactions completed using debit and credit cards, including online and in apps, rose 24% to $204 billion, S&P said.
• Also, according to the report, India ranked favourably among countries that built instant payment schemes, processing at least five times more transactions than the second-largest market based on an analysis of real-time payment volumes.

• May month Wholesale Price Index (WPI) at -3.21%, has turned negative for the first time in four and a half years.
• The government had suspended the release of  WPI data last month due to the nationwide lockdown.
• The biggest contributor to WPI deflation was crude, petroleum and natural gas, which showed a fall of 46.21%.
• The Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry Of Commerce & Industry is releasing index.
• Manufactured Products has the highest weightage (64.23%)
• Primary Articles (Weight 22.62%), Fuel & Power (Weight 13.15%), Wpi Food Index (Weight 24.38%).

• The National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) has launched futures trading on NCDEX Agridex.
• NCDEX AGRIDEX is India’s first return based agricultural futures Index.
• It tracks the performance of the ten liquid commodities traded on NCDEX platform.
• The NCDEX AGRIDEX serves as a benchmark and one can replicate the performance of the underlying commodities.
• NCDEX has partnered with NSE Indices, an index service provider, to maintain and disseminate real-time NCDEX Agridex values.

• The National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has raised concerns about extensive sand and boulder mining projects in Uttarakhand and their impact on river ecology and wildlife.
• Recently, it has recommended a study of the cumulative impact of the mining for consideration of future projects.
• It is a statutory organization constituted under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
• Its roles is advisory in nature and advises the Central Government.
• It  is chaired by Prime Minister and its vice chairman is Minister of Environment.
• It is the apex body to review all wildlife-related matters and approve projects in and around national parks and sanctuaries i.e. Protected Areas.

• India supplies 25 tonnes of Malathion to Iran to curb desert locust menace.
• India had recently approached Iran and Pakistan for coordinated response to counter desert locust menace in the region.
• Malathion is an insecticide in the chemical family known as organophosphates, used to kill insects on agricultural crops. 
• Malathion 96% ULV is used in Desert Locust control in India.

• India to step up Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks with the US, the EU and Australia.
• In FTA, all the trade barriers for most (if not all) goods and services  among the member countries are eliminated.
• It cover trade in goods as well as trade in services.
• It can be signed between two countries (bilateral) or many countries (multilateral).