Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
A research initiative named ‘Fund for Industrial Research Engagement (FIRE)’ has been initiated by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) in association with DST and Intel. This is aimed to increase research opportunities in fields like Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) etc.
SERB is a statutory body established by the SERB Act 2008, under the Dept. of Science and Technology.

Notes:
As per a report titled ‘COVID-19 and Tourism’ released by the UNCTAD jointly with the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the crash in international tourism due to COVID 19 pandemic can lead to a loss of about $4 trillion to the global GDP in 2020 and 2021.
The estimated loss is said to be caused due to direct impact and indirect ripple effect on other sectors closely linked to the tourism industry.

Notes:
World leaders, philanthropists and organizations have pledged at least $40 billion at an international conference in Paris to boost gender equality, as women and girls worldwide have been deeply affected by the consequences of the pandemic. U.N. Women’s Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka welcomed the pledges at the three-day Generation Equality Forum that started in Paris on June 30, 2021. The conference is being co-organized by the U.N., France and Mexico.

Notes:
National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) Mission is to create an enabling environment to ensure universal acquisition of foundational literacy and numeracy, so that every child achieves the desired learning competencies in reading, writing and numeracy by the end of Grade 3, by 2026-27. NIPUN Bharat will be implemented by the Department of School Education and Literacy and a five-tier implementation mechanism will be set up at the National- State- District- Block- School level in all States and UTs, under the aegis of the centrally sponsored scheme of Samagra Shiksha. The programme lauches from 5th July, 2021.

Notes:
As per 2019 data, Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) it is the world’s largest party in terms of primary membership, with the second largest party, the Chinese Communist Party, having about half the registered members of the BJP. BJP was founded on 6 April 1980 by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — the world’s second largest political party after India’s Bharatiya Janata Party recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Notes:
Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL), Kasauli is the National Control Laboratory for testing of Immunobiologicals (vaccines and antisera) meant for human use.
Recently, the Union Government has set up two laboratories including one at Autonomous Research Institutes National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, and another at National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB) Hyderabad as Central Drug Laboratory (CDL).

Notes:
As per the provisional statistics of 2020-21 of the Coal Ministry, India’s total coal production registered a decline of 2.02 per cent to 716.084 million tonnes during 2020-21.
Of the total production, 671.297 MT was non-coking coal and 44.787 MT was coking coal. Chhattisgarh registered highest coal production of 158.409 MT, followed by Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. Jharkhand was the top producer of coking coal.

Notes:
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft brought samples of Asteroid Ryugu to earth in Dec 2020.
Recently, Japan has sent these samples to the American Space Agency NASA for research and experimental purposes. This is one of the first samples to move out of Japan for investigation.

Notes:
The Delhi Metro launched FASTag/UPI based cashless parking facility at the Kashmere Gate Metro Station, Delhi.
This facility has been launched for the first time in the country, as part of the Multi-Model Integration (MMI) initiative. Dedicated Intermediate Public Transport (IPT) lanes for auto, taxi and e-rickshaws were also inaugurated at station.

Notes:
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Mars probe is otherwise called as ‘Hope’. It has captured pictures of auroras around the Red Planet, for the first time in the world.
The three images of atomic oxygen emission from the planet Mars were captured by the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer instrument. The data collected during these observations include far and extreme ultraviolet auroral emissions.