Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2021

Notes:
Uttarakhand has been hit by severe forest fire recently. There are 40 active fire spots in the forests of Garhwal and Kumaon regions.
The Uttarakhand High Court has asked the state government to explore the possibility of using artificial rain to put off the forest fires. It also directed the state to extinguish the fires in two weeks and implement the ‘National Green Tribunal’s 12-point guidelines’ issued during the forest fires of 2017.

Notes:
The three-banded rosefinch was spotted in Arunachal Pradesh and has become the 1,340th species of the bird family in India.
The new species was spotted with a flock of white-browed rosefinch, a species commonly seen in this region. A male and a female three-banded rosefinch were spotted at an altitude of 3,852 metres above sea level.

Notes:
The fossil of a skunk-like mammal that lived during the age of dinosaurs has been discovered in Patagonia region of Chile, South America.
Named as “Orretherium tzen” meaning ‘Beast of Five Teeth’, it is claimed to have lived lived between 72 and 74 million years ago. It is said to have been a herbivore and said to have lived in South America at the end of the Mesozoic era.

Notes:
The La Soufriere volcano located on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent erupted after several decades of inactivity.
The volcano was dormant since 1979 and it showed signs of activity in December last year. It recently erupted sending ash and smoke surrounding the neighboring area. The Prime Minister had earlier ordered for evacuation of people in the area.

Notes:
The International Quiet Ocean Experiment was originally formed in 2011 to create a time series of measurements of ambient sound in different ocean locations.
Recently, a team of scientists from the International Quiet Ocean Experiment (IQOE), have been undertaking experiments to understand and measure the impact of the reduction in ambient human activity due to the Covid-19 lockdown, in oceans.

Notes:
As per a new study published in the journal Biological Conservation, several unique animals and plants will go extinct if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
The study reveals that Climate change will negatively affect most native and endemic species. All endemic species from islands and more than four out of five endemic species from mountains are at high risk of extinction.

Notes:
The Green bonds issued by Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation was the first of the kind in India. Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation raised a sum of Rs.150 crores through green bond route
The proceeds of the bond were being used for creating tertiary water treatment infrastructure in the city. These bonds have been listed in BSE recently.

Notes:
The finance ministers of G20 nations have given their nod to International Monetary Fund (IMF) for issuing fresh Special Drawing Rights (SDR) amounting $650 billion to G 20 member countries.
This is aimed to boost the reserves of all nations and thereby avoiding low-income countries into get into further distress due to COVOD 19 pandemic.

Notes:
Chilika Lake is India’s largest brackish water lagoon, which is spread over the Puri, Khurda and Ganjam districts of Odisha.
As per a recent data release by the State Forest and Environment Department, the number of dolphin populations in the lake has doubled this year compared with last year. The state’s Chilika lake is known for its Irrawady dolphins

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates has named the next two astronauts for its space programme. The ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has named Noura al-Matroushi as the UAE’s first female astronaut.
The two astronauts have been identified among more than 4000 applications received. The two astronauts will undergo special space training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.