Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
US-based (Educational Testing Service), the world’s largest private educational assessment organization, conducts several tests including TOEFL and GRE.
It was recently announced that Aadhaar Card will be accepted as an identification for taking the TOEFL and GRE tests. Students have to, however submit the original version of their Aadhaar Card as received in the mail.

Notes:
Maana Patel made history on July 2, 2021 as she became the first Indian female swimmer to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics through the ‘Universality quota’. The Universality quota allows one male and one female competitor from a country to participate in the Olympics, provided no other swimmer from the same gender qualifies for the Games or receives a FINA invite based on his or her Olympic Selection time (B time). Maana Patel, 21, will join Sajan Prakash and Srihari Natarajan in India’s swimming squad for this month’s Summer Olympics.

Notes:
The Kuvempu Rashtriya Puraskar, the national award instituted in memory of late poet laureate Kuvempu, has been awarded to renowned Odia poet Dr Rajendra Kishore Panda for the year 2020. The prestigious award carries a cash award of Rs 5 lakh, a silver medal, and a citation. Founded in 1992, Rashtrakavi Kuvempu Trust instituted this national annual literary award in 2013 in the name of Kannada poet Kuvempu to recognise litterateurs who had contributed in any language recognised by the Constitution of India.

Notes:
Currently, India is working to exercise its rights to stop excess water flowing to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 to irrigate its own lands. In this context, India is working on a plan to divert the waters of Ujh river, which is one of the main tributaries of Ravi river that flows into Pakistan. This is also of strategic importance to India—control over river water flow acts as a force multiplier during times of aggression.

Notes:
India announced the ‘Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code’ and it came into force from May 2021. As per the rules, all significant social media intermediaries had to publish monthly reports on the details of complaints, actions taken and monitoring details.
Facebook recently launched its first monthly report for the period between May 15 and June 15. As per the report, Facebook took action against about 30 million pieces of content.

Notes:
A new centre of National Horticulture Board (NHB) has been inaugurated in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh by Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers welfare.
National Horticulture Board (NHB) was set up by Government of India in April 1984 on the basis of recommendations of the “Group on Perishable Agricultural Commodities”, headed by Dr M. S. Swaminathan. NHB is mandated for integrated development of Hi-tech commercial and post-harvest management/cold chain infrastructure in the country.

Notes:
‘Tiangong’ Space station is the flagship construction of China National Space Administration. Recently, Chinese astronauts successfully performed the country’s first spacewalk in the station.
Out of the three astronauts, who blasted off last month, two of them-Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo, worked for seven hours on the outside of the Tiangong station in the orbit around Earth. Earlier, the USA banned Chinese astronauts from using the International Space Station.

Notes:
India joined the global tax deal under the G20-OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS).
It seeks to reform international tax rules and ensure that multinational companies pay their fair share wherever they operate. However, when the global tax regime is implemented, India will have to roll back the equalisation levy that it imposes on MNCs such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Notes:
The Gomti or Gomati River is a tributary of the Ganges, flowing across Uttar Pradesh. Gomti riverfront development project was launched in 2015 by the previous state government which was led by Samajwadi Party (SP).
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case in the project scam in December 2017. Recently, the officials of CBI initiated the second probe and conducted raids at 40 locations across Uttar Pradesh.

Notes:
Taal Volcano is part of a chain of volcanoes located along the western edge of the island of Luzon, in the Philippines.
Recently, the Authorities in the Philippines have warned that the Taal volcano, could erupt anytime soon after recording the highest levels of sulphur dioxide gas emission. The average of 22,628 tonnes a day was the highest ever recorded in Taal volcano.