Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
The state-owned insurance company Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), will be having a Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer instead of Executive Chairman.
This is in the similar lines as that of Public Sector Banks in India. This amendment has been announced by the Department of Financial Services – Finance Ministry ahead of LIC’s IPO (Initial Public Offering).

Notes:
A new report by WWF and UNEP has found that 35 per cent of India’s tiger ranges currently lie outside protected areas.
The report was titled “A Future for All – A need for Human-Wildlife Coexistence”. 40% of the African lion range and 70% of the African and Asian elephant ranges fall outside protected areas. As the protected areas disconnected from each other, many animals depend on human-dominated spaces for their survival.

Notes:
India Industrial Land Bank (IILB) is a GIS-based portal, which maps approximately 4000 industrial parks. It aims to support the investors to search for their required industrial land.
The system has been integrated with industry-based GIS systems of 17 states. It is updated real time and aims to achieve pan-India integration by December 2021. It can be accessed through DPIIT website and Invest India platform. The page received over 50000 page views in June.

Notes:
Cambridge University chemists Shankar Balasubramanian and David Klenerman were awarded the 2020 Millennium Technology Priz.
It is a prestigious global science and technology prize awarded by Technology Academy Finland (TAF) at two-year intervals since 2004. They were declared winners in May 2021. They co-invented the Solexa-Illumina Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS), the technology enabling fast genome sequencing.

Notes:
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has partnered with the state government of Rajasthan to improve the Targeted Public Distribution System (TDPS) in the state.
The partnership would make extensive use of digitization to develop a performance dashboard for monitoring of the TDPS. This is expected to provide a solution to enhance the efficiency of PDS in the state.

Notes:
India’s state-owned PSU Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam has signed an MoU with the Government of Nepal, to establish 679-Megawatt Lower Arun Hydropower project in eastern Nepal.
The cost of the project is approximately $1.3 billion and is the single biggest foreign investment project of Nepal. This is the second mega project being undertaken by India in Nepal.

Notes:
‘State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’ is an annual flagship report jointly prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. It aims to inform on progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security and improving nutrition.
As per the report, nearly one-tenth of the world population, up to 811 million people went hungry in 2020. World Hunger increased last year, after remaining virtually unchanged for five years. It also projected that around 660 million people may still face hunger in 2030, 30 million more due to the pandemic. An estimated 149 million children were stunted, 45 million were wasted and 39 million were overweight in 2020.

Notes:
The Centre has taken complete control of the district mineral foundation (DMF) funds. It has rejected the states’ right to sanction or approve any expenditure out of the funds accrued from mandatory contribution from mining lease holders.
Under Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana, The DMFs are required to use these funds for the welfare of persons and areas affected by mining-related operations. The tribal population are the main targeted beneficiaries.

Notes:
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan along with Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda launched the ‘School Innovation Ambassador Training Program’. The program is jointly designed by Innovation Cell of Education Ministry and AICTE.
It aims at training 50,000 school teachers on Innovation, Entrepreneurship, IPR, Design Thinking, Product development, among others. The program has been designed by Innovation Cell of Ministry of Education and AICTE.

Notes:
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru, along with Mynvax has developed a heat-tolerant COVID-19 vaccine formulation, which has been proven effective against all current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, according to a study in animals.
The formulation also protected hamsters from the virus and remained stable at 37 degrees Celsius up to a month, and at 100 degrees Celsius for up to 90 minutes. Covishield must be kept between 2-8 degrees Celsius while the Pfizer requires specialised cold storage at (-)70 degrees Celsius.