Current Affairs Quiz - July, 2021

Notes:
Uzbekistan played host to the ‘Central South Asia connectivity conference 2021’. It is also called as the Tashkent Connectivity Conference.
On the side lines of the conference, India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Tashkent and discussed the situation in Afghanistan amidst the withdrawal of US forces from the country. The Minister also inaugurated the IT room of India-Uzbekistan Entrepreneurship Development Centre.

Notes:
In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day, to celebrate the importance of providing young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship.
This year, the theme of the World Youth Skills Day is ‘Reimagining Youth Skills Post-Pandemic’. As per UNESCO, COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the widespread disruption of the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) sector.6th anniversary of Skill India Mission was also observed in India.

Notes:
Jacob Zuma was the President of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. After being charged for corruption, he became the first South African president since the end of white-minority rule in 1994 to receive a prison sentence.
This arrest has triggered looting and violence in the two most populous provinces of the country, Gauteng and Kwa-Zulu-Natal. A record wave of Covid-19 infections is also grappling the country. The Current President of South Africa is Cyril Ramaphosa. Over 25,000 troops have been deployed to silence the violence.

Notes:
The Indian Navy has received two MH-60R multi-role helicopters from the US. The Indian Navy formally received the choppers from the US Navy in a ceremony held at a naval air station in San Diego.
The helicopters were manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corporation. They are all-weather helicopters, which are designed to support diverse missions with modern avionics and sensors.

Notes:
IRCON / Indian Railway Construction Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Railways, which is involved in engineering & construction.
The company has built the Jayanagar – Kurtha Railway between India and Nepal under the India – Nepal friendship rail project at a cost of Rs. 619 crores. The project is financed by the Government of India.

Notes:
Hilsa, the pricey fish has been caught in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand for the first time in three decades. The fish lives in the seas but spawns in the rivers.
This has been witnessed after the gates and fish locks of Farakka barrage were changed to allow the upstream migration of the fish. Hilsa or ilish, has been the favourite gift to Indian leaders from the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. It depleted after the Farakka barrage was constructed in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal and nets were put on the Bangladesh side.

Notes:
The Government of India has sought an approval from the Parliament of India, for additional spending of Rs.23,675 crore for the financial year 2021-22. Of this, Rs.17,000 crore would be for additional expenditure to be made by the Union Health Ministry.
The bill for approval of additional expenditure was tabled in the Parliament by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Notes:
Government has permitted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) up to 100 percent under the automatic route for renewable energy projects, including offshore wind energy projects.
Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy, R.K. Singh recently replied in Lok Sabha that Government notified the ‘National Offshore Wind Energy Policy’ in 2015, to provide basic framework for developing offshore wind sector. The Government also enabled private investors to carryout offshore wind resource assessment.

Notes:
A Parliamentary Standing Committee has approved the The Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (Amendment) Bill, 2021, without any changes.
The Bill amends the term ‘major airport’ to include group of airports. It also increased the threshold of annual passenger traffic in a major airport to 35 lakh. Previously, an airport with annual traffic more than 15 lakh were called as major airports. AERA will regulate tariff and other charges for aeronautical services for major airports and also a group of airports.

Notes:
Bangladesh is set to create its own social media platform called ‘Jogajog’ as an alternative to Facebook, as per the country’s Ministry for Information and Communication Technology.
It is also set to create an app called ‘Alapon’ for WhatsApp. Through this Jogajog app, the entrepreneurs of the country will be able to create their own online marketplace. The ministry successfully created ‘Boithok’ app as an alternative to Zoom online and ‘Surokkha App’ for vaccine registration.